184 
NATURE 
[ Dec. 21, 1882 
stable solution of the protochloride is obtained ; but when water 
is added to the solution hydrogen is evolved and gallium 
perchloride is produced. 
HERR SCHWARZ describes (in Berichte der Deut. Chem, Ges., 
xv. 2505) three lecture experiments illustrative of the action of 
zinc on sulphur : 2 parts of fine zinc powder are carefully mixed 
with 1 part of flowers of sulphur, and the mixture is ignited by 
an ordinary match ; combination occurs with evolution of much 
light. Vapour of carbon di-ulphide is passed over zinc powder, 
which is gently heated in a piece of glass tubing ; zinc sulphide 
is produced, and a considerable quantity of carbon is separated. 
Sulphuretted hydrogen is passed through carbon disulphide, and 
the mixed gases are then conducted over hot zinc powder ; zinc 
sulphide is produced, and a gas, which is passed through potash 
and collected in a small gas-holder; this gas burns with a 
slightly luminous flame, and explodes when mixed with air; it 1s 
marsh gas, 
NIson has prepared the rare metal thorium in considerable 
quantity, and determined its atomic weight to be 232°35, specific 
gravity about 11, and atomic volume about 21 (Berichte, xv. 
2519). 
M. MIKLUKHO-MACLAY ON NEW GUINEA 
AMONG the queries that were submitted to M. Milukho- 
Maclay before his departure from Europe, was one of 
Karl von Baer, who advised the traveller to visit the Philippine 
Islands, and to bring home several skulls of the natives, in order 
to ascertain whether the primitive inhabitants of these islands 
are brachiocephalic, or not. During a five days’ stay of the 
clipper /zumrud at Manila, M. Maclay visited the Mariveles 
mountains, and discovered there Negritos who lived in their 
Pondos, or small huts made out of palm-tree leaves. Numerous 
measurements (favoured by the custom of the men shaving the 
back of the head) proved that they really are brachiocephalic, 
the index being no less than 87°5 to 90 ‘Their size is altogether 
small ; one wo.nan, mother of two children, measured only 1°30 
metre. Their faces proved to be very much like those of the 
Papuans of New Guinea, while their customs are much akin to 
those of the inhabitants of many Melanesian islands. For 
instance, when M. Maclay threw some remains of food in the 
fire, the Negritos immediately extinguished it, and asked him 
not todosoagain. The same prejudice exists with regard to 
spitting in the fire (a very widely-spread prejudice, we may 
observe, as it exists also in Russia and Siberia). Another in- 
teresting custom of the Negcitos is that everybody, before eating, 
must loudly shout out several times, an invitation to partake 
of his food, to all those who may be in proximity. This custom 
is very rigidly observed, and those who do not comply with it 
are punished, even by death. 
In August, 1874, M. Miklukho-Maclay undertook a journey 
into the interior of the Malay peninsula, in order to settle the 
question as to the race of its inhabitants—the Orang-Sokays and 
the Orang-Semongs—about which question there existed a con- 
troversy between Messrs. Logan, Newbold, Crawford, and 
Waitz. M. Maclay went, therefore, from Singapore to Johore, 
The Maharajah of Johore received him very kiadly, and gave 
him the necessary men for the journey, as well as orders to his 
subjects to help him in every way during his journey. In ex- 
change, M. Maclay was bound to prepare a map of the domi- 
nions of the Maharajah. The Russian traveller crossed the 
Johore country twice—from west to east and from north to south, 
The journey was very difficult, on account of the rainy season ; 
the rivers and streams had inundated the couutry, even the 
woods, and the party had to walk in water that reached to the 
knees, and often to the breasts of the oxen. For seventeen 
consecutive day; they were quite wet, as well as their baggage. 
Reaching thus the mouth of the Moar river, M. Maclay jour- 
neyed up this river in a flat boat, passing by Malayan villages, 
reached its confluence with the Pallon, and went up the last 
river, At its sources he discovered in the woods the first hats of 
the so-called ‘‘orang-utanss.” This name is given by the 
Malayans, not to the ape, Pithecus satyrus—they never call apes 
by the name of ‘‘orang,” but to ‘“‘forest-men.” ‘* Orang” 
signifies ‘‘man,” and ‘‘utang” a forest. Therefore the Malay- 
ans say orang-bukit (men of the hills), ovanzg-u/a (men at the 
source of a river), orang-dalah, orang-lau¢ (men of the interior 
of the sea-shore), and soon. However, the name orang-ulang 
* Continued from p. 138. 
could be applied also to a Malay who stays ia the woods, but 
still it is used to designate a tribe of Malays crossed in various 
degrees with Papuans, as also with Melanesians. 
