[uly 3, 1884] 



NA TUKE 



2 33 



feature that male births are in excess of those of the opposite 

 sex in the proportion of 139 to 100. It is conjectured, however, 

 that this estimate may be incorrect, and due to the fact that 

 women and female children are regarded as of little importance, 

 on which account their nun bers may not always be taken with 

 exactitude. There would, on the other hand, appear to be no 

 doubt of the fatal influences on the Mogul of the change from 

 an easy, inactive, nomad life to that followed in a settled com- 

 munity, in which the struggle for existence has to be carried on 

 under the pressure of continuous if not hard labour and fixed 

 regulations. — On the so-called "xyphoid" angle, by M. Charpy. 

 By this term the author designates the angle comprised between 

 the edges of the xyphoid depression of the thorax, while his 

 paper is devoted to the consideration of the extent to which its 

 general inferiority in women may be due to the pressure exerted 

 by corsets, and how far it depends on physiological causes and 

 pathological conditions. 



Bulletins de la Sodi/i" a" Anthropologic dePai is, tor. evii. fasc. I, 

 1S84. — This number, as is usual with the first of the series for 

 the year, gives the various rules and reports of the Society, with 

 a list of its members and associates, and the presentations made 

 to it in the preceding year, together with the opening address of 

 the president, M. Hamy. The remaining contents are : — A 

 report, by M. de Mortillet, of the finds at Marcilly-sur-Eure, 

 between Dreux and Evreux, where, in a red argillaceous loam, 

 laid bare by a railway cutting, a cranium has been discovered of 

 the Neanderthal type. Near the spot are deposits containing 

 elephant, rhinoceros, and other bones, intermingled with 

 numerous flint splinters. — On the Celtic cemetery of the island 

 of Thinie at Portivy, Saint-Pierre-Quileron, by M. Gaillard. In 

 14 of the 27 stone cists of various sizes which have escaped 

 the destructive encroachments of the sea numerous remains have 

 been found, some containing four bodies laid one above the 

 other, and generally in inverse directions, and much bent. Some 

 of the lower skeletons are admirably preserved, and all are re- 

 markable for an extraordinary development of the occipital 

 region and great flatness of the tibia. Flints and potsherds of 

 the Dolmen age occur in large numbers. — On the Quaternary 

 Equidae, by M. Andre Sanson, who bases his observations on 

 the large collection of bones found by M. Chauvet in the 

 Charente and Dordogne. — On the supposed flint atelier of 

 Moulin-de-Vent, Charente- Inferieure, by M. Leon Rejou. 

 According to M. Rejou, we have here not only the site of a pre- 

 historic factory of ordinary flint implements, but the spot at which 

 was manufactured a special form of these instruments, found here 

 in considerable numbers, which he compares to our modern gimlet, 

 and of which he has failed to discover any specimens either in the 

 neighbouring Robenhausian deposits, or at any of the other 

 French flint stations. — On the prehistoric flint beds at Chelles, 

 by M. D'Acy. The most recent finds include a molar of 

 Elephas p-imigenius, which thus confirm the hitherto contested 

 view that this mammoth form must be included in the fauna of 

 the Chelles beds, from which M. Gaudry had moreover already 

 obtained three similar teeth. — On the so-called " Viens-Viens " 

 of St. Domingo, by Dr. Dehoux, who believes that these, and 

 other wild tribes of the Antilles, are the degraded representatives 

 of mixed breeds, and not the descendants of primitive Indians. 

 —On a placental anomaly, by Dr. E. Verrier, with illustrations 

 of several other analogous abnormalities suggestive of the in- 

 fluence of atavism in the human subject. — On the races of the 

 Philippine Islands, by Dr. Montano, with anthropometric tables. 

 The author discovered traces both in ancient and recent skulls of 

 the artificial cutting away of parts of the teeth practised in the 

 archipelago, but he has not met in the living subject with 

 evidence of the maxillary and other lesions, believed, according 

 to various authorities, to result from this practice. — On a case of 

 scaphocephaly observed in the living subject, by Dr. Delisle, 

 with comparative tables. — On the Toltecs and their migrations^ 

 by M. Charnay. — On the Botocudos and Purys of the forests of 

 Rio Janeiro, by Dr. P. Rey, with a vocabulary of their com- 

 monest words. — Contributions towards the ethnography of the 

 Fuegians, by Dr. Hyades, member of the French Mission to 

 Cape Horn. This paper is supplemented by a vocabulary and 

 grammar drawn up by Mr. Bridges of the South American 

 Missionary Society, whose papers on the manners and customs 

 of the Fuegians from "A Voice for South America," vol. xiii. 

