Atigust 25, 1 881] 



NATURE 



\?>i 



I found that if I could classify eye in a language under exa- 

 mination, it gave me suti and many other words, and it led me 

 to much valuable work, but I v\as often thrown out for reasons 

 I did not then know. Empirically I found eye was a constant, 

 and I knew it was a round, because in many languages east and 

 west sun is the day eye or day's eye ; moon is the night eye, and 

 i^fthe head eye. In the North American languages and in the 

 Malay, for instance, there was the evidence c f a common law of 

 psychological philology, which led me to greater re.ults. My 

 knowledge became m.odified to the extent that «<« was not day 

 eye, but day round. Until Mr. Wallace's article appeared, I 

 still regarded eye as the pivot on which the "round " words and 

 characters turned, although I knew that mouth was the proto- 

 type of moon, mother, 'womait, ei;g, &c., and of objects and ideas 

 having a periodicity or a montli. Having a false pivot, I was 

 never able to bring the facts into a right connection, allhough 

 coming very near. The Chinese modifications of the ancient 

 character show that month and ring constitute the primary cha- 

 racter, and thereby indicate the primary word. 



The researches of Col. Garrick Mallery, U.S.A., and my own, 

 in the paper unpublished, show the connection of sign language 

 and cliaracters, and I have determined a relation bet« een sign 

 language, character, and words, as in the sign or character | | 

 for son, offspring, &c. The characters in many cases appear 

 as ancient as the signs, and may have preceded speech 

 Iangu.age. How words were connected with ideas and their 

 representatives by signs was the problem. The new explanations 

 of Mr. Wallace in your paper, or the old observations of others, 

 in giving explanations from natural cries and sounds, &c., are not 

 always exact, and do not account for the fact that the sounds 

 are in relation with the sign language. I'hus the words for 

 eye and 2 are the same, and the words for ear and 3, and so 

 forth. .. 



In the brief remarks now made I endeavour to steer clear of 

 many things which would require a long exj lanation, and to 

 bring my observations to bear on Mr. Wallace's article. On 

 speech language being constituted, the application of a labial to 

 moiilh gave a large series, and so of the dentals, &:c. As the 

 numerals are in relation to each object of the universe in 

 primitive symbology, so they were supplied. Indeed nouns, 

 adjectives, pronouns, verbs, numerals, particles, were sup- 

 plied from a common fount. There are languages con- 

 stituted of a few differentiated words, which can be traced 

 throughout. 



In connection w ith Mr. Wallace's remarks is to be taken what 

 he says afterwards of the action of the lips. In the sign lan- 

 guages and the characters the lower organs supply a large 

 number of ideas regarded as phallic. Such are ||, \ , O, &c. 

 These ideas are not capable of direct connection with sounds; 

 they came however into connection by the acknowledged corre- 

 spondence of the parts in symbology and mythology. Thus the 

 labial sounds liecame the representatives of actions or ideas 

 illustrated by the corresponding loner organs, as in go and 

 come. 



Taking Mr. Wallace's terms and applying them, we therefore 

 get the connection established between the sign languages and 

 the speech languages, and we can see the psychological grounds 

 on which they continued in working together, and why the speech 

 languages have not everywhere akvays exterminated their ances- 

 tors. For this, and for the whole state of affairs, Mr. Wallace 

 furnishes me with an explanation. 



His naked statement is the best, that for mouth a labial was 

 used. In the sign languages, and we find this in the prehistoric 

 languages and their equivalents, several signs are U'ed for one 

 idea, and several ideas for one sign. When a labial was applied 

 for the mouth, it was indifferent uhat labial. If one used a b, 

 another would use »?. This is one caue of the variety we find 

 in the prehistoric primary languages, for there never was what 

 philologists are fond of, one primitive language. 



Many will object to Mr. Wallace, that mouth is not always 

 represented by a labial, .ind in the common course hold that the 

 negative evidence overcomes the affirmative. In many instances 

 mouth is a dental, because the idea includes the teeth, which are 

 dental. Again tongue is not always a dental, but a sibilant, so 

 far as it is connected with snake. It is the whole know ledge of 

 the facts which will better enable us to complete our progi-ess 

 and to overcome difficulties. For myself I have derived parti- 

 cular advantage from Mr. Wallace, in being enabled to under- 

 stand my own work. Hyde Clarke 

 32, St, George's Square, S.W. 



