210 
hair is dark and thick, the nose flat, and the chin pointed. A 
skull which Barnard Davis succeeded in sending to England was 
found to have a capacity of 1638 cubic centimetres, with hori- 
zontal and vertical indices of 77°3 and 78°3 respectively. They 
have the reputation of being a bloodthirsty and inhospitable 
people, but they have now succeeded better than any of the 
neighbouring tribes in drawing closer to the Russians, They 
frequently change their paganism for the Russian Orthodox 
Church. The Japanese, with whom they traded in the southern 
part of Saghalin, have had no great influence over them, Some- 
times they live in houses which are built on piles raised some 
distance above the ground, with a platform, or balcony arcund, 
on which they lay their sledges, nets, &c. From the roof are sus- 
pended hundreds of salmon, put there tobe smoked and dried. The 
men pass most of the time away from their families, fishing or 
hunting. They are especially fond of the dolphin, but as they have 
but bad weapons of the chase, they rarely succeed in catching 
this fish. When they do, however, the occasion is kept asa festival. 
As with most of the aborigines of North-Eastern Asia, they 
reverence the bear as a divinity, but it is nevertheless almost 
invariably slaughtered. Their proceedings at the festival of the 
bear resemble those of the Ainos of Yezo, drunkenness being 
the order of the day. The religion of the Gilyaks is Shamanism 
with all its superstitions, They will allow no one to take a 
spark of fire, even in a tobacco-pipe, from their huts, believing 
that ill-luck and misfortune will follow. The bodies of the dead 
are burned, and a small house erected above the ashes, while a 
favourite hound is slaughtered on the grave. The Gilyaks in 
Saghalin differ in some respects from those on the mainland. 
Their mode of living differs little from that of the Ainos. 
Marriage is not permitted among members of the same family ; 
wives are purchased, but also captured. The Japanese traveller, 
Mamia Rinso, who thoroughly examined the whole of Saghalin 
and the neighbouring coast about the beginning of this century, 
says that polyandry existed amongst them, They are the most 
superstitious of all the Tungusic tribes in the Amour region, as 
well as the most cruel in their customs. 
THE United States war-steamer Pa/os has been engaged for 
some time past, by order of the American Government, in 
carrying out a series of observations in China and Japan with 
the object of ascertaining the correct latitude and longitude of 
certain important points. The position of Wladivostock was 
determined by Russian engineers some years ago, and the 
object of the present expedition is to settle those of the chief 
centres between that place and Madras, e.g, Nagasaki, Amoy, 
Shanghai, Hongkong, and Singapore. The positions of the 
first three have been determined, and it is said do not show any 
great discrepancy with those hitherto accepted. 
THE December number of the Geographical Society’s Pro 
ceedings opens with Mr. F, A. A. Simons’ paper on the Sierra 
Nevada of Santa Marta and its watershed, accompanied by a 
good map of the region from his own survey. Mr. Delmar 
Morgan contributes a paper on steppe-routes from Karshi to the 
Amu-daria, being an annotated rendering of one by M. Maief 
in the Russian Geographical Society’s /svestia, In the Geo- 
graphical Notes the new Russo-Chinese frontier is described, 
and there is an interesting note on the old map of Djungaria by 
the Swede Renat, recently discovered in the library of Linko- 
ping. M. Wiener’s discovery of the Samiria tributary of the 
Upper Marajion is also referred to, and it is stated that he has 
constructed a map of this almost unknown region. Perhaps the 
most interesting item in the whole number is the short letter 
from Capt. Gray, of Peterhead, on the recent advance of the 
Polar ice in the Greenland and Spitzbergen Sea, with its accom- 
panying ice-chart. A long report on the Venice Congress and 
Exhibition is furnished by Capt. A. W. Baird, R.E., and is the 
only one, so far as we know, which has yet been published. 
THE last Bulletin of the Commercial Geographical Society of 
Bordeaux contains some notes on M. Ch. Wiener’s extensive 
explorations on the tributaries of the Upper Amazon by a Peru- 
vian, Sr. M, Albornoz, and observations by M, Raeckelboom 
on the country, &c., between Susa and Kairwan. 
