114 
SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 
Bulletins de la Société d Anthropologie de Paris, 1871-72.—We 
find from these reports that the French palzontologists have 
been unusually active during the last eighteen months in con- 
tinuing the exploration of the numerous bone-caverns of their 
country and in testing the accuracy of the older classifications of 
their remains, M. Barabeau has been examining with great care 
the Dordogne district, which has become classic ground through 
the labours of Christie and Lartet. M. Saudon believes that the 
molars and maxilla recently found at Laugerie-Haute cannot be 
referred to the true horse—although they may provisionally, like 
similar remains found by M. Riviere in Italy—be accepted as 
belonging to some form of eguwus, for he does not think that the 
horse existed in Europe in pre-historic times. M. Mortillet, in 
obedience to the suggestions of M. Bertrand, Conservateur du 
Musée de S. Germain, has drawn up a chart of the palzolithic 
age in Gaul, the only work of the kind extant : in it are recorded 
5 localities in which occur supposed traces of man in the ter- 
tiary ; 43 alluvial deposits in the quaternary yielding human 
bones and industrial remains; and 278 caverns containing 
quaternary fauna with traces of pre-historic man. M. Mortillet 
thinks that we are no longer justified in assuming with E. Lartet 
that there was ever a special age of the bear or reindeer, all 
extinct animals having apparently lived through the whole 
paleolithic period. Amongst the numerous communica- 
tions of M. Hamy, we may instance papers on the ‘‘ Fossil 
Human Remains of d’Engihoul, near Liége ;” ‘‘ The Anthro- 
pology of Cambodia ;” ‘‘The Quaternary Deposits of cut Silex 
recently discovered in the Pas de Calais ;” ‘‘ The Existence of 
Brachycephalic Negroes on the Western Coasts of Africa ;” and 
‘The Proportions of the Arm and Fore-arm to the different 
periods of Life.” M. Doulish, from observations made at the 
close of 1871, in a bone cavern at Corgnac (Dordogne), believes 
that he has found incontrovertible proofs that man in the rein- 
deer age had attained the art of fo/ishing no less than of cutting 
stone.—M, Lagardelle communicates through M. Hamy, one of 
the Secretaries of the Society, some curious information in re- 
gard to the habitations of the degraded people known under 
the names of Colliberts, huttiers, &c., who for many ages occu- 
pied the marshy lands of Poitou, near the mouths of the Seyre, 
and whose descendants were known till recently as nioleurs. 
This district was occupied by Gauls before the Norman Con- 
quest, and after that event it became, from its inaccessible 
character, a place of refuge for fugitives. In the eleventh and 
twelfth centuries the Colliberts, whose special occupation was 
fishing, were dependent, as homines conditionales, on several 
religious houses, but were nevertheless left in a state of heathen, 
almost savage ignorance. Their huts were made of interlaced 
willow twigs, and their only means of locomotion before the 
formation of the network of canals, which have proved the 
chief agents in rescuing them from their isolation, were their 
long ash stilts and the so-called mio/es, or light boats from which 
they took their name. The race is now merged in that of the 
contiguous ¢erra firma.—M. Alph. Milne-Edwards has prosecuted 
an extensive series of observations on ‘f The Embryology of the 
Lemurians and the zoological affinities of those animals ;” and 
he finds that the placental system differs so widely from that of 
the Simiz, with which they have been supposed to present very 
close relationships, that he is of opinion the Lemurs should take 
an intermediate, but wholly distinct, place between monkeys and 
carnivores.—M. Thorel’s medical notes of his observations 
while serving in the exploring expedition to Meckong, in 1870, 
afford curious information in regard to the immunity to certain 
miasmatic affections presented by the people of Cochin China 
and other parts of Indo-China.—M. Sanson has laid before 
the Society his views on the Characterisation of Species, which 
are diametrically opposed to the Darwinian theory of evolution. 
The earlier numbers of the Bu/letins for 1872, contain an unu- 
sually large proportion of papers on purely anatomical, psycho- 
logical, medico-legal and similar subjects. —M. Broca considers, 
in a special mongraph, the importance of nasal configuration as 
a true ethnological character.—M. A. Roujou traces the analogies 
of the human type with that of the more ancient mammals, 
and proceeding to the length of concise definition, he fixes the 
probable appearance of the first lemurians at an epoch very 
remote from the secondary, and of monkeys—properly so 
called—before the tertiary, at the beginning of which period he 
thinks it not improbable that they engendered man.—The second 
and third numbers of vol. vii. of the Bzd/etins contain the ex- 
oR eS REY a ee eee Soe ee Ree Se 
NATURE 
haustive Treatise of M. Topinard on the indigenous races of 
! 
