June 1 6, 1881] 



NATURE 



157 



form might he had <it a certain spot and no capital were required 

 for its conversion or storage, and that the ener^^ were directly 

 applicable it could not be carried ten miles — that is to say, such 

 energy cannot be economically useful ten miles from its source, 

 although coal had to be carried loo miles to the spot. This 

 limit, in truth, falls far short of what has been already attained 

 by other means. By wire ropes and by compressed air or steam 

 energy may be economically transmitted from ten to twenty 

 miles. So that if this is the uttnost of what is to be done by 

 means of the storage of electricity this discovery adds another 

 door to those which are hopelessly closed against the possibility 

 of finding in Niagara or otlier water power a substitute for our 

 coal, even when the object is motive power, and much more for 

 that purpose for which five-sixths of our coal is used— the pro- 

 duction of heat. 



It is very important that the people of this country should not 

 shut their eyes to the fact that, so far from there being a greater 

 prospect of the solution of the problem than when, about twenty 

 years ago, Prof. Jevons raised the alanii, the prospect is now 

 much smaller. In the meantime the capabilities of steel ropes, 

 fluids in pipes, and electricity along conductors have been not 

 only investigated, but practically tested, and found altogether 

 wanting. And now it would seem that the storage of electricity 

 must be added to the list. Osborne Reynolds 



Owens College, June 9 



"VottR leading article in the Times of yesterday, on the storage 

 of electricity, alludes to my having spoken of Niagara as the 

 natural and proper chief motor for the whole of the North 

 American Continent. I value the allusion too much to let it 

 pass without pointing out that the credit of originating the idea 

 and teaching how it is to be practically reali^ed by the electric 

 transmission of energy is due to Mr. C. \V. Siemens, who spoke 

 first, I believe, on th« subject in his presidential address to the 

 Iron and Steel Institute in March, 1S77. I myself spoke o 1 the 

 subject in support of Mr. Siemens's views at the Institution of 

 Civil Engineers a year later. In May, 1879, in answer tu ques- 

 tions put to me by the Select Committee of the Hou-e of Com- 

 mons on Electric Lighting, I gave an estimate of the quantity 

 of copper conductor that would be suitable for the economical 

 transmission of power by electricity to any stated distance ; and, 

 taking Niagara as example, I jiointed out that, under p-actically 

 realisable conditions of intensity, a copper wire of half an inch 

 diameter would suffice to take 26, 250 horse-power from water- 

 wlieels driven by the Fall, and (losing only 20 per cent, on the 

 way) to yield 21,000 horse-power at a distance of 300 British 

 statute miles ; the prime cost of the copper amounting to 

 60,000/., or less than 3/. per horse-power actually yielded at the 

 distant station. William Thomson 



The University, Glasgow, June 9 



If you do me the honour to publish a letter which I wrote to 

 you yesterday regarding the electric transmission of energy it will 

 be seen that I thoroughly sympathise with Prof Osborne 

 Reynolds in his aspirations for the utilisation of Niagara as a 

 motor, but that neither Mr. Siemens nor I agree with him in the 

 conclusion which he asserts in his letter to you, published in the 

 Times of today, that electricity has been tried and found 

 wanting as a means for attaining such objects. The transmission 

 of power was not the subject of my letter to you published in the 

 Times of the 9th inst., and Prof. Reynolds' disappointment with 

 M. Faure's practical realisation, of electric storage, because it 

 does not provide a method of porterage superior to conduction 

 through a wire, is like being disappointed with an invention of 

 improvements in water cans and water reservoirs because the best 

 that can be done in the way of movable water cans and fixed 

 water reservoirs will never let the water-carrier supersede water- 

 pipes wherever water-pipes can be laid. 



The i^ oz. of coal cited by Prof. Osbcime Reynolds as con- 

 taining a million of foot-pounds stored in it is no analogy to the 

 Faure accumulator containing the same amount of energy. The 

 accumulator can be re-charged with energy when it is exhausted, 

 and the fresh store drawn upon when needed, without losing 

 more than 10 or 15 per cent, witli arrangements suited for prac- 

 tical purposes. If coal could be unburned— that is to say, if 

 carbon could be extracted from carbonic acid by any economic 

 process of chemical or electric action, as it is in nature by the 

 growth of plants drawing on sunlight for the requisite energy — 

 the result would be analogous to what is done in Faure's accu- 

 u.ulator. William Thomson 



The University, Glasgow, June 1 1 



DR. MIKLUCHO M ACL AY'S ANTHROPOLO- 

 GICAL AND ANATOMICAL RESEARCHES 

 IN MELANESIA AND AUSTRALIA ' 