DR. LENZ ON THE SAHARA 
[NX a paper which Dr. Oscar Lenz contributes to the Zeitsch7i/t 
of the Berlin Geographical Society, he gives an authentic 
account of the results of his journey across the Sahara, from 
Tanger to Timbuktu, and thence to Senegambia. The real jour- 
NATURE 
[ Dec. 29, 1881 
ney was begun at Marrakesh, at the northern foot of the Atlas 
Mountains, where Dr. Lenz laid in his stores of provisions and 
changed his name and dress, travelling further under the disguise 
of a Turkish military surgeon. He crossed the Atlas and the 
Anti-Atlas in a south-western direction, The Atlas consists, 
first, of a series of low bills belonging to the Tertiary ard Cre- 
taceous formations, then of a wide plateau of red sandstone, 
probably Triassic, and of the chief range which consists of 
clay-slates with extensive iron ores. The pass of Bibauan is 
1250 metres above the sea-level, and it is surrounded with peaks 
about 4000 metres high, whilst the Wad Sus Valley at its fort 
is but 150 metres above the sea. The Anti-Atlas consists cf 
Paleozoic strata. On May 5, 1880, Dr. Lenz reached Tenduf, 
a small town founded some thirty years ago, and promising to 
acquire great importance as a station for caravans. The northern 
part of the Sahara is a plateau 400 metres high, consisting of 
horizontal Devonian strata which contain numerous fossils. On 
May 15 Dr. Lenzcrossed the moving sand-dunes of Igidi, a wide 
tract where he observed the interesting phenomenon of musical 
sand, a sound like that of a trumpet being produced by the fric- 
tion of the small grains of quartz. But amidst these moving dunes 
it is not uncommon to find some grazing-places for camels, as well 
as flocks of gazelles and antelopes, At El Eglab Dr. Lenz 
found granite and porphyry, and was fortunate enough to have 
rain. Thence the character of the desert becomes more varied, 
the route crossing sometimes sandy and sometimes stcny tracts 
or sand-dunes, with several dry river-beds running east and west 
between them, On May 29 he reached the salt works of Tau- 
deni, and visited the ruins of a very ancient town, where 
numerous stone implements have been found. Here he crossed 
a depression of the desert only 145 to 170 metres high, while 
the remainder of the desert usually reaches as much as 250 to 
300 metres above the sea-level; and he remarks that throughout 
his journey he did not meet with depressions below the sea-level. 
The schemes for flooding the Sahara are therefore hopeless and 
misleading, ‘The landscape remained the same until the wide 
Alfa fields, which extend north of Arauan, This little town is 
situated amidst sand-dunes devoid of vegetation, owing to the 
hot southern winds. Four days later Dr. Lenz was in Tim- 
buktu, whence he proceeded west to St. Louis. During his 
forty-three days’ travel through the Sahara Dr. Lenz observed 
that the temperature was not excessive ; it usually was from 34° 
to 36° Celsius, and only in the Igidi region it reached 45°. The 
wind blew mostly from north-west, and it was only south of 
Taudeni that the traveller experienced the hot south winds 
(edrash) of the desert. As to the theory of north-eastern trade- 
winds being the cause of the formation of the desert, Dr. Lenz 
remarks that he never observed such a wind, nor did his men; it 
must be stopped by the hilly tracts of the north. Another im- 
portant remark of Dr. Lenz is what he makes with respect to the 
frequent description of the Sahara as a sea-bed. Of course it 
was under the sea, but during the Devonian, Cretaceous, and 
Tertiary periods; as to the sand which covers it now, it has 
nothing to do with the sea: it is the product of destruction of 
sandstones by atmospheric agencies. Northern Africa was not 
always a desert, and the causes of its being so now must be 
sought for, not in geological, but in meteorological inftuences. 
SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 
Journal of Anatomy and Physiology, vol. xvi., part 1, Octo- 
ber, 1881, contains— Dr. D. J. Cunningham, on the relation of 
nerve-:upply to muscle-homology.—Dr. Gibson, the action of 
duboisia on the circulation.—J. F. Knott, the cerebral sinuses 
and their variations.—Dr. G. Barling, primary growth from 
bone, resembling in some of its features scirrhus carcinoma of 
the breast.—Doctors George and F, Elizabeth Iloggan, the 
comparative anatomy of the uterine lymphatics (plates 1 and 2), 
—Dr. H. Ashby, transposition of the aorta and pulmonary artery 
ina child of seven months.—Dr. W. Stirling, some points in 
the histology of the newt, and on the nerves of the lungs of the 
newt (plates 3 and 4).— Dr. Garson, on pelvimetry (plate 5).— 
Prof. Turner, cranial characters of the Admiralty Islanders.— 
Report on physiology, and anatomical notes. 
The American Naturalist for November, 1881, contains : W. 
K. Higley, on the general and microscopical characters of the 
peach tree affected with the ‘‘yellows.”—W. H. Dall, on the 
so-called Chukchiand Namolldé people of Eastern Siberia.—W. 
H. Edwards, the length of life in butterflies—H. D. Minot 
notes on the migrations of birds\—V, Havard, on Sotol.—E, 
