T02 
NATURE 
[Vov. 30, 1882 
justly undertake, and we might then expect to hear less 
of the little interest felt in the science by the general public. 
When we have an ‘‘applied anthropology” to our daily life, 
and a system of anthropology taught in our public schools, we 
shall wonder how it was that the science so long remained in 
the esoteric stage. However, paradoxical as it may seem for 
the writer to admit, no science has been illustrated by so many 
excellent handbooks and compendiums as anthropology. From 
the time of Prichard to the works of Lubbock, Peschel, and 
Tylor, there have always been competent workers and writers, 
and the last-named works represent the very essence of our 
knowledge on the subject. In the face of this there is still a vast 
and unrecognised mass of material waiting extraction from the 
total annual literature of each country. 
One other work requires compilation, and refers to the past. 
How frequently a traveller or missionary, anxious to write fully 
on thé people he has visited, and wishing at the same time to 
have his views enlarged by the opinions of others, inquires for 
the list of authors and authorities who have written on the same 
subject. With very tew exceptions such a desideratum is un- 
procurable, and yet if we would at present understand the social 
position of any tribe, however degraded or improved, the records 
of their earliest visitors must be compared with the narratives of 
their latest describers. This again can only be the work of a 
specialist, who, having carefully searched for and studied the 
literature relating to some particular tribe or race, would volun- 
tarily present his ‘‘ bibliography ” to students at large, and for 
that purpose endeavour to have the same published by his local 
or some other anthropological society. These lists, if once 
begun, would slowly accumulate, and would not only confer 
lasting fame 0. their compilers, but also, by their publication in 
the Zramnsactions of the societies devoted to the study of man, 
make the contents of those works more valuable by their pre- 
sence, and at the same time promote the absence of some 
memoirs which a further knowledge of the subject would render 
somewhat unnecessary. 
It is, however, only in the hope of further suggestions from 
other workers, that I have ventured to obtrude these remarks in 
the columns of NATURE, W. L. DIsTANT 
A Modification of the Goid-leaf Electroscope and a 
Mode of Regulating its Charge 
THOosE who experimentalise with the usual form of gold-leaf 
electroscope must know well that the instrument requires a vast 
amount of preparation and drying before it is ready for use, and 
also that in wet weather it keeps its charge but a little while. 
At the same time the electroscope when in good order is a beau- 
tifully sensitive instrument and of great value in demonstration. 
I have made a slight addition to the present form of instrument, 
which makes it useful in all states of the weather. A flat spiral 
is cut out of sheet ebonite with a fret saw, about 8 mm. wide, 
and 4mm. thick ; the diameter of the spiral is the same as the 
internal diameter of the glass shade; the spiral is cemented to 
the shade just below the line at which its dome begins; the 
centre of the spiral carries the brass rod t> which the gold leaves 
are attached ; the rod comes up through the top of the shade 
without touching it; thus a very long insulator is placed between 
the charged leaves and the surface of the shade ; on adamp day 
the leaves are powerfully divergent two to three hours after being 
charged. If instead of the spiral a little tube of ebonite takes 
the place of the usual varnish glass tube, the charge will be kept 
a fairly long while. 
If the same angle of divergence of the gold leaves be required 
in two similar electroscopes, charged, say, with electricity of 
opposite sign, this can be effected by fully charging each instru- 
ment, and then bringing a lighted candle about ten centimetres 
above the brass disc or knob of each ; by lowering or raising the 
candle, the charge can be drawn off as slowly as youplease. It 
is well known that a flame has been used ATTACHED to an elec- 
trometer in testing atmospheric electricity. Volta used a flame 
connected to an exploring rod, and in Sir W. Thomson’s elec- 
trometer a slow-burning match is used ; but it will be noticed 
that in the experiment I have described for regulating the charge, 
the flame is only held near the disc or knob, but is NoT allowed 
to TOUCH 1T. J also find, and it is very remarkable, that elec- 
troscopes can be fully charged by placing them about a metre 
from a charged jar, if a taper be now placed on the top of the 
jar, by means of an insulator the leaves instantly diverge and the 
electroscopes remain charged. FREDERICK JOHN SMITH 
Taunton, November 18 
Paleolithic Gravels 
THE subject of the preservation of human remains in drift 
beds has been so fully discussed by every author who has written 
on the antiquity of man, that it would be mere waste of space to 
reprint what has been so many times printed before. No doubt the 
day will one day arrive when we shall have plenty of examples of 
the osseous framework of paleolithic man; at tpresent but few 
of his bones have been found for study. Human bones are 
extremely liable to decay, but no doubt some of our palzolithic 
precursors are preserved somewhere ; they wiil be lighted on 
some day. 
