6 4 : 



NA TURE 



[Oct. 30, 1884 



will be found, besides the usual College news, " Observations on 

 the (Estrida commonly known as Bot-Flies," or warble flies by 

 Miss E. A. Ormerod, one of the lecturers of the College ; also 

 an interesting account of an excursion to Sir J. B. Lawes's expe- 

 rimental farm at Rothamsted. This little periodical holds a 

 good place among college magazines, by the interest and value 

 of its articles. 



From a report by the head of the Japanese Meteorological 

 Department on the two typh ons of August last, which caused 

 much loss of life and damage to property, it appears that the 

 Japanese have not had to wait long for a practical demonstra- 

 tion of the wisdom of their recent step in increasing the number 

 of telegraphic weather reports from their meteorological stations 

 to three daily. Although the second storm travelled nearly Soo 

 miles in the course of twenty-four hours, the parts of the coasts 

 threatened received, under the most unfavourable circumstances, 

 several hours' warning. Mr. Knipping takes advantage of the 

 occasion to recommend an addition to the number of signal 

 stations which would bring them up to 150 or 200, and also to 

 point out that Japan's most recent possession, the Loochoo 

 Islands, is a most important meteorological outpost, for about 

 90 per cent, of the typhoons which "ravage these regions are 

 noticed there a day earlier than in Japan. 



In reference to a recent note on the subject, Mr. W. Mattieu 

 Williams writes that in his "Through Norway" (published 

 in 1S77) he stated on page 10S that "the North Cape is 

 usually described as the northernmost extremity of Europe ; but 

 this is not quite correct. There is a low glaciated tongue of 

 rock, called Knii'skjieroddcn or Knivskjaelodden, about a mile to 

 westward of North Cape, which projects farther north than the 

 Cape itself." "It is a misnomer," he states, "to call this a 

 ' Cape,' especially in the presence of magnificent capes which 

 abound thereabouts. (The perpendicular face of North Cape is 974 

 feet high ; others are above 1000 feet.) It should not be for- 

 gotten that neither North Cape nor this little ambitious out-poke 

 is the northernmost point of the European continent. This dis- 

 tinction belongs to Nord Kyn, the North Cape and Knivskjae- 

 lodden being on Magero, an outlying island. " 



The authorities of the University of Tokio have, we observe, 

 instructed one of their officers to devote himself wholly to the 

 study of seismic phenomena. The gentleman selected for this 

 purpose, Mr. Sekiya, is the Japanese Secretary to the Seismo- 

 logical Society of Japan, and has already had much experience 

 in earthquake observation, which has thus become an official 

 study in that country. 