Though the different tribes M. Maclay met with during his 
journeys in Johore differ from one another, still none of them are 
Melanesians. They forget their primitive language, and adopt 
that of the Malays. M. Maclay presumes that formerly they 
had several languages, and were divided into several tribes ; 
some difference still remains in their customs. They are at a 
very low stage of human culture. They wander in the woods, 
and only occasionally come to stay in their mi.erable huts. The 
Malays distinguish two different tribes of orang-outangs: the 
orang-outang-dina (or tame, who are in intercourse with them), 
and the orang-outang-liar, quite nomadic. These last use a 
weapon, sa#mpitan, which deserves to be mentioned. It consists 
of a hollow bamboo cylinder, two metres long and two or three 
centimetres wide, through which they blow against their enemies 
very light poisoned arrows, as large as knitting-needles. The 
end of these arrows breaks, and remains in the wound, The 
Malays say that the slightest scratch of such an arrow kills a man 
in ten or fifteen minutes. M. Maclay purchased quantities of 
their poison, which proved always to be made of a condensed 
infusion of the bark of the Javan tree, Aztiaris toxicoria, or 
Upas, to which different tribes add other poisons, such as the 
poison of snakes, of poisonous kinds of strychnis, &c. A small 
prick of a poisoned arrow kills a dog or a cat, the death being 
accompanied by tetanus or not, according to the secondary 
poisons added to the chief one. The Orang-outangs are rapidly 
disappearing since they were driven by Chinese and Malayans 
from the sea-shore to the woods of the interior. Besides, the 
Chinese and Malays purchase their best-looking and healthier 
girls, leaving them the feeblest, who leave but a weak progeny. 
The children from the Malays and Orang-outang girls are far 
more like the former than the latter. 
After having crossed the Johore couatry from the mouth of the 
Moar River to the entrance of the Indan into the Chinese Sea, 
that is, from west to east, M. Maclay crossed the same country 
from north to south, that is from the Indan to the Selat-tebran 
Strait, which separates Singapore Island from the mainland. 
He contracted, of course, a stronz fever during this journey, fifty 
days long, and went to Bangkok, There he happened to receive 
from the King of Siam a letter to his vassals of the Malay 
peninsula, enj ining them to help M. Maclay during his further 
travels on the peninsula, Provided with this recommendation, 
the Russian traveller undertook a most adventurous journey, 
namely, to walk from Johore to Siam. It was considered by all 
his acquaintances as quite impossible, but he accomplished it, as 
the small rulers of the southern part of the Malay peninsula did 
not venture to stop him on his way, and preferred, each of them, 
to despatch him to the next ruler. In this way M. Maclay 
reached Siam, after a journey that lasted for 176 days. 
In the mountains at the sources of the Pakkan River, M. 
Maclay finally met with undoubtedly pure Melanesians, Orang- 
Sakays, and made on them a few anthropol gical measurements. 
They ditfer as much from the Malayans, as the Malayans differ 
from the Papuans, and are like the Nesritos of Luzon. The 
height of the men varies between 1°46 and 1°62 metres, and 
that of the women from 1°35 to 1°48; the skull is nearly 
brachiocephalic, that is, the widest is between 74 to 82 for men, 
75to $4 for women, and 74 t» 81 for children. ‘The diameter 
of the curls of the hairs is the same as with the Papuans, that is, 
from 2 to 4 millimetres. The colour of skin is between the 
numbers 28 to 42, and 21 to 46 of the table of Broca. The 
plica semilunaris, oc the so-cilled palabra tertia, is more deve- 
loped than with other races ; its width reiches sometimes 5 and 
5°5 millimetres, instead of the 1°5 to 2 millimetres of the 
Caucasian race. Finally the Orany-sakays have also a fold of 
the skin at the interior corner of the eye which is known, when 
pathologically developed, under the name of Zprcanthus. Like 
the Orang-utangs they are disappearing; they nomadize in 
forests, stopping at a few places to mass collections of camphor 
and caoutchoue tree, of rotang and elephant bone, which they 
exchange with Malays for tobacco, salt, iron knives, and various 
rugs which they use for their dress. The dress of the men 
consists of a girdle, a part of which covers the ferinacum: the 
women have alsu a girdle of rotang, to which two rugs are 
adjusted. The women are tattooed by lines and round spots. 
The Orang-sakays, like other Melanesians, put in the partition 
of the nose the Aayanmsh, that is, a long stick of bamboo, or a 
spike of the //ystria. 
on 