THE Lens for April commences with an analysis of the species 
of the genus Amphora, by Prof. H. L. Smith, in continuation 
of his Conspectus of the Diatomaceze, accompanied by three 
excellent plates, and containing the description of nearly 100 
species.—Dr. Danforth, of Chicago, describing ‘*The Cell,” 
developes Dr. Beale’s theory respecting the nature of the nucleus, 
and discusses the action of carmine upon it.—Mr. H. Babcock, 
**On the Flora of Chicago and its Vicinity,” catalogues the 
graminez and filices of that place very shortly.—There are also 
papers by Mr. J. H. Martin, ‘‘Onthe Similarity of various forms of 
Crystallisation to minute Organic Structures ;” and by Mr, E. Col- 
bert, ‘‘ On the Figure of the Earth, and its Effect on Observa- 
tions made in the Meridian.”—The editor criticises the test 
employed by a committee of the Royal Microscopical Society of 
London in their decision respecting the angular aperture of Mr, 
Tolles’s sth objective, thinking it unfair. 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 
LoNDON 
Royal Geographical Society, May 12.—Major-General Sir 
H. C. Rawlinson, K.C.B., president, in the chair.—The paper 
read was ‘‘Journey through Western Mongolia,” by Mr. Ney 
Elias. The distance travelled over was 2,000 miles, accom- 
plished between July 1872 and January 1873. The route from 
Kalgan (the starting-point in crossing the desert of Gobi by the 
usual route vié Urga to Kiachta) was westerly to the Chinese 
frontier town of Kwei-hua, thence north-westerly to the river 
Onghin, and afterwards again westerly, along the foot of the 
Khangai Range, to the city of Uliassutai, which his observations 
showed to be 5,700 ft, above the sea-level. lis further journey 
was impeded by the bands of Mahommedan Mongol rebels, the 
so-called Dungans, who, although badly armed, struck terror 
into the Chinese garrisons of the towns, and carried fire and 
slaughter wherever they went. He narrowly escaped the band, 
which a few days before his arrival destroyed the city of Kobdo, 
west of Uliassutai; arriving there, he saw the charred remains 
of the outer town and the unburied bodies of slaughtered people 
scattered over the streets. The Chinese garrison still occupied 
the fort, and received him and his party with kindness. "All his 
endeavours, however, to obtain assistance for his further journey 
southward and westward to Kuldja were met by steady oppo- 
sition, and he finally had to cross the frontier to the Russian 
town of Biisk. The president informed the meeting that Mr. 
Elias had not only accomplished a wonderful journey over a tract 
of Central Asia never visited by a European since the times of 
Marco Polo, but had executed, unaided, a survey of the whole 
route travelled. His very numerous observations for longitude 
and latitude had been computed by Mr. Ellis, of the Greenwich 
Observatory, and those for heights above the sea-level by Mr. 
Strachan, of the Meteorological Office. For this great service 
rendered to geographical science, the Council of the Society has 
just awarded him the Founder’s Gold Medal for 1873. 
Meteorological Society, May 21.—Dr. J. W. Tripe, pre- — 
sident, in the chair. The discussion was resumed on the follow- 
ing questions, which had been submitted to the consideration of 
the Meteorological Conference at Leipzig in August last :—No. 
18: Can uniform times of observation be introduced for the 
normal observations? Remarks were made by the president, 
Dr. Mann, Messrs. Glaisher, Symons, Sopwith, Scott, Bicknell, 
Salmon, and Strachan, as to whether local or Greenwich time 
should be used, and whether the hours of 9 A.M. and 9 P.M., or 
9 A.M., 3 P.M., and 9 P.M. should be recommended to observers, 
The meeting was of opinion that the hours of observation should 
be 9 A.M. and 9 P.M., and that local time should be adopted. 
The next question considered was No, 20: Division of the year 
for the calculation of mean results. After some discussion Mr. 
Sopwith suggested that a committee should be appointed to draw 
up a series of questions on all matters connected with this sub- 
ject, and that the same be sent to the Fellows of the Society 
requesting their reply on all or any of the questions; this 
suggestion was approved of and adopted by the meeting —A 
[Hume 5, 1873 
Australia, with the valuable contributions and discussions in 
regard to the same subject by MM. Broca, Hamy, and Rochet: 
These numbers give us a general exposition of the progress and 
actual position of the science of Anthropology, and of the social 
advancement of our civilisation and its effect in obliterating 
ethnological characters and in elevating the lower type. ; 