In 1878 I had an opportunity of removing the stones from 
several cairns at Cynwil Gaio, in Carmarthenshire ; the kist- 
vaens or stone graves were then exposed. On carefully re- 
moving the covering stones from each kist, the place in which 
the human body was originally deposited was laid bare. ~ The 
soft, smooth bed of fine clay (brought from a distance) was there 
on which the body was placed at the time of burial, but not in 
a sinzle instance was there a trace of a bone, a tooth, or any 
relic whatever of the body; it had entirely vanished. Now if 
we can find nothinz in a grave that is only a very few thousands 
of years old, what can we expect from one that is tens or possibly 
hundreds of thousands ? 
When Prof. T. McK. Hughes lectured on the Antiquity of 
Man before the Victoria Institute he said (reprint p. 8): ‘*I will 
not waste time to discuss whether the objects we refer to man, 
now found in numbers in post-glacial river-gravels, are really of 
human work.” The Professor was quite right, for any one who 
can see any art in the Parthenon, or any human work in Raphael’s 
Cartoons, ought to see art in paleolithic implements; and, of 
its class, uncommonly good art too. But none are so blind as 
those who won’t see, and many persons have not strength of 
mind or courage enough to accept the teachings of their own 
reason. WORTHINGTON G, SMITH 
125, Grosvenor Road, Highbury, North 
Ancient Monuments 
WHILST in North Wales last autumn, I visited the famous 
Kist-Vaen, on Tynycoed Farm, Capel Garmon, not far from 
Bettws-y-coed. This is a sort of double subterranean cromlech, 
the single cap-stone now remaining being on a level with the 
ground. On two of the large upright supporting stones, two 
blockheads had painted their names in green oil-paint from top 
to bottom of the stones. The trouble of taking the green paint 
and brushes to this place must have been considerable, and I 
hope now that General Pitt-Rivers is appointed Inspector of 
Ancient Monuments, he will find these parties out, and make 
them take a pailful of turpentine, and rub out the offensive 
inscriptions, 
I also visited the two circles of stones, termed on the Ordnance 
Map Maenan-hirion, by Penmaenmawr, and looked out for the 
two outlying stones stated to be on the north-east side of the 
larger circle. I could not see them; there is a large naturally- 
imbedded boulder on the east-south-east side, but the inter- 
mediate one has been removed. Whilst I was at the smaller 
circle, I noticed that one of the stones had recently been pulled 
out of its setting, and was lying beside the hole. 
The great camp on Penmaenmawr was plentifully bestrewn 
with sandwich papers and empty bottles, but the immense walls 
and hut circles of our forefathers defy the efforts of excursionists to 
agreatextent. I, however, saw several of these terrible persons 
on the top, taking off the stones from the ancient walls and 
throwing them down beiow. 
I noticed several other stones in the neighbourhood of the 
circles that had recently been thrown over. 
In some of the more romantic and rocky situations in Wales— 
places visited by ‘‘ cheap trips” (as near Bettws)—the rocks and 
even highly-esteemed antiquities—as the elaborately carved road- 
side cross at Carew, Pembrokeshire—are plastered over with 
printe1 bills about auctions, tea-meetings, sermons, and quack 
medicine. WORTHINGTON G. SMITH 
125, Grosvenor Road, Highbury, N. 
Shadows after Sunset 
In reference to Mr. Douglas Archibald’s letter, I may say 
that in 1873 I made three drawings of the ‘‘Sheaf rays” 
at the Isle of Wight. In these they are marked as ‘‘con- 
