Oct. 20, 1 881] 



NATURE 



599 



rhythmical contractions in the wing membranes of bats (Luchs- 

 inger). 



In the Botanical Section M. Buser read a paper on Swiss 

 willows, and Prof. Schnetzler gave some observations on the 

 vegetation of Lalliraa tquamaria on tree-roots. 



To the Section of Geology M. Jaccard subjiitted a project of 

 maps of the "erratic phenomenon" in Switzerland, on the plan 

 of tho^e constructed by MM. Falsan and Chantre for the Rhone 

 Valley. Dr. Rotlipletz discussed the role of faults in the 

 geology of the Alps, showing that these are by no means excep- 

 tional, and deserve more study than they have hitherto had. 

 Dr. de la Harpe presented a collection of Egyptian nummulites. 

 Dr. Gillieron hnd a paper on the age of the red schists of the 

 Simmenthal. Prof. Mayer-Ermann furni.-hed jiroof that the 

 Loire must have flowed into the Parisian Gulf of the Ncrth Sea 

 during the \\ hole Eocene period, and that it was only at the end 

 of the Inferior Neogene or Aqnilanian epoch that it made the 

 bend at Orleans and entered the Atlantic. The Pleistocene of 

 Central Europe formed the subject of an instructive paper read 

 by Dr. Rothpletz at the first general meeting. 



In Medicine a paper was read by Dr. Birclier on the extension 

 of deaf-muiism in Switzerland, and its relations with goitre 

 and cretinism. He finds that these three are merely different 

 manifestations of one and the same principle of degeneracy of 

 race, a principle which, in Switzerland, is endemic in the Trias-ic, 

 Mariiie Molastic, and Eocene formations. 



THE ARC H/EO LOGICAL CONGRESS AT 

 TIFLIS 

 'X'HE proceedings of this Congress, recently held at Tiflis, 

 were both interesting and animated. No less than 700 

 members arrived at Tiflis from various parts of the Cau- 

 casus, and fifty-five from various parts of Russia. The 

 foreign members wei'e few — Prof. Virchow, who took advantage 

 of his stay in the Caucasus to make an excursion to O.-setia, and 

 Messrs. Aeger and Ilubsch from Vienna. The Congress was 

 opened by Count Ouvaroff in one of the halls of the palace, before 

 an audience of about Soo persons. The President of the Con- 

 gress, M. Komaroff, pointed out that the Congress had met with 

 much sjmpalhy from all interested in the study of the Caucasus, 

 as well as much help from the teachers of primary and secondary 

 schools, who had sent in many interesting objects for the exhi- 

 bition. We notice among the objects exhibited a most interesting 

 collection of bronze antiquities from Ossetia, Bosphorian anti- 

 quities from a kourgan of the province of Kouban, stone imple- 

 ments from Tzalka, Georgian ornaments and stone implements 

 from the provinces of Novgorod and Tver. Ossetia has been 

 kno«n for many years for a great find of interesting bronze 

 implements, of figures of animals, curved hatchets with spirals 

 and zig-zag ornaments and with figures of animals, as well as 

 religious objects belonging to some unknown worship ; the col- 

 lection, which was bought some time ago by M. Chantre, is 

 very complete, and will soon be described by him. The new 

 collections from a kourgan at the Sievers .Station consist of 

 massive gold, and represent subjects of Greek mythology. 

 On the same day the excellent Caucasian museum which was 

 founded several years ago, but was closed for two years for 

 unknown reasons, was re-opened. 



Count Ouvaroff made an interesting communication on the 

 remains of the Stone period which were found near Irkutsk, 

 on the bank of tlie Angara Kiver, at Talminskoy village. Many 

 human skeletons, with stone and bone implements, and per- 

 forated teeth of animals, were found there, together with 

 hatchets of jade (nephrite), which numbered as many as two 

 hundred. This is the first find of jade implements in graves in 

 Russia. This communication gave rise to an interesting discus- 

 sion, during which M. Moushketoff, the well-known traveller in 

 Turkestan, spoke of the great monolith of nephrite at Samar- 

 cand, on the grave of Tamerlane. It has the shape of a paral- 

 lelopiped, 7"S feet long, i '5 foot wide, and l'2 foot high, and 

 weighs about 1800 pounds, whilst the greatest pieces of nephrite 

 which are found in boulders do not weigh more than 700 or 750 

 pounds. It is well polished, but is broken through its centre. 