 1866, is also given in extenso by the author. — On the use of iron 

 in Egypt, by M. Soldi ; and on the antiquity of the knowledge 

 and use of this metal by the Egyptians, by M. Beauregard. ■ In 



the former of these papers the author attempts to show that stone 

 implements were generally used in the preliminary labour of 

 cutting blocks for statuary, and iron tools only for completing 

 the final processes of sculpture. M. Beauregard, in his paper, 

 deals, en the other hand, with the chronological bearings of the 

 questior, and considers at length the precise meaning of the 

 various hieroglyphics supposed to indicate this metal. — On the 

 rational and methodic process of deducing proportional means, 

 more especially in reference to the general mortality of France, 

 by Dr. Arthur Chervin. The author explains the methods 

 employed by him for the categorical grouping of diseases as 

 shown in his " Gc'ographie medicate de la France." 



Sitzungsberichte der Naturforschenden Gese'.hckaft, Leipzig, 

 1883. — In a paper on the " Petrographic composition and struc- 

 tural relations of the Leipzig Graywacke," Dr. Saur confirmed 

 the previous conclusion of Geinitz, that the rocks cropping out 

 in the diluvial of the Leipzig district belong to the North Saxon 

 Graywacke system, which appears to be partly Cambrian, partly 

 Lower Silurian. — A comprehensive memoir on the German slugs 

 was read by Dr. Simroth, who divided this family into two 

 groups : Arion, with three species (hortensis, sub/uscus, and 

 empiricorum) ; and LlMAX, with four subdivisions (Limax 

 proper, /. lavis, L. agiestis, and Amolia). In a second memoir 

 the author dealt specially with the question of hermaphroditism 

 and differentiation of sex in Limax lesvis. — A paper on the deve- 

 lopment of the tissues and histological system of the mammalians, 

 by Prof. Rauber, recognises two fundamental types with possible 

 transitional forms : (I) the type characterised by invagination of 

 the embryoplastic pole of the germ cell (mouse, rat, guinea-pig) ; 

 (2) the more general type marked by absence of invagination. — 

 In an essay on the northern Silurian erratic boulders of the 

 Leipzig district, Dr. Felix traces these rocks ultimately to South 

 Sweden, Bornholm, Gotland, and especially Schonen.— A recent 

 visit to the Brunswick Anatomical Museum suggests some inter- 

 esting remarks to Dr. Hennig on the subject of malformations 

 of the female pelvis in early life.— A paper by Dr. Rauber, on 

 the influence of temperature, atmospheric temperature, and 

 various elementary substances on the development of the animal 

 ovum, aims especially at a more exact knowledge of the inner 

 properties of the embryo. The subject is treated under two 

 heads: (1) the power possessed by germs in various stages of 

 resisting outward influences ; (2) their plastic capacity, or power 

 of adapting themselves by changes and modifications of all sorts 

 to changed outward conditions. In a second paper the author 

 reports the results of researches on the influence of increased or 

 diminished proportions of saline solutions on Mollusks, Crusta- 

 cea, Hydra:, and other aquatic fauna. His experiments point 

 at the conclusion that the primaeval oceanic waters must have 

 always been saline.— In a memoir on the tin ores of the Eiben- 

 stock granitic system and their origin, Dr. Schroder infers that 

 the tin ores resting on the turmaline granites of Eibenstock have 

 been exposed by the weathering of the associated rocks. The 

 same conclusion is arrived at by Dr. F. Schalch respecting a new 

 variety of strontianite discovered at Wildenau, near Schwarzen- 

 berg, in the Erzgebirge.— Some remarks on the traces of glacial 

 action on the porphyry rocks of Wildschiitz near Eilenburg, 

 Saxony, were submitted by Dr. Dalmer, who pointed out that 

 the stria; ran in two different directions, the older and normal 

 from north-west to south-east, the more recent exceptionally 

 between 60° N. and 80° E.— Dr. A. Sauer presented an exhaus- 

 tive analysis of some specimens of the ashes from the Krakatoa 

 eruption of last year. The material appeared to be a lava evi- 

 dently of the augite-andesite family, closely related in structure 

 to that of Turrialba in Costa Rica. — Dr. R. Sachsse reported 

 on a new chlorophyll dye of a yellowish-brown colour, easily 

 soluble in alcohol. The formula of this dye, which he names 

 3-phseochlorophyll, is C, JI 3:1 N 3 4 . In another paper he gave 

 a chemical analysis of the feldspar present in the gabbro rocks 

 of Rosswein, Saxony, which appeared to be closely allied in 

 structure to true labradorite. 



La Belgique horticole for October-December 1SS3 devotes 

 a large portion of its space to a list of ornamental plants 

 described or figured in Belgian or foreign journals, or in 

 gardeners' catalogues, or exhibited in London, in 18S2. The 

 list comprises the large number of 251 species, of which 163 

 are Monocotyledons, and 105 belong to the single order of 

 Orchideae. The names are followed by very short descrip- 

 tions. — There are also in the magazine a number of short 

 notes of interest to floriculturists, the conclusion of an article 



