“7 
Dec. 21, 1882] 
NATURE 
The Orang-sakays are very kind to their womenand daughters, 
who can even inherit the title of Patew. Their wedding customs 
contain survival of the cu-tom of stealing brides. On a day 
agreed to before, the bride, in presence of her parents and 
friends, runs away to the forests, and the bridegroom, who 
follows her after some time, must find her during a fixed lapse 
of time. If she does not wish to marry him she can always 
conceal herself in the w. ods so as not to be found. They have 
maintained also the communal marriaze, that is, the wife passes 
from one man to another fora certain time. They are much 
afraid of death, and if a member of the c»mmunity becomes 
seriously ill, they abandon him in the forest with a supply of 
food, and leave their huts for ever. 
In his fourth lecture, M. Miklukho-Maclay gave an account 
of his cruise amonz the i lands of the Malayan Archipelago, aud 
the islands of Micronesia and Melanesia, as well as of his work 
in Australia, The anthropological researches in the Malayan 
archipelago were far more successful than in Melanesia or New 
Guinea. He had no longer to deal with wild tribes, and the 
schools, hospitals, and prisons maintained by the Dutch on 
these islands gave him many op, ortunities for anthropological 
studies. M. Maclay thus made very numerous measurements 
and photographs of Malayans, which will afford the necessary 
materials for comparing them with other allied races. 
In 1876, when going for a second time to the Maclay coast of 
New Guinea, the indefatigable traveller had an opportunity of 
visiting the islands of Western Micronesia. He found there 
that the Micronesian race is very nearly akin to the Polynesian ; 
but still, he thinks it is most probable that it contains a mixture 
of Melanesian blood, which appears, especially in the more 
curly hair; in several instances (on the Pelan I-lands), the hairs 
were purely Melanesian, and the darkness of the skin and seve- 
ral distinctive features of the sull showed unmistakable traces 
of mixture with Melanesians. On the Lub, or Hermit Islands, 
M. Maclay found a mixture of Melanesians with Micronesians, 
and on the next group of islands, Escheker, or Eschikie, he 
discovered the true border-line of the straight-haired Micronesian 
race, The most important results of this },urney were published 
in the Sttzungsberichte der Berlina Gesellschaft fiir Anthropologie, 
&c., meeting of March 3, 1878. 
te In 1879 M. Maclay left Sydney on board an American 
schooner for a cruise among the islands of Melanesia. He 
visited New Caledonia, and journeyed in the interior of it, the 
Loyalty Islands, and many islands of the New Hebrides, 
making everywhere anthropological measurements and drawings. 
Many inhabitants of the New Hebrides proved to be brachio- 
cephalic. Thence he proceeded to the Santa Cruz Islands (where 
Commodore Goodenough, several sailors, and Bishop Paterson 
were killed by poisoned arrows), and made measurements of 
those natives who came on board the schooner. Reaching then 
the Admiralty Islands, he stayed there for two months, and 
was enabled to complete to a great extent the observations 
of the Challenger expedition. Visiting further the Lub or 
Hermit islands, which are said to have been peopled by a few 
natives Janded in a canoe from the Admiralty Islands, and 
where the Melanesians are continually crossed with Microne- 
sians, as the inhabitants bring every year sJaves and women from 
the Ninigo group—M. Maclay proceeded to the Trobrian group 
of islands which are very rarely v sited by Europeans, and thence 
to the Solomon and the Luisiadea Islands. The journey lasted 
for 409 days, out of which 237 were spent on shore. The 
results were as numerous as impo.tant, the chief of them 
being that brachiocephaly is far more usual in Melanesia than it 
was before ; indexes measuring 81, and even 85, being not rare. 
Further results of this journey were published in the /zvestia of 
the Russian Geographical Society for 1881, and in a letter to 
Prof. Virchow, which appeared in the Si/swngsberichte of the 
Berlin Society of Anthropology. 
M. Miklukho-Maclay concluded his journey by landing at 
Somerset, on the northern extremity of Australia, and at several 
places of the eastern coast, in order to make acquaintance with 
the black Australian race. Jt is: known that several opinions 
are current as to the origin of this race. Some anthropoloyists 
consider them as Papuans, while others consider them as 
Polynesians, and Prof. Huxley has made of them an independent 
race of Astraloids. As far as M. Maclay’s observations go, he 
1s inclined to consider them, like Huxley, as a race sui generis. 
