280 
NATURE 
[JuLy 20, 189y 
largely employed for purifying the water of doubtful wells, and 
especially with the view of protecting against the cholera 
_ bacillus, it would seem particularly applicable for use in India. 
Tue Times of Monday published a very interesting account 
of a visit paid by Dr. Karl Peters last April to some ruins 
near the river Muira, a southern tributary of the Zambesi, 
in Portuguese territory, nearly opposite Shupanga. The ex- 
plorer made his journey in consequence of a passage in the 
Atlas Historique, which is to the effect that half a day’s 
journey from the river Mansoro is the fort of Massapa, and 
near this is the great mountain of Fura, very rich in gold, in 
which are Cyclopean ruins. It was to find these ruins that Dr. 
Peters, accompanied by Mr. Leonard Puzey and Mr. Ernest 
Gramann, journeyed from the Zambesi. After recounting in- 
cidents of the journey, the writer says the decisive discovery 
for the exploration was made by Mr. Puzey on April 20. 
The ruins are situated on the hill which runs parallel to 
Mount Peters, and are about two miles distant from Inja-ka- 
Fura. Dr. Peters’ description of his discovery is as follows: 
““We discovered . . . another ground-wall which had un- 
doubtedly been a part of a building, maybe a temple, maybe a 
storehouse. _ This wall had been worked into the natural rock, 
which here forms a sort of flat floor. The stones of this ground- 
wall, samples of which I have sent to London, are heart-shaped, 
and are worked with a pick, so that the description in our old 
report saying the stones were not worked with a pick apparently 
only applies to the outer walls. Perhaps the author never took 
the trouble to visit one of the ruins. I laid bare a part of this 
ground-wall on the top, but gave up further digging because I 
was afraid that my clumsy workmen might do harm to the 
remains. They have, indeed, already destroyed part of the 
ground-wall. The stones of the wall are a pseudomorph sand- 
stone, while the rock into which they are worked is quartzitic 
slate. The whole of the ruin is built after the general ancient 
Semitic pattern. The Cyclopean wall skirts the hill about half- 
way between the bottom and the top; on the top the buildings, 
the hoarding-place, and likely the temple were standing. The 
remains of a ground-wall along the edge of the top lead me to 
believe that a second wall formerly ran round the platform 
itself. To explore the ruin properly it will be necessary to send 
a scientific expedition witha proper outfit for such excavations. 
The débris have to be removed, and this I am sure will take a 
considerable time. Why the old conquerors chose this spot for 
their fort is easy to see. The Muira touches the bottom of the 
hill, so water was handy. A second river we have discovered 
at the back of the ruin. From the top they had an outlook over 
the wide plain before them, while they had the bulk of the Fura 
From their fort they commanded the 
plain as well asthe mountain. I have called the hill on which 
the ruin stands after its discoverer ‘ Puzey Hill.’ Mr. Puzey 
some days later found a second ruin west-north-west of the first 
on another head of the same ridge looking over the plain in the 
same direction. Iam certain we shall find still more of these 
Cyclopzan buildings when our time, which now is otherwise 
occupied, permits of a more extended exploration.” 
massive at their back. 
THE British Central Africa Gazetle for May 24, which has 
just reached us, says ‘‘ from time to time it has been rumoured 
that giraffes existed in British Central Africa, on the Loangwa 
River, but, although that river valley has been frequently visited 
during the last ten years by Europeans, no authentic inform- 
ation on the point has ever been obtained. Last month, how- 
ever, a giraffe was shot on the east bank of the Loangwa in the 
Marimba district by a European prospector, and its skin (in- 
complete) sent in to Captain Chichester in Mpezeni’s country. 
The hinder half of the skin is being sent to the British Museum, 
and it is hoped that a complete specimen may be now obtained. 
NO. 1551, VOL. 60] 
The existence of giraffe in Marimba is remarkable: the area in 
which they are found is extremely restricted, and their number 
appears to be very few. The one shot, however, was in a herd 
of about thirty-five. The nearest country north of Marimba in 
which giraffe are known to exist is north of Mareres, where the 
Elton-Cotterill Expedition met with them (many years ago). 
To the south, Matabeleland is the nearest giraffe country.”” 
THE same number of the Gaze¢¢e states that there seems to be 
no further decrease in the number of elephants still existing in 
the Protectorate ; indeed, the natives round about Domwe have 
been complaining to the Acting Collector of the damage done in 
their food plantations by these animals. 
In the Johns Hopkins University Czvcz/ars for June 1899 a 
number of notes from the physical laboratory are published 
under the editorship of Prof. Joseph S. Ames. These com- 
prise a short paper on the effect of temperature, pressure, and 
used solutions on the deposit of silver voltameters, by J. F. 
Merrill; notes on the energy-spectrum of a black body, and on 
the absorption of ice in the ultra-red, by F. A. Saunders; on 
the Zeeman effect, by H. M. Reese; on electric absorption in 
condensers, by L. M. Potts; on transference of heat in cooled 
metals, and on a method of measuring the frequency of alter- 
nating currents, by Carl Kinsley. A list of publications in the 
department of physics, by those who are now or who have been 
members of the University, is appended. This list, which re- 
presents roughly a year’s work, occupies three columns, and in- 
cludes over ninety works and papers by sixty authors. Similar 
notes and lists from the department of history and politics also 
appear in the same number, under the editorship of Prof. 
Herbert B. Adams. 
THE Berichte der Naturforschenden Gesellschaft of Freiburg 
(Baden) contains several papers of interest to physicists. 
Kathode and Réntgen rays form the subject of a discourse by 
L. Zehnder, who deals somewhat fully with the theory of 
fluorescence ; Prof. F. Himstedt describes apparatus for illus- 
trating lecture experiments on Hertzian waves and on Marconi’s 
telegraphy, and also writes on point-discharges in high-frequency 
currents. Of biological interest in the same number are Prof. 
G. Steinmann’s notes on the formation of dark pigment in 
mollusca, and on Soueina—a genus of fossil algee, and August 
Griiber’s note on green Ammoebae. 
A Goop work is being done in Italy by the ‘‘ Valle di 
Pompei,” an institution in the province of Naples for rescuing 
and educating the children of prisoners and criminals. Apart 
from the philanthropic aspect of this undertaking, the Refort 
contains statistics of interest to anthropologists, criminologists, 
and those who make a study of heredity. It would appear that 
under the salutary influence of their environment the children 
of the worst criminals often take a prominent place in the 
matter of good conduct and diligence. 
THE U.S. Weather Bureau has issued a very useful pamphlet 
(Bulletin No. 26) entitled ‘‘ Lightning and the electricity 
of the air,” by A. G. McAdie and A. J. Henry. The work is 
divided into two parts: Part 1 deals with the electrification of 
the atmosphere and the best methods of protecting life and 
property from lightning, being to a large extent a revision of 
Bulletin No. t5—*‘ Protection from lightning.” Part 2 gives 
statistics of actual losses of life and property sustained in the 
United States during 1898. The principal facts of the paper 
are drawn from articles by the authors in various magazines, 
with the object of furnishing information of practical value 
generally, especially to those who may have occasion to seek 
protection from lightning. The work contains interesting par- 
tculars relating to the electrical potential of the upper air, as 
manifested by kite experiments and auroral displays. 