 A FTER I liad left Sydney in March, 1879, I visited the 

 ■'^ following islands : New Caledonia, Litu ; of tlie New 

 Hebrides; Tana, Vate, Tongoa, Mai, Epi, Ambrim, Malo, 

 Vanua Lava ; the Admiralty Islands ; the groups — Lub (or 

 Hermit), Niiiigo (Echiquier), Trobriant, the Solomon Islands, 

 the islands at the south-east end of New Guinea, and the islands 

 of Torres Straits.- 



Only a very few of the results of the journey can be com- 

 prehended in a short rhumi, of these the first two of the 

 following appear to me to be the mo-.t important: — I. Many 

 islands of Melanesia 3 (especially some of the islands of the New 

 Hebrides, of the Solomon Group, of the Louisiades, New 

 Ireland, &c., &c.) possess a well-marked brachycephalic population 

 (the breadth-index of many heads exceeds eighty, and sometimes 

 even eighty-five), which circumstance is assuredly not ascribable 

 to a mixture with another race, and proves that brachycephalism 

 has a much wider range in Melanesia than has been hitherto 

 supposed. This is a result of numerous careful measurements 

 of heads and skulls* of the aboriginals of different islands of 

 Melanesia. 2. Although in some villages of the southern coa^t 

 of New Guinea there is noticeable a Polynesian admixture, yet 

 this circumstance by no means permits of the aboriginals of the 

 south-eastern peninsula (who are a branch of the Melanesian 

 stock) being called a "yellow Malayan race," as has been 

 frequently done of late years. 3. An acquaintance with the 

 languages of the group Lub (or Hermit) and the dialects of the 

 northern coast of the large island of the Admiralty Group, as 

 well as the native traditions of the former, has shown that the 

 population of the group Lub emigrated from the Admiralty 

 Islands. Further acquaintance with the natives of Lub proved 

 that there is among them a Polynesian admixture, which has 

 resulted from the carrying off of the women of the group Ninigo, 

 and from a frequent intercourse nith the inhabitants (aLso a 

 Melano- Polynesian race) of the smaller group Kaniet or 

 ICanies (or Anchorites). My stay among the inhabitants of the 

 Admiralty I>l.ands has affordedme a glimpse of many interesting 

 cu->toms of the islands ; but an account of these observations and 

 researches cannot be condensed within the compass of a few 

 sentences. To this series of results belong also the observations 

 which I never neglected to make during the journey in Melanesia 

 whenever the opportunity presented itself — especially ol>serva- 

 tions on tlieir customs, such as the deformation of the head, 

 tattooing, perforation of the septum narioni, ala; nasi, lobes and 

 margins of the ears. I have also succeeded ii making further 

 olKervations, and obtaining more information, on the macro- 

 dontism in the Admiralty and Lub islands. 



On my way back from the islands of Torres Straits I visited 

 Brisbane, where I at first only intended to remain a few days. 

 Here however a favourable opportunity presented itself of 

 acquiring some interesting anatomical material for my anthro- 

 pological researches, which circumstance induced me to prolong 

 my stay for several months. I found, namely, that there was a 

 possibility of continuing my researches on the comparative 

 anatomy of the brain of the different varieties of the genus homo, 

 which were commenced in 1873 in Batavia and resumed in 

 Sydney in 1878. Although the material in question consisted 

 only of three brains, yet I find that this new contribution to our 

 knowledge of race-anatomy supports the view which I may 

 briefly summarise as follows : — The investigation of the brains of 

 representatives of different races of men shows that there occur 

 peculiarities of by no means trifling import, which one cannot 

 regard as individual v.iriations. To this category belong differ- 

 ences in the development of the corpus callosum of the pons 

 varolii, of the cerebellum ; differences in the volume of the 

 cranial nerves, and so forth ; also the arrangement of the con- 

 volutions of the cerebrum is different, and I believe that in 

 ' From a paper read before the Linnean Society of New South Wales 

 Febraarj' 23, 1881, by Dr. N. De Mikhicho-Maclay. Revised and trans- 

 mitted by the author. 



■= A more detailed account of the route, of the time spent ?at the different 

 places, with sketch-maps of the routes and other detaiU, will be found in 

 my commimication to the Imperial Russian Geographical Society, in the 

 Jswestija of the Society. 



3 By the name " Melanesians" I designate exclusively the frinly-haired 

 inhabitants of the South Sea Islands. 



^ In order to eliminate any doubt as to the correctness of the cranial 

 measurements on living individuals. I have not neglected to collect a con- 

 siderable number of undoubtedly authentic skulls from New Caledonia, J^ew 

 Guinea, the Admiraltys, Ninigo. and Solomo'" Islands. 



