454 

Naturalist are able to announce that with the next number the 
size of the magazine will be increased to 40 pages. 
portant and interesting contributions are announced for 1872 ; 
and we hope that this useful magazine will meet with the support 
and circulation that it deserves. 
Pror. J. LAWRENCE SMITH, in the September number of 
the American Fournal of Science, gives the following analysis of | 
the meteorite stone which fell near Searsmont, Maine, on the 
21st of May of this year :— 
Nickeliferous Iron. . . hae 14°63 
Magnetic Pyrites. : 5 . . . 2 3°06 
Olivine 5 . A : 5 5 4 - 43°04 
Bronzite, a hornblende with a little albite or 
orthoclase and chromeiron . : a 5 Sey 
Ir is stated that a crater of a new volcano has been formed 
on the mountain near Bivoria in the province of Girgenti in 
Sicily. 
THE cyclone which visited St. Thomas and Antigua on the 
21st of August, continued its course towards the Bahamas, and 
reached Turks Island on the 22nd. The storm occupied about 
eight hours in travelling from St. Kitts to St. Thomas, 150 miles, 
and so had a rate of progress of about 18} miles per hour, but 
from St. Thomas to Turks Island the velocity decreased to 
about 121 miles per hour, taking about 31 hours to travel 380 
miles. 
A siicut shock of earthquake was felt at Kingston, Jamaica, 
at 4 P.M. on the 3rd of September. 
THE star showers of the roth and 11th of August last were 
attentively watched in America as in Europe. At Sherburne, 
New York, according to the American Journal of Science, a 
party of six persons watched between 11.40 and 12, and saw 48 
meteors. In the next hour 143 were seen, and in the first 
eighteen minutes of the next hour 32. The latitude of the 
radiant point was 14° less than that of the nebula in Perseus. 
Les Mondes gives the particulars of a remarkable meteorite ob- 
served at Marseilles by M. Coggia, on the Ist of August. It 
made its appearance at 10h. 43m., Marseilles mean time, at a 
point situated near the centre of the triangle formed by ¢ Serpen- 
tis and @ and 7 Ophiuchi. 
an easterly direction; at 10h. 45m. 30s. it passed between py, 
and p. Sagittarii, and at 10h, 46m. 35s. it almost occulted 
Saturn. The course became then still slower ; at 10h. 49m. 50s. 
it passed a little below o Sagittarii, and at 1oh. 50m. 40s. south 
of the star fof the same constellation. At 10h. 52m. 30s. it passed 
between « and @ Capricorni, where it remained for a moment 
stationary, then changing its course, it took a northerly direc- 
tion, leaving at Ioh. 57m. 50s. the star v Aquarii 1° 30’ to the 
west, and again stopping, at Ioh. 59m. 30s., a little south-west 
of B Aquarii. Regaining its original easterly direction, it then 
passed 8 Aquarii, stopping again near ¢ Aquarii, and then 
fell rapidly in a perpendicular direction near 6 Capricorni, 
and leaving to the east the almost full moon. 
peared a little north of @ Pisc. austral. at 11h, 3m. 28s. The 
diameter, which was at first about 15’, diminished rapidly, was 
a little over 4’ when it approached Saturn, and finally had 
scarcely more than the apparent size of Venus. During its 
perpendicular fall to the horizon, it gave out vivid scintillations. 
THE Times of India gives the following story :—Advices from 
Thangara state that at a place about forty miles distant on the 
hills, a thunderbolt fell on the 22nd of August after a heavy 
downpour of rain. The ground was literally cut up in conse- 
quence, and the whole of the huts standing there as well as their 
inmates were swallowed up in the chasm. Such a catastrophe 
has never been known in Sind. Some fifty or sixty persons 
perished. 
NATURE 
Several im- | 
The course was remarkably slow, in | 
It finally disap- | 