A writer in a recent issue of the North China Herald dis- 

 cusses the early Chinese notions of immortality. In the most 

 ancient times ancestral worship was maintained on the ground 

 that the souls of the dead exist after this life. The present is a 

 part only of human existence, and men continue to be after 

 death what they have become before it. Hence the honours 

 accorded to men of rank in their lifetime were continued to them 

 after their death. In the earliest utterances of Chinese national 

 thought on this subject we find that duality which has remained 

 the prominent feature in Chinese thinking ever since. The 

 present life is light; the future is darkness. What the shadow 

 is to the substance, the soul is to the body ; what vapour is to 

 water, breath is to man. By the process of cooling steam may 

 again become water, and the transformations of animals teach us 

 that beings inferior to man may live after death. Ancient Chinese 

 then believed that as there is a male and female principle 

 in all nature, a day and a night as inseparable from each 

 thing in the universe as from the universe itself, so it is 

 with man. In the course of ages, and in the vicissitudes of 



religious ideas, men came to believe more definitely in the possi- 

 bility of communications with supernatural beings. In the 

 twelfth century before the Christian era it was a distinct belief 

 that the thoughts of the sages were to them a revelation from 

 above. The "Book of Odes" frequently uses the expression 

 " God spoke to them," and one sage is represented after death 

 " moving up and down in the presence of God in heaven." A 

 few centuries subsequently we find for the first time great men 

 transferred in the popular imagination to the sky, it being 

 believed that their souls took up their abode in certain constel- 

 lations. This was due to the fact that the ideas of immortality 

 had taken a new shape, and that the philosophy of the times 

 regarded the stars of heaven as the pure essences of the grosser 

 things belonging to this world. The pure is heavenly and the 

 gross earthly, and therefore that which is purest on earth ascends 

 to the regions of the stars. At the same time hermits and other 

 ascetics began to be credited with the power of acquiring 

 extraordinary longevity, and the stork became the animal 

 which the Immortals preferred to ride above all others. 

 The idea of plants which confer immunity from death soon 

 sprang up. The fungus known as Polyporus lucidus was taken 

 to be the most efficacious of all plants in guarding man from 

 death, and three thousand ounces of silver have been asked for 

 a single specimen. Its red colour was among the circumstances 

 which gave it its reputation, for at this time the five colours of 

 Babylonian astrology had been accepted as indications of good 

 and evil fortune. This connection of a red colour with the 

 notion of immortality through the medium of good and bad luck 

 led to the adoption of cinnabar as the philosopher's stone, and 

 thus to the construction of the whole system of alchemy. The 

 plant of immortal life is spoken of in ancient Chinese literature 

 at least a century before the mineral. In correspondence with 

 the tree of life in Eden there was probably a Babylonian tra- 

 dition which found its way to China shortly before Chinese 

 writers mention the plant of immortality. The Chinese, not 

 being navigators, must have got their ideas of the ocean which 

 surrounds ther world from those who were, and when they re- 

 ceived a cosmography they would receive it with its legends. 



Mr. Sidney Olliff has been appointed Assistant Curator of 

 the Australian Museum, Sydney, New South Wales. 



The additions to the Zoological Society's Gardens during the 

 past week include a Vervet Monkey (Cercopithecus lalandii 6 ) 

 from South Africa, presented by Mr. Thomas Eley ; a Grivet 

 Monkey (Cercopithecus grisej-viridis i) from West Africa, pre- 

 sented by Mrs. K. E. Villiers ; a Common Paradoxure (Para- 

 doxurus typus) from India, presented by Mrs. L. McArthur ; a 

 Hedgehog (Erinaceus europma), British, presented by Mr. C. G. 

 Hopkins ; a Laughing Kingfisher (Dacelo gigantea) from 

 Australia, presented by Mrs. A. M. Packard ; two Seed- 

 eaters (Crithagra ) from South Africa, presented by Mr. 



W. B. Cheadle, F.Z.S. ; a Mute Swan (Cygnus olori), 

 European, presented by Lady Siemens ; a Common Chameleon 

 (Cham&leon vulgaris) from North Africa, a Common Vipei 

 (Vipera berus), British, presented by Mr. F. II. Jennings ; .1 

 Proteus (Proteus anguinus), European, presented by Mr. W. J. 

 Milles ; three Common Marmosets (Ilapale jacchus) from Brazil 

 six Canadian Beavers (Castor canadensis) from Canada, two 

 Lesser Sulphur-crested Cockatoos (Cacatua sulphured] from 

 the Moluccas, deposited; a Talapoin Monkey (Cercopithecus 

 ialapoin), an Allen's Galago (Galago alleni), a Thick-billed 

 Pigeon ( Treron macrorhyncha), a River Jack Viper ( Vipera 

 rhinoceros) from West Africa, two Horrid Rattlesnakes (Crotalus 

 horridus) from Florida, purchased ; four Hardwick's M .stigures 

 (Uromastix hardwickii) from India, two Bengal Monitors 

 (Varanus bcngalensis) from Bengal, a Nilotic Crocodile (Croco- 

 , ; t<us vulgaris) from Africa, received in exchange. 



