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Dec. 7, 1882 | 
NATURE 
137 
soundings, the character of a ridge running from the north of 
Scotland to the Faroe fishing banks, an! separating, at depths 
exceeding 300 fathoms, the cold Arctic water with a temperature 
about 32° from the so-called Gulf Stream water on the Atlantic 
side with a temperature of 47° F. This ridge was traced in 
considerable detail by means of cross soundings directly across 
the channel, and the top was found to be on an average about 
260fathoms, beneath the surface. In the northern half of the ridge, 
however, a small saddle-back was found witha depth ofa little over 
300 fathoms, through which some of the Arctic water seemed to 
flow and to spread itself over the bottom on the Atlantic side of 
the ridge. The top of the ridge is entirely composed of gravel 
and stones, but mud and clay are found on either side at depths 
exceeding 300 fathoms, Many of the stones are rounded, and 
some of them have distinct glacial markings. They are fragments 
of sandstone, diorite, mica-schist, gneiss, amphibolite, chloritic 
rock, micaceous sandstone, limestone, and other minerals. The 
ocean currents here appear to be strong enough, at a depth of 
between 250 and 300 fathoms, to prevent any fine deposit, such 
as mud or clay, being formed on the top of the ridge. All the 
indications obtained of the nature of this ridge, seem to imply 
that it may be a huge (terminal ?) moraine. 
It is worthy of notice that the ‘‘ Wyville Thomson Ridge ’ is 
only a little to the east of the position marked out by Croll from 
the observations of Geikie, Peach, and others, as the probable 
limit of the perpendicular ice cliff formed in North Western 
Europe during the period of maximum glaciation. 
The dredging captures show the same marked difference as 
had previously been pointed out in the fauna of the two areas ; 
those in the cold area being of a distinctly Arctic character, and 
those in the warm area resembling the universally distributed 
deep-sea fauna of the great oceans. A fair proportion of new 
Species were also found. 
The last trip of the 772/on took place from Oban, on the 11th 
September, to the deep water in the Atlantic westward of 
Treland. The object of this trip was to get directly a deter- 
mination of the pressure unit of the guages employed in testing 
the Challenger thermometers. The original determinations were 
made indirectly by the help of Amagat’s results as to compression 
of air. The observations taken are not yet reduced, but several 
successful trials were made at depths of 500, S09, and 1,400 
fathoms. 
(To be continued.) 
M. MIKLUKHO-MACLAVY ON NEW GUINEA 
Os October 11 M. Miklukho-Maclay gave, at the Russian 
Geographical Society, the first of a series of lectures on his 
sojourn in New Guinea, These lectures have attracted great 
audiences. His remarkable collections of household articles 
and implements of Papuans and of various tribes of the Malacca 
Peninsula, and the many drawings reproducing scenes of the life, 
dwellings, graves, anthropological types, &c., of the natives, 
are exhibited in the rooms of the Geographical Society, and 
attract many visitors. 
M. Miklukho-Maclay left St. Petersburg in 1872, and went on 
board a Russian ship to New Guinea. He expressed the wish 
to be left there for at least a year, and it was fifteen months after 
his being landed that he was taken up by a ship which brought 
him to Batavia. His stay in New Guinea was beset with diffi- 
culties. He lived in a small hut, was short of provisions, which 
he had to supply by hunting, and his health was quite broken 
down. But he entered into very close relations with the natives. 
In Batavia he stayed for several years, and published (in 
German) the results of his anthropological and ethnological 
observations among the Papuans, on the Brachycephaly of the 
same, and on the climate of the ‘‘ Maclay-coast” in the Batavian 
scientific journal, Watuurkundig Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch 
Indie. A paper (in French) on the Vestiges of Art among the 
Papuans appeared in the Bulletin de la Société d’ Anthropologie de 
Paris for 1878. In 1876 he undertook a new journey on board 
the English schooner Sea Bird, and visited the Yap, Pelau, Ad- 
miralty, and Ninigo Islands, and went again to the coast of 
New Guinea, to which his name is now attached, An account 
of this journey has appeared in the Zzvestia of the Russian Geo- 
graphical Society and in Letermann’s Mittheilungen for 1879. 
