3 02 



NA TURE 



[January 25, 1906 



circle rather than within the sun-dance lodge. Of 

 this form the commonest method was for the dancer 

 to drag one or more dried buffalo skulls attached to 

 skewers inserted in his back, just as the skewers were 

 inserted in the breast in the previous form of torture 

 (Fig. 2). 



Mr. H. R. Voth continues his valuable investiga- 

 tions on the Hopi Indians with a particularly interest- 

 ing account of the customs and ceremonies connected 

 with birth in Oraibi, the largest of the seven Hopi 

 villages, and a suggestive paper on Hopi proper 

 names. When a child is twenty days old it receives 

 its first names from the grandmother, or other close 

 relative on its mother's side, and from other women, 

 all of whom must belong to the clan of the mother 

 and child. The " child-name " is retained until the 

 child is initiated into some order or society, when a 

 new name is given, and at every subsequent initiation 

 a fresh name is given. All Hopi proper names have 

 some reference to the clan totem of the name giver, 

 never, unless coincidentallv, to the clan totem of the 

 bearer of the name. The same investigator publishes 

 1 10 traditions of the Hopi, which were collected in the 

 vernacular and without an interpreter. 



A. C. H. 



NOTES. 

 Sir William Thiselton-Dyer, K.C.M.G., F.R.S., has 

 been elected a member of the American Philosophical 

 Society. 



Baron de Guerne has been elected president for 1906 

 of the Paris Geographical Society, M. E. H. Martel chief 

 vice-president, and Baron Hulot general secretary. 



The editors of the Geological Magazine have issued 

 invitations to a reception to be held on the evening of 

 February 8, to commemorate the publication of the five 

 hundredth number of that periodical. 



Prof. Karl von Fritsch, president of the Leopold- 

 Caroline Academy, and professor of geology and palaeonto- 

 logy in the University of Halle, died on January 9 in 

 liis sixty-seventh year. Of his written works, the most 

 widely known is his " Allgemeine Geologie. " 



From Basel we learn that Swiss engineers have skid hed 

 out a plan for connecting Switzerland with the North Sea 

 and the Mediterranean by means of an immense canal 

 system at an estimated cost of 324,000,000 francs. On the 

 one side Rotterdam is to be reached from Lake Constance 

 by means of the Rhine, and on the other side Lake Como 

 is to be brought into connection with the Mediterranean 

 by means of the River Po. 



The sum of nearly 2000/. has been given by Judge 

 Holek (Denmark) for the purpose of effecting Porsild's 

 plan of a biological station in Greenland, and the Danish 

 Government has agreed to be responsible for a large part 

 of the annual upkeep of the station, which is estimated 

 to run to 11,000 kroner (ml.). The most eminent 

 travellers in polar regions in general, and in Greenland in 

 particular, have testified to the value of such a station. 



On Thursday next, February 1, Mr. Benjamin Kidd will 

 begin a course of two lectures at the Royal Institution on 

 "The Significance of the Future in the Theory of Evolu- 

 tion," and on Saturday, February 3, Mr. J. W. Gordon 

 will deliver the first of two lectures on " Advances in 

 Microscopy." The Friday evening discourse on February 2 

 will be delivered by Prof. S. P. Thompson on " The 

 NO. I 89 I , VOL. J^ 



Electric Production of Nitrates from the Atmosphere," and 

 on February 9 by Mr. H. F. Newall on " Eclipse Problems 

 and Observations." 



A note special to Monday's Pall Hall Gazette announces 

 that " a new system of wireless electrical communication 

 that seems admirably suited for connection over distances 

 of a few miles, and that possesses the advantage of cheap- 

 ness, reliability, and secrecy in a degree that probably 

 exceeds all the other systems, has just emerged from some 

 very successful trials in Germany." The experiments de- 

 scribed were made near Berlin by Mr. E. Ruhmer, but 

 the " special " news referring to them adds nothing to the 

 account of his system given in Nature two years ago 

 (February 18, 1904, vol. lxix., p. 373) in an article on 

 " Photo-telephony." 



Mi;. Elnar Mikkelsen, the young Danish explorer who, 

 in conjunction with Mr. Lefnngwell, an American, is 

 organising an expedition to the Beaufort Sea, has just left 

 this country for the United States. It is proposed that 

 Mr. Leffingwell and other members of the expedition shall 

 travel down the Mackenzie River in the early summer of 

 this year, while Mr. Mikkelsen, should he be able to obtain 

 a suitable vessel, will leave San Francisco in April, and 

 after spending some time on the Siberian coast purchasing 

 necessary equipment, meet the rest of the party at the 

 mouth of the Mackenzie some time in the latter part of 

 August. Thence the expedition will make its way to Cape 

 Kellet, in Banks Land, and begin the exploration of its 

 special region. The work to be undertaken depends to 

 some considerable extent on the arrangements which it may 

 be possible to make with regard to the fitting out of a ship. 



At a meeting at the Royal United Service Institution on 

 January 18, Major Goodwin, D.S.O., delivered a lecture on 

 " Military Hygiene on Active Service." After briefi) de- 

 scribing the origin and causation of those diseases which 

 affect armies in the field, and discussing and comparing 

 the statistics of the Boer and Russo-Japanese wars, the 

 lecturer suggested that there are two principal measures, 

 which, if organised and perfected, will entirely remedy, in 

 his opinion, the great evil which has existed in the past. 

 The first measure is sanitary organisation — a corps should 

 be formed of officers and men specially trained in all the 

 methods of sanitation — the second is the necessity for the 

 further education of regimental officers and men in sanitary 

 principles. 



The annual general meeting of the Entomological Society 

 of London was held on January 17. Mr. F. Merrifield, the 

 president, read an address on the general operation of 

 temperature on the growing organism of lepidopterous 

 insects, based on a series of experiments, especially with 

 reference to the remarkable limitations imposed by climatic 

 and artificial conditions. The report of the society showed 

 that for the first time in its history the number of ordinary 

 fellows had reached five hundred. The officers and council 

 were elected for the session 1906—7 as follows : — President, 

 Mr. F. Merrifield; hon. treasurer, Mr. A. H. Jones; hon. 

 secretaries, Mr. H. Rowland-Brown and Co/nmander J. J. 

 Walker, R.N. ; librarian, Mr. G. C. Champion; other 

 members of the council, Mr. G. J. Arrow, Mr. A. J. 

 Chitty, Mr. J. E. Collin, Dr. F. A. Dixey, Mr. H. Goss, 

 Mr. W. J. Kaye, Mr. II. J. Lucas, Prof. E. B. Poulton, 

 F.R.S., Mr. L. B. Prout, Mr. E. Saunders, F.R.S., Mr. 

 R. S. Standen, and Mr. C. O. Waterhouse. 



Dr. H. J. P. Sprengel, F.R.S., the inventor of the 

 mercury air-pump, whose death we announced last week, 

 was for three years an assistant in the chemical laboratory 