 The rock re-embles very much that of Khotan. As to the 

 places where nephrite is found in situ, our knowledge is still 

 ver>' limited. Messrs. Shaw and Hermann Schlagicitwt-rt have 

 seen nephrite mines in the Kwen-Lun, close by Balaktchi, at a 

 height of 12,000 feet ; according to Dr. Stoliczka it appears 

 there as veins in chlorite-slates and quartzites. Two other places 



where nephrite is found are known north of the K«-en-Lun 

 Mountains, close by the Kilian Pass, at a height of 6070 feet, 

 and near Kamat village on the highway to Khotan, at a height 

 of 579° f^^' ; ^ fourth is presumed to be at the sources of the 

 Yourson-tush, or Khotan River. But the nephrite implements 

 which we found in graves were mostly made from boulders of 

 this rock, w hich are often found in Eastern Siberia on the shores 

 of Lake Baikal, and on the Boutogol Mountain in the Sayan 

 Highlands ; however, we do not know that nephrite was found 

 in silu in tliese latitudes. All implements which are in the St. 

 Petersburg museums were made of nephrite from Eastern Siberia, 

 whilst the Kwen-Lun jade is used only in recent Chinese 

 products. 



Prof. Samokvasoff made a communication on his finds in the 

 graves on the Caucasus, in the neighbourhood of Pyatigorsk. 

 He excavated about 200 graves belonging to the Stone, Bronze, 

 and Iron periods. In the larger graves he found bronze imple- 

 ments together with stone ones, and as there are in these graves, 

 together with bones of sheep, several split human bones which do 

 not belong to skeletons, he supposes that during the Bronze 

 period the inhabitants of this part of the Caucasus were Anthro- 

 pophagists. This opinion, however, was not concurred in by the 

 majority of members of the Congress. 



The chief work of the Congress was in the branches of History 

 and Antiquities ; but we notice also a special sitting for com- 

 munications in French and German, during which several 

 papers were read connected with the natural sciences. Thus 

 Dr. Obst, Director of the Leipzig Ethnographical Museum, 

 read a paper upon the results of the statistical researches on the 

 colour of hair and eyes in Saxony, and M. Smirnoff gave the 

 results of the same inquiries with the Armenians and Georgians 

 of Transcaucasia, as well as with the Russian population of the 

 f>rovinces of Kouban and .Sta\TopoI. Out of 25fO Armenian 

 children there were 63 per cent, of dark, 4 per cent, of fair, and 

 ^Tf pe*" cent, of mixed (fair hair with dark eyes, or vice versa). 

 Of 1400 Russian children there were only I4'5 per cent, of dark, 

 and it is deserving of notice that M. Smirnoff could not discover 

 any difference between Great Russians and Little Ru-sians, the 

 numl^er of fair children being 33*3 per cent, in the former, and 

 32*0 in the latter, whilst the mixed make respectively 52*2 and 

 53'5 P^'' cent. As to Georgians and Imeis, the observations 

 are not sufficiently wide, but it may be stated that piurely dark 

 children are less numerous (50 to 55 per cent.) than with 

 Armenians. 



Prof. Virchow gave a long and interesting lecture on the chief 

 problems of the Ethnology ann Archaeology of the Caucasus, ac- 

 companied with fo'iie remarks on the civiii'ationof its former in- 

 habitants. Speaking on the usually-received f pinion that the 

 Caucasus was the highway for populnions coming from Asia to 

 Europe, Prof. Virchow expressed some doubts as to the crossing 

 of the Caucasian passes bv \' hole tribes at a time w hen the 

 communications were so difficult and the ice-coverinu' descended 

 lower than now. It would be most impirtant. ilerefore, to 

 know if the first inhabitants nf the Caucasus cai e from the 

 north or from the south. Sieaking further of rhe Ossetians, 

 Prof. Virchow was astonished not to find among the adult popu- 

 lation a single true fair type, which might seem contradictory of 

 former opinions ; only amou'/ children did he find fair-haired 

 individuals with rosy Fhmi-h cheeks. On the other band, 

 some measurements have r u ht him 'o the co elusion that the 

 Ossetian skull is short and hi'jb very different frmi the German 

 type of skulls. Dnlichocephali ■ skulls are very rare, and show 

 that the tribes of the Caucasu- have undergone much mixture with 

 other people. As to the antiquities found in Ossetia, Prof. 

 Virchow considers that ihe civili ation they speak of was far 

 more recent than that liiscovered by Dr. Scbliemann at Troy, 

 as it does not contain stone implements, but has, on the 

 contrary, curved fibula: which were unknown at Hissarlik. The 

 ornaments of the O setian bronze-implement-, and e pecially the 

 figures of stags, horses, and mountain-sheei>, seem to show a 

 connection between the former inhabitants of the Caucasus with 

 those of the Ahai Mrmnrain-. 



UNIVERSITY A.VD EDUCATIONAL 



INThLLIGENCE 



Oxford. — The following are the courses ..f instruction in 



natnral science h\ be given chis term a' Oxf 'id ; — Prof. Odiing 



lectures on 'h<" at mi>- th> o.y, Mr W;itts o. organic, Mr. 



Usher m 11 oi'l'I" c chejuisny. a d Mr. F. D. Brown on physical 