During this second sojourn in New Guinea M. Miklukho- 
Maclay was lodged more comfortably, and was enabled to 
pursue scientific investigations (anthropological measurements 
and anatomical researches) with less difficulty, He also explored 
in a canoe, with natives, the coast of New Guinea between 
Cape Croaz and Cape Teliata. Having undertaken his adven- 
turous journey on his own account with but a little occasional 
support from the Geographical Society, M. Miklukho-Maclay 
was often in difficult circumstances ; but a few years ago a 
public subscription was opened by the Russian papers, and the 
Russian Society immediately came to his aid, thus enabling him 
to continue his researches, 
When in search of a place at which to study the customs and 
life of the primitive people at the lowest stage of culture, M. 
Maclay chose the north-western coast of New Guinea, close by 
Astrolabe Bay, which was never visited before by Europeans. 
Neither Dampier nor Dumont D’Urville, who both passed close 
by, had landed there. He built his hut between two Papuan 
villages, on a promontory that was occupied by nobody, At the 
beginning the Papuans wished him to go back whence he came, 
and obstinately showed him the sea; sometimes they launched 
their arrows close by him, but without wounding. By great 
endurance howeyer, by his good nature, and especially by a 
continuous self-control and severe watching over his own actions, 
M. Maclay soon won the confidence of the natives. He always 
strictly kept his word, even in the most insignificant cireum- 
stances, and therefore had afterwards the satisfaction of hearing 
the natives saying ‘‘ Balan Maclay hoodi” (‘The word of 
Maclay is one”), The natives used to call him Aaavam-tamo, 
‘*The Moonman,” partly on account of the supernatural capaci- 
ties they ascribed to him, and partly on account of his having 
once, when searching for something about his hut in the night, 
lighted a white signal-fire that was left from the ship which 
brought him. The first visits of M. Maclay to the Papuan vil- 
lages were a source of great trouble among the natives; the 
women were concealed and the men seized their arms. M. 
Maclay used then to announce beforehand his arrival by loud 
whistling, and the natives concluded he did not wish to do them 
harm. By and by he won the confidence of the natives to such 
an extent that an attack of a hostile tribe having been expected, 
his neighbours brought their women and children to his hut, to 
be under his protection. The war was thus prevented, and the 
authority of the ‘‘ Moon-man” was sufficient to prevent further 
wars. 
The natives of this coast are at the lowest stage of culture. 
Before M. Maclay’s arrival they did not know the use of metals, 
all their implements being made of stone, bones, and wood. 
They did not even know how to make fire. If the fire were 
extinguished in a hut, it was taken from another; it would be 
taken from a neighbouring village if extinguished in al] the huts 
of the village at once. ‘Their grandfathers told them of a time 
when they had no fire; then they ate their food quite raw, and 
a disease of the gums spread among them. ‘They do not bury 
their dead. The dead are put in a sitting position, the corpse is 
covered with leaves of the cocoa-palm, and the wife must keep a 
fire close by him for two or three weeks, until the corpse is 
dried. Corpses are buried only if there is nobody to keep the 
fire. 
M. Maclay left the Papuans with regret, when a passing 
schooner took him, in 1878, to Singapore. He expects for his 
friends the fate of {he inhabitants of the Melanesian Archipelago, 
where the population rapidly diminishes on account of the 
“kidnapping” of men and women to sell them into slavery, 
which is practised to a great extent by crews of ships of all 
nationalities of the civilised world. 
In his second lecture, M. Miklukho Maclay gave further in- 
formation with regard to the Papuans of New Guinea. Pre- 
vious anthropologists had admitted the existence of at least 
two different races in New Guinea, and had made a distinc!ion 
between the Papuans inhabiting the coast and those of the inte- 
rior. After several visits to New Guinea, as well to the 
coast, ‘as to the interior, M. Maclay came to the conclusion 
that this supposition is not correct. ‘The Papuans of the 
interior belong to the same race as those of the coast, and 
there is throughout New Guinea but one single Papuan race. 
Virchow found it also necessary, on the ground of craniological 
measurements, to distinguish the Papuans from the Negritos of 
the Philippine I lands, and to admit that the former are dolicho- 
cephalic, and the second brachiocephalic. Hundreds of mea- 
surements made by M. Maclay brought him to the conclusion 
that both types have their representatives even among the purest 
Papuans of the Maclay coast, and that the transversal diameter 
of the skulls of Papuans varies everywhere within so wide limits 
(62 to 86 per cent. of the length of the skull), that no classifica- 
tion can rest on this feature. It was stated also that a special 
