Dec. 1, 1881] 
closer indication of its place is necessary for the identifi- 
cation of the suspicious object: it is the same with the 
small stars near the positions of Kepler’s and Anthelm’s 
stars. Variability has been remarked in small stars which 
occupy places very close to the observed positions of 
Tycho’s and Anthelm’s stars, and probably also in the 
case of Kepler’s, and it is very desirable that a strict 
scrutiny of these spots should be maintained. As happens 
in so many popular treatises, there is a confusion in Mr. 
Webb’s statement with regard to Kirch’s variable star 
x Cygni (Bayer): the Greek letter is attached at p. 288 
to the double star No. 2580 of Struve, and it is added, 
“ About 4™ /, 50's is 17, or x Bayer, discovered by Kirch; 
1686, to be var., sometimes up to 5m.,” &c. It is, how- 
ever, Flamsteed’s 17 Cygni which corresponds to Struve’s 
double-star, while the variable star is xy Cygni of Bayer. 
Flamsteed, it is true, attached the letter y to his 17 Cygni, 
though, as was pointed out by Argelander many years 
since, through a mistake: he saw no other sufficiently 
bright star near the place to correspond to Bayer’s, but 
the explanation of this circumstance is found in the fact 
that at the dates of Flamsteed’s observations “the 
variable star was down,” to borrow an expression with 
which observers of these objects will be familiar, so 
Flamsteed seized upon the nearest naked-eye star for 
Bayer’s x. Mr. Webb dwells particularly upon the colours 
of the double-stars, one of their most interesting charac- 
teristics, and has brought together a large nuinber of 
attractive notes upon the objects which he includes in his 
survey of the northern heavens. That his volume will 
maintain its popularity amongst amateur astronomers is 
not to be doubted, and we must add that it well deserves 
to do so. 
CARNAC 
Excavations at Carnac. By James Miln. 
Douglas, 1881.) 
R. MILN, to whom we are already indebted for 
a work on Roman remains found near Carnac 
(Britanny), has continued his researches in this interesting 
locality, and has given us a second work, consisting of a 
record of archzological researches in the alignments or 
stone avenues of Kermario, 
The alignments of Kermario consist of ten rows of un- 
dressed stones, which extend for about two miles in an 
easterly direction, after which begin the avenues of Ker- 
lescant. The stones, which consist of a close-grained 
granite, are some of them as much as twenty feet high, 
though the majority are much smaller. At the base of 
many of them Mr. Miln found ashes, charcoal, and 
fragments of pottery of a character which led him to the 
conclusion that these mysterious and almost unique 
avenues of stones were erected as sepulchral monuments. 
Although the whole monument is of such an extensive 
character, Mr. Miln is of opinion that it had not been 
completed. He draws this inference from the fact that 
in the neighbourhood he found several heaps of long 
stones, which he supposes had been brought there in 
order to be erected. 
Among the stone avenues run certain ancient earth- 
works, and at the head of them are, as Mr. Miln found, the 
remains of ancient buildings. It was in these earthworks, 
(Edinburgh : 
NATURE 
99 
at the base of the menhirs (which however he was very 
careful not to overturn), and among the ruins of these 
buildings that Mr. Miln’s excavations were carried on. 
The principal interest of the objects discovered in his 
researches, is the evidence they afford as to the period at 
which these menhirs were erected, and Mr. Miln comes 
to the conclusion from the result of his investigations that 
between Kermario and Kerloquet we have a long stretch 
of defensive works erected by the Celts at a period anterior 
to the Roman invasion ; that the Romans on their arrival 
had occupied some of these, and in the more advan- 
tageous positions had constructed other works of greater 
solidity. On the other hand there seems some evidence 
that the erection of standing stones or menhirs did not 
altogether cease at this period, for under some of them, 
and in positions which would seem to show clearly that 
they were placed there at the time the menhirs were 
erected, fragments of Roman tiles and pottery have been 
discovered. These menhirs, however, formed no part of 
the “ alignments.” 
It is interesting that, as Dr. Closmadeuc had already 
pointed out, we have evidence that there has been a 
change in the level of the land since the erection of these 
monuments. Mr. Miln considers that nearly the whole, 
if not the whole, of the bay of Quiberon must then have 
been dry land. On the Quiberon side of the bay the rows 
of menhirs extend under water, and on the Carnac 
side too, Gallo-Roman potters’ furnaces have been found 
below high-water mark. 
We much regret to add that the author died the very day 
after he had finished the proof sheets of this work. The 
present writer had the pleasure of examining Mr. Miln’s 
excavations with him in the autumn of 1877, and may be 
permitted to add his personal expression of regret at the 
loss which archeological science has experienced in his 
death. 
OUR BOOK SHELF 
The Mind of Mencius. By the Rev. E. Faber. 
lated by the Rev. A. B. Hutchinson. 
Oriental Series. 1881.) 
Mr. FABER is already well known in the field of Chinese 
studies by his digest of the doctrines of Confucius. In the 
present volume he gives us a systematic digest of those of 
Mencius, the greatest and most popular of the disciples 
of Confucius. These two philosophers form the bulwarks 
of Chinese conservatism, against the doctrines of socialism 
and communism, which first thrust themselves into notice 
after the death of Confucius. These men, as the trans- 
lator remarks, made no appeal to external credentials ; 
they rather based the truth of their mission on the con- 
formity of their doctrines with the essentials of the 
human mind, as shown by observation. To them the 
“state” is everything—it is “the sum of all human en- 
deavours, natural and civilised, working together as a 
united organisation.” For about 3000 years the political 
fabric of China, based on the principles of which Con- 
fucius and his disciples were the exponents rather than 
originators, has held together in spite of shocks before 
which any other system known in history would have 
disappeared, and at the present day seems as vital and 
vigorous as at any portion of its existence. To explain 
by the light of the best commentators what these prin- 
ciples, as enunciated by Mencius were, is the object of 
Mr, Faber. This philosopher was a contemporary of 
Plato and Aristotle, but his doctrines are still living and 
active principles in Chinese ethics and politics. The 
Trans- 
(Triibner’s 