i 
[Oct. 5, 1871 

On the 11th of July a strong shock of earthquake was felt 
at Valparaiso in Chile, preceded bya loud rumbling noise. On the 
2oth, at II P.M., a very severe shock was felt at Santiago de 
Chile. 
THE following account of a hairy family appears in the Zdian } 
Daily News :—‘‘ The hairy family of Mandalay consists of a 
woman of about forty-five years of age, a man of twenty, anda 
girl of eleven, with hair over every part of their faces, forehead, 
nose, and chin, varying in length from three inches to a foot, 
and exactly the colour and texture of that onaskye-terrier. The 
hair of their heads, on the contrary, is just the same as on any 
ordinary Burman ; they appear to be quite as intelligent as the 
ordinary Burmans. The father of the woman was the first of the 
hairy progeny. He married an ordinary Burman woman, and 
the issue of the union was the present hairy head of the family. 
She married an ordinary Burman, and has issue, a son about 
twenty-three years of age, not hairy, and the boy and girl 
alluded to. The Burmese explanation of the phenomenon is, to 
say the least, curious, and might possibly possess a special 
interest for Mr. Darwin. These hairy people would be worth a 
fortune to the enterprising Barnum if he could get hold of them, 
but the King will not allow them to go out of his dominions.” 


SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE FROM 
AMERICA* 
HE fourth Annual Report of the Trustees of the Peabody 
Museum of American Archzeology and Ethnology has 
made its appearance, and presents a gratifying picture of the 
progress of this great establishment. The most important addi- 
tions during the year have been a collection of stone implements 
from Cape Cod presented by Mr. Samuel H. Russell, a series of 
duplicates from the Christie collection of London, and specimens 
obtained from explorations in Tennessee by Mr, Dunning, and in 
Central America by Dr. Berendt. These are supplemented by 
numerous single donations of greater or less value. In the course 
of some critical observations upon the specimens received by the 
Museum, attention is called to the great value of a collection of 
crania and human bones obtained from certain mounds in Ken- 
| tucky by Mr. S. S. Lyon, in the course of explorations made 
under the combined auspices of the Smithsonian Institution and 
of the Peabody Museum. The peculiarities of the crania of the 
American Indians have already been referred to by various 
writers, but some curious facts are detailed in the report in regard 
to other portions of the skeleton. Thus the ulna and radius, as 
compared with the humerus, were found to be much larger in 
the mound Indians, while the length of the tibia, as compared 
with the femur, is longer in the whites. In quite an unusual 
number of Indian skeletons the two fossze at the lower end of the 
humerus were found to communicate, producing a perforation, 
This feature, rarely met- with in the white races, occurs quite 
frequently in the mound remains, while in the black race it ap- 
pears to be still more frequent. An additional peculiarity of the 
mound bones consists in the flattening of the tibia, which, until 
the date of the present publication, has not been recorded as 
occurring in America, although remains from the dolmens of 
France, the quaternary drift of Clichy, and the burial caves of 
Cro-Magnon and Gibraltar, exhibit this in a very marked degree. 
As regards the pelvis, the breadth in ihe Indian races is found to 
be less than in the whites, while the three diameters of the brim 
of the true pelvis are greatest in the Indians. The transverse 
diameter and the size of the outlet of the pelvis are much the 
largest in the Indian, while the sacrum is less curved, 
supplying conditions which in the process of parturition 
are more favourable to the Indian women.—We have 
already referred at varioustimes to enterprises on the part of 
the Peruvian Government in exploring the less-known por- 
tions of that country, and we find in late South American 
journals details of a movement looking toward the examination 
of the regions of the Ucayale and Urubamba. The object of 
the expedition is to find a port which will open up to the Depart- 
ment of Cuzco a communication with the main branch of the 
Amazon, and thence to the Atlantic. The work is to be under 
the direction of Mr. Tucker, favourably known in similar enter- 
* Communicated by the Scientific Editor of Harper's Weekly. 