But he intends to retura again to Australia in order further to 
study this question. 
When staying at Brisbane, M. Maclay undertook an excursion 
185 
into the interior of the country to see if there really exists an 
‘‘unhaired ” race, of which he was told in Europe. Close by 
Saint George’s Town, on the Ballon River, he discovered a few 
members of one family who really were representatives of the 
Atrychia universalis; they had only a dozen hairs on their 
eyelids, and said that they were already a third generation of 
unhaired people. More details of this occurrence of atrychia, 
together with observations on inherited yfertrichosis (hairs cover- 
in * all the body and face) were given by M. Maclay in a letter 
to Prof. Virchow which appeared in the Verhandlungen of the 
Berlin Anthropological Society for 1881, as well as several other 
papers on Australians (‘‘ Ueber die Mika Operation in Central 
Australien ; Langbeinigkeit der australischen Frauen,” &c.). 
At Brisbane M. Maclay had at his disposal very rich anthro- 
pological material for the study of the comparative anatomy of 
the brain of the Australian, Melanesian, Malayan, and Mon- 
golian races, as the authorities had given him all facilities for 
having fresh brains of representatives of all these races who died 
in the hospitals of the port, or were executed. The Survey 
Office of Brisbane offered him the use of its excellent photo- 
graphs, which rendered him very great services. This rich 
material, left mostly at Sydney, has not yet been worked out by 
M. Maclay; but he can already state that the brains of 
different races afford substantial differences in the development 
of the corpus callosum, the fons varolit, and the cerebellum, as 
well as in the relative development of nerves and in the grouping 
of the sinuosities of the great brain. 
Further interesting studies in comparative anatomy were made 
by M. Maclay on the brains of Marsupials, as well as of the 
Ornithorhynchus, the Echidna, and others. The chief occupa- 
tion of M. Maclay in Australia being thus comparative anatomy, 
he proposed to the Linnean Society of New South Wales to 
open a biological station where everybody could ‘‘ undisturbed 
and undisturbing”’ carry on biological and anatomical studies. 
The success which has met his proposal our readers already 
know of. The recently-founded ‘‘ Australian Biological Asso- 
ciation” will take care of the new station. 
The Geographical Society not having at its disposal the 
necessary sums for publishing the scientific work which M. 
Maclay proposes to publish, the Emperor has allowéd the sum 
of 2200/. for covering the expenses of the publication. 
THE RECENT AND COMING TOTAL SOLAR 
ECLIPSE S * 
“THE following note has been drawn up in anticipation of the 
detailed accoun s of the work done by me in Egypt on the 
eclipsed sun of 1882, May 17. which I am jreparing to lay 
before the Royal Society, because as the next total eclipse occurs 
next May, there is no time to be lost if any attempt is to be 
made to secure observations, and I am of opinion that such 
observations are most important. 
I have prefaced the statement of the work done by a reference 
to the considerations which led me to undertake it, and I have 
added a scheme of observations which, in the pre-ent state of 
our knowledge is, I think, most likely to produce results of 
value. 
1. In order to understand the recent change of front in solar 
research which has followed the introduction of the view of the 
possible dissociation of elemeutary bodies at solar temperatures, 
and suggested the later laboratory, and especially the later 
eclipse observations with which we are now chiefly concerned, 
we must first consider what facts we may expect on the two 
hypotheses. In this way we can see which hypothesis fits the 
facts best, an] whether there are any inquiries possible during 
eclip:es of a nature to throw light on the question. 
2. On the old hypothesis the construction of the solar atmo- 
sphere was imaged as follows :— 
(1.) We have terrestrial elements in the sun’s atmosphere. 
(2.) They thin out in the order of vapour den-ity, all being 
repre-ented in the lower strata, since the solar atmosphere at the 
lower levels is incompetent to dissociate them. 
(3.) In the lower strata we have especially those of higher 
atomic weight, all together forming a s)-called ‘‘ reversing 
layer” by which chiefly the Fraunhofer spectrum is produced, 
3. The new hypothesis necessitates a radical change in the 
above views. According to it the three main statements made 
in paragraph 2 require to be changed as follows :— 
ae Paper read at the Royal Society, Nov. 23, by J. Norman Lockyer, 
rRS 
