‘ 
84 
other winds are temporary and accidental. I have paid particu- | 
lar attention to this matter, and I find the usual wind in Peking 
is from the south-west, and that other winds do not continue for 
any length of time. From the ¥-4img it appears that was the 
same in the most ancient times. It is a fact, attested by the 
daily record of our observatory here, that the wind does not 
remain long in any of the four cardinal points, as asserted by 
the writer above mentioned. Whatever be the causes of the 
different directions of the wind, it is certain that there are local 
and temporary, as well as general and universal ones, These 
can only be discovered by a multitude of observations. Again, 
why is it that when the wind blows, ice melts first at the water’s 
edge, unless it be that the wind has penetrated the water? A 
more singular fact still is that there are some winds which are 
only felt in deep water, The history of the Yuen dynasty 
affirms that people bathing have become icy cold from a wind 
of which they have become suddenly sensible. 
Thermal Springs. —Nothing is truer than that mineral waters 
are very efficacious in curing several maladies. They are better 
for those past forty years of age than for younger persons. Hot 
baths enfeeble and exhaust the latter, because, the blood still 
possessing all its force, they cause fermentation and perspiration, 
which disorder and injure the constitution. At a more advanced 
age, on the other hand, they revivify the blood and clear the 
bones, nerves, and tissues of the body from the impurities which 
years bring in their train. Baths should not be taken for some 
time after eating, and one should be careful of exposure to the 
air after them. I mention this because everything affecting the 
health of mankind interests me. It is clear that the heat, smell, 
taste, and medicinal virtues of thermal springs are the effects of 
a mixture of foreign substances in the water. But what are these 
substances? In what quantity and proportion are they present? 
This has not been sufficiently examined. Whenever I meet a 
mineral spring on my journey I examine it by means of an 
alembic, and by the alum, sulphur, or metal found there I know 
its properties, In this respect we must. not follow the ancients. 
They decided superficially by the taste, smell, or colour. I wish 
these waters were studied better, as then it would be known what 
diseases they were best suited to cure. 
We have not space to give any more of the Emperor’s 
observations. Those translated above are sufficient to 
NATURE 
show his love of knowledge, and his desire to benefit his 
subjects by utilising the results of research. Some of his 
remarks are almost epigrammatic, and with a few of them 
we will bring this article to a close. 
“Lying is the first resource of ignorance ; but what shall we 
do when we do not know the truth? Be silent.” 
**T love to admire the manner in which nature confounds our 
ideas of the greatness of human industry, and baffles all the re- 
sources of our penetration. How difficult it is to admire worthily ! 
Is not a small insect, a blade of grass, more worthy of our 
admiration than any production of human hands?” 
**We spoil children by our puerile cares for their health. 
We have, alas! too many wants; why should we increase 
them ?” 
Heaven provides for the wants of men according to the 
places in which they live.” ; 
‘*T prefer to procure a new species of fruit or of grain for my 
subjects than to build a hundred porcelain towers.” + 
** Every one desires health and loves life, but no one practises 
temperance and frugality. They invent pleasant remedies which 
they imagine will cause them to digest. Eat little, and you will 
digest much.” 
**T attribute my good health to the fact that I drink nothing 
but water, which I distil myself.” ? 
ON THE EVOLUTION OF ANTLERS IN THE 
RUMINANTS 
4 Mer development of antlers in the Ruminants to which 
Sir John Lubbock alluded in his address to the 
British Association at York, confirms the truth of the 
doctrine of evolution in so clear a way that it is well 
1 For a description of the celebrated porcelain tower of Nanking, see 
Williams's ‘‘ Middle Kingdom,” vol. i. p. 82. It should be added that this 
remarkable work was destroyed during the occupation of the city by the 
Taipings, and it may be said cf it now, etiam fereunt runing. 
2 The absence of any system of drainage in Chinese cities should be 
remembered here, 
eRe eS ee , Oe Se OSS TS ee ty eee 
. 2-3 } WN 7 ad 
~ Oe es 
worthy of being laid before the readers of NATURE, 
although I have already brought it in part before the 
Geological Society in 1877 (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. 
xxxiv. 419), and published it in outline three years later, 
in my work on “ Early Man in Britain, and His Plece in 
the Tertiary Period.” The results of an inquiry to which 
I was led by a systematic study, extending over several 
years, of the more important collections of fossil mam- 
malia in Britain, France, and Italy, may be summed up 
as follows :— 
In the Middle Stage of the Meiocene the cervine antler 
consists merely of a simple forked crown (Cervus dicro- 
ceros), which increases in size in the Upper Meiocene, 
although it still remains small and erect, like that of the 
roe. In Cervus Matheroni it measures 11°4 inches, and) 
throws off not more than four tynes, all small (Fig. 1). 
The deer living in Auvergne in the succeeding or 
Pleiocene age present us with another stage in the history 
of antler development. There for the first time we see 
antlers of the axis and Rusa type larger and longer and’ 
more branching than any antlers were before, and pos- 
sessing three or more well-developed tynes (Figs. 2, 3, 4, 5)» 
Deer of this type abounded in Pleiocene Europe, and I 
have examined their remains from the Red Crag of Nor- 
wich and of Suffolk, from various localities in Middle and 
Southern France, from Italy, and even from the little 
Island of Capri. They belong to the Oriental division of 
the Cervide, and their presence in Europe confirms the 
evidence of the flora brought forward by the Count de 
Saporta, that the Pleiocene climate of Middle Europe 
was warm. They have probably disappeared from Europe 
in corsequence of the lowering of the temperature in the 
Pleistocene Age, while their descendants have found a 
congenial home in the warmer regions of Eastern Asia. 
In the latest stage of the Pleiocene—the Upper Pleiocene 
of the Val d’Arno—the Cervus dicranios of Nesti (Fig. 6) 
presents us with antlers much smaller than those of the 
Irish elk, but so complicated as almost to defy descrip- 
tion. This animal survived into the succeeding age, and 
is found in the pre-glacial forest bed of Norfolk, being 
described by Dr. Falconer under the name of Sedgwick’s 
Deer (C. Sedgwichi2). 
The Irish elk, moose, stag, reindeer, and fallow deer 
appear in Europe in the Pleistocene age, all with highly 
complicated antlers in the adult, and the first possessing 
the largest antlers as yet known. Of these the Irish elk 
disappeared in the Prehistoric age after having lived in 
countless herds in Ireland, while the rest have lived on 
into our own times in Euro-Asia, and, with the exception 
of the last, also in North America, 
From this survey it is obvious that the cervine antlers 
have increased in size and complexity from the Mid- 
Meiocene to the Pleiostocene age, and that their suc- 
cessive changes are analogous to those which are observed 
in the development of antlers in the living deer, which 
begin with a simple point and increase in number of 
tynes till their limit of growth be reached. In other 
words, the development of antlers indicated at successive 
and widely separated pages of the geological record is 
the same as that observed in the history of a single living 
species. It is also obvious that the progressive diminution 
of size and complexity in the antlers from the present 
time back into the early Tertiary age shows that we are 
approaching the zero of antler-development in the Mid- 
Meiocene age. I have been unable to meet with a trace 
of any antler-bearing ruminant in the Lower Meiocenes 
either of Europe or of the United States. 
Nor are we left without direct evidence on this point, 
The discoveries in the Mid-Meiocene shale of Sansan in 
the South of France, published by Prof. Ed. Lartet in 
1839 and 1851, and those made in New Mexico, Colorado, 
and Nebraska, and published by Prof. Cope in 1874- 
1877, present us with a series of antlers in which 
the burr is conspicuous by its absence ti) more 
[Mor. 24, 1882 