Comets and Balloons 



The notion that the tails of comets are produced by an emis- 

 sion of the nucleus prevails at present among astronomers. I 

 have just stated in a small pamphlet, Svo, 32 pages, the reason 

 why I presume to entertain another opinion on this subject. 

 The details of my last aerial trip of July 2 show that by 

 using an electric light night ascents at a reasonable distance 

 from the sea may be considered as relatively without danger. 

 The appearance of Schaberle's comet seems to me to afford a 

 proj er occasion for testing the emission theory, and I will try to 

 explain my idea as shortly as possible. 



It is (retty certain that any comet will lose something of its 

 brilliancy in consequence of passage to the perihelion, conse- 

 quently, aeteris paribus, it must be found with a diminished 

 luminous power in the second part of its track. The conse- 

 quence is that to test this theory the same comet should be 

 observed in a similar position, as close as possible, in the first 

 and in the second parts of its track. 



By ascending with a biUoon in the northern hemisphere to 

 inspect Schaberle's comet on a moonless night, and estimating 

 its luminous power in a clear sky at several determined heights, 

 a great step will be made in reaching this desirable end. 



It would be for the astronomers of the soutliern half of the 

 world to ascend under similar conditions, and to make corre- 

 sponding ob: ervations. If no visible diminution is proved to 

 have taken place, much will have been'accomplished in the deter- 

 mination of the true nature of this mysterious object. 



The same observations could, it is true, be prosecuted without 

 the help of aerostation, but not with the same amount of cer- 

 tainty, as much doubt remains as to the true luminosity of a 

 celestial body when it is not inspected in a really perfectly clear 

 sky, w liich can always be procured with a balloon — it is true not 

 without incurring some personal risk, certainly not out of pro- 

 portion, at all events, to the results to be expected. 



W. DE FONVIELLE 



■Animal Instinct 



I AM exposed to some annoyance from a clever old donkey, 

 who, being turned out on to the green in front of my house, 

 constantly lets himself into my garden to graze on my lawn. 

 This he efltcts by pushing his nose between the rails of an iron 

 gate, and then pressing dowji the latch of the gate. Expulsion, 

 with ever so striking an appeal to his feelings, .avails only a short 

 time for his exclusion, unless the gate is locked. 



Little Park, Enfield, August 19 W. B. KesteveN 



ITALIAN DEEP-SEA EXPLORATION IN THE 

 MEDITERRANEAN 



A FTER my communication of the 4th inst. from 

 ■**• Asinara I feel sure that many readers of Nature 

 will be interested to know something more of our doings; 

 so I take the opportunity of our short stay here to 

 send a very brief account of our doings since leaving 

 Asinara. 



The presence of a deep-sea fauna in the Mediterranean 

 which I announced in my last is fully confirmed, and even 

 though most of the species dredged are as yet undeter- 

 mined, I can venture to say that the character of this 

 fauna is "Atlantic," and, I may add, "Oceanic." My 

 first bit of news was the capture of a l\'illcma'sia identi- 

 cal, or ver)' nearly allied, to IV. Irptodnityla ; since then 

 some ten or twelve specimens of that most interesting 

 and characteristic Crustacean have been secured off the 

 west, south, and east coasts of Sardinia, in depths varying 

 from 950 to 2145 metres. All our deep hauls have 

 brought up some living animals, usually Annelids and 

 deep-red shriinps of at least three species ; the greatest 

 depth we have trawled in is 31 15 metres; the greatest 

 we have found sounding is 3630 metres in the eastern 

 basin between Sardinia and Naples. 



Cn the loth inst., off the west coast of Sardinia we 

 dredged two specimens of a Macrurid fish, which I take 

 to be a Malacoceiihalus, from depths of 2805 and 2908 

 metres. South of the Gulf of Cagliari we got a new— to 

 me— and e.xceedingly remarkable Macrurid, with what 



