530 



NA TURE 



\Oct. 6, 



Australian tribes reported to have numeral words up to 

 15 or 20. But the point raised is well worth attention. 

 The statement as to tribes in various districts having no 

 distinct numeral words above three, and only struggling on 

 to four and five by saying " two-two," &c., rests on the 

 authority of Europeans who have studied the native lan- 

 guages, sometimes well enough to write grammars of 

 them. Are we to think that the natives generally bad 

 words for large numbers, and yet the Europeans failed 

 to discover them? Or, rather, is it not easy to suppose 

 that some tribes raised themselves (possibly since con- 

 tact with the white man) above thi, low level of arith- 

 metic, making, out of tht-ir counting on the fingers, 

 numeral words evt-n as high as the words here given for 

 100 ? It would be interesting if it could be shown 

 etymologically ihiit the terms here given for 20 and 100 

 had originally a material meaning, like the vTord for 5, 

 which still nie.ins "hanri." 



One of the gre.itet difficulties in studying savages is 

 to know how far to trust or distrust their assurances that 

 what they tell i^ really their own, and not picked up from 

 foreigners. From this point of view it is worth while to 

 look closely at the story of the lost Pleiad, which here 

 appears among the native myths of the " black-fellows." 

 The author's friends n.iturally doubted its genuineness, 

 but on further inquiry it v\as found to be widely known. 

 The tradition is that the Pleiades were a chiefess called 

 Gneeanggar and her six attendants ; Waa, the Crow (the 

 star Canopus), fell in love viith her, and finding that she 

 and her women were going in search of white grubs, he 

 turned himself into one, and bored into the trunk of a 

 tree, where they were sure to find him. The women, one 

 after another, poked their little wooden hooks into his 

 hole, but he broke the points, till at last his love put in 

 her beautiful bone hook, and he let her draw him out, 

 whereupon he turned into a giant and ran away with 

 her ; since then only si.x Pleiads — the serving-women 

 — have been left. Now between this story and our 

 classical myths there is a difference. Ovid's version 

 seems to carry its origin on its face, agreeing with the 

 fact that only six of the stars in .the cluster are bright 

 and plain to common eyes, so the myth tells of a hidden 

 or faint seventh. She is Merope hiding herself for shame 

 at marrying a mortal, or Electra putting her hand before 

 her eyes, not to see the ruin of Troy. But in the 

 Australian tale the vanished star, being the queen, ought 

 of course to be the brightest ; so that there is little sense 

 in the story, unless Mr. Dawson is prepared to maintain 

 that the Australians remember a time when there was a 

 Pleiad brighter than the rest, which has now vanished. 

 It would be easier, if more commonplace, to guess that 

 the natives got the idea of a lost Pleiad from some 

 Englishman who had heard the story at home, but missed 

 the point of it. 



The anthropological work done by Mr. Dawson and 

 Mrs. Taylor hardly needs praising. It is enough to point 

 out how carefully, not relying on books, they have made 

 their own inquiries on every subject, and recorded them as 

 scientific material. It is to be hoped that they will not 

 cease their researches, for there must still be much 

 valuable evidence to be gleaned in their district, if it is 

 done without delay, 



Edward B. Tylor 



OUR BOOK- SHELF 

 A Dictionary of Chemistry and Allied Sciences. By H. 



Watts, F.R.S. Third Supplement. Part 11. (London : 



Longmans, 1881.) 

 We have no publication in English stri^^tly corresponding 

 to Liebig's Annalen or the Annalcs Je Chcinie el Pliysiqiie, 

 and were it not for this now gigantic dictionary of che- 

 mistry by Mr. Watts many, both advanced and elementary 

 students of our science, would find their labours con- 

 siderably increased by the necessity of having to hunt up 

 a great number of facts and records of work done in 

 foreign journals. The chemical record in this volume 

 includes discoveries made in 18S0, and in addition a 

 number of exhaustive articles by Professors Armstrong, 

 on Isomerism ; G. C. Foster, on Thermodynamics ; 

 Schuster, on the Spectium; Thorpe, on Specific Volumes ; 

 and others. This part commences with G, the first large 

 articles being Gallium and Gases, the latter being very 

 complete and up to date. A long section is devoted to 

 Heat, which, with the article on Thermodynamics, is very 

 valuable. In the portion on Isomerism we are very glad 

 to notice a slight but still important definition, or rather 

 restriction of the term isomeric. That is, bodies should 

 only be classed as isomeric when their reactions indicate 

 that they are of the same type of structure. This article 

 is of some length, and contains the main points of the 

 hypotheses brought forward by Van I'Hoff and Le Bel 

 and others. We thoroughly agree with the concluding 

 paragraph of the article, and venture to add that probably 

 when we do know a little about the loss or gain in energy 

 in the case of reacting molecules the terms saturated and 

 unsaturated atoms will cease to be employed. The article 

 dovetails into the one on Light, and together they form an 

 important fraction of the book. The greater part of the 

 volume is of course taken up by "organic" and physical 

 chemistry, a considerable number of mineral substances 

 being however described, the section on the metals allied 

 to yttrium being very interesting. The references to the 

 original papers attached to each article render the work even 

 more valuable to those chemikers and physikers to whom 

 a few languages is no difficulty. Although a dictionary, 

 it is very thick, and probably an index would facilitate 

 the search after any particular description ; but the want 

 is a minor one. W. R. H. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 



[Tie Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed 

 by his correspondents. AUither can he undertake to retitmy 

 or to correspond with the writers of, rejected manuscripts. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications. 



[ The Editor 7trgently requests eorrespoJidents to keep their letters 

 as short as possible. The pressure on his space is so great 

 that it is impossible othenvise to ensure the appearance even 

 ef commu>iicaticns containing interesting and ncvel facis.l 



The Madeira Earth-electric Cloud again 



What a valuable paper, Mr. Editor, you have published this 

 week from Mr, J. B. N. Hennes.sey, with itsdiigram of the new 

 .set of sun-spots which broke out suddenly near the centre of the 

 sun's disk, between 4h, and 5h. p.m., on July 25, as recorded 

 by the photo-heliograph of the Indian Trigonomefrical Survey, 

 under his able charge, at Dehra. 



His enthusiasm at having localised the appearance of the 

 phenomenon in time, as well as space, is unexceptionable ; and 

 his long experience as an observer gives his opinion commanding 

 weight, when he further holds forth on the rarity of such an 

 occurrence, on such a scale and so centrally situated on the sun's 

 disk — whence its probable vast importance for the physic-- of the 

 earth and the foundations of a new science. All that is admir- 

 ably true and suggestive for ihe future ; but meanwhile I desire 

 to claim the first fruits of the cise as the very thing I have been 

 expecting ever since I left Madeira at midnight on July 29, 



And why should I have been expecting such an announcement, 

 do you ask? Well, do you remember mv letter 10 you from 



