Oct. 26, 1871 | 

NATURE 
519 

of the cotton, and the extent of the disaster to the fact of the 
utterly needless stowage of large quantities of the manufactured 
article in the factory itself. 
THE Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologie (1871, Heftiii.) begins with the 
second number of a series of papers by A. Ermann, entitled 
** Ethnographic Observations on the Coasts of Bering’s Sea.” 
The author passes in review the various articles of food and the 
vessels and methods employed for its preparation among the 
‘numerous tribes inhabiting the islands, coastlands, and interior of 
North-Western America ; and he endeavours from his observa- 
tions of this phase of domestic life to deduce conclusions in 
reference to the identity, or differences of origin, of these races. 
Herr Ermann draws attention to the fact that the Aleutians, like 
the people of Kamtschatka, subject some kind of fish to a pro- 
cess of fermentation before eating it, and that these, as well as 
all the neighbouring races, show a decided repugnance to the use 
of salted food, and ascribe to their abstinence from such a diet 
their superiority over the Russians both as regards length of 
vision and the continuance of unimpaired sight to old age. 
Heated stones thrown by means of wooden tongs into a wooden, 
or basket-work vessel, were everywhere found to be in frequent 
if not universal use as a substitute for our methods of boiling ; 
and where vessels of a large size were required for preparing 
blubber, their wooden boats were used for the purpose, and the 
oil poured into bladders to be kept, not only to light their dwel- 
lings, but also to heat them by means of their bone lamps, known 
as sirnikt. The Aleutians are the most advanced of all the tribes, 
and have amalgamated so thoroughly with the Russians, among 
whom they have lived, that it is difficult at first sight to detect 
their national characteristics from those which they have borrowed 
from their conquerors. In physiognomy they differ, however, 
very strikingly, and their dark, yellowish-brown skins and ob- 
liquely cut eyes remind one of the Mongolian type. The author 
treats of the sexual relations of the Aleutians, their early mar- 
riages, and the forms of polygamy and diandry practised among 
them; and describes their singular social houses, in which from 50 
to 200 individuals live together in one house of considerable size 
(180 feet in length), sunk ten or fifteen feet below the surface of 
the ground. This paper, which is exhaustive as far as it goes, 
concludes with a notice of the boats, modes of navigation, and 
hunting, and of the weapons of these people, whose history has, 
in the present day, acquired special interest since the purchase 
of Rus-ian America by the Americans. We have next a paper 
on the ‘f Archzological Remains of Brandenburg,” by the Prus- 
sian district judge, Ernst Friedel. It possesses scarcely more 
than a local interest, except in regard to the notice of the lost 
town in Blumenthal, the name and age of which are unknown, 
and whose history seems clouded in mystery. In 1689 the 
walls were stiil standing six feet above the ground, and the 
foundations of a church, of two large buildings conjectured 
to have been a castle, and of a townhall, could still be traced, 
with the well-defined positions of outer walls, gates, fosses, 
main and transverse streets, &c.; yet long before that 
time all knowledge of the place had been lost. When Prof. 
Beckman recorded its condition in 175t (in his ‘* History of the 
Maregravate of Brandenburg ”’), a thick growth of trees had nearly 
obliterated the stone outlines of this lost town. Judge Friedel 
last visited the spot in 1870, at which ume the walls had dis- 
appeared, but there remaine i traces of graves and of the founda- 
tions ot Cyclopean walls, which, together with the presence of 
the so-called Semnonian stone, known in the district as the 
‘Stone of the Marches,” inclined him to the opinion that we 
have here the site of a prehistoric seat of worship, with irs sur- 
rounding habitations. ‘The stone, which lies at the foot of an oak, 
is about seven feet in length and six feet in width. The author 
is of opinion that the traditions and remains of the lost town of 
Blumenthal may re’er to two widely separated periods ; and that it 
may bea station of the ancient Semnones re-occupied in the roth, 
11th, and 12:h centuries, or later ; many German villages having 
become extinct in tho e troubled times, ani even during the 
Hussite and other religious wars, 
Tue A. Danske vid, Selsk Fork. contains an interesting paper, 
incorporated in the Z. (7. Ethnologie, by Prof. A. C. Ocrsted, on 
the S7/phium of the ancients, which formed the staple commerce 
of the Roman colony of Cyrene, in North Africa, the present 
Barka. It was esteemed a great luxury by Greek and Roman 
epicures, who used its milky juice, mixed with meal, to give 
piquancy to their food, and employed it likewise medicinally. 
Under the rule of the Ptolemies the trade fell off, until at length, 
under the Emperor Nero, the consignment of one plant of the 


Silphium was deemed worthy of record. From a careful exami- 
nation of the representations of this plant with its fruit on the 
coins of Cyrene, Prof. Oersted is led to infer that the much 
coveted Silphium was nearly allied to the Marthex asafwtida, 
found by Falconer in Northern Kaschmir, and since cultivated 
with success in the Botanical Gardens in Edinburgh, and he gives 
two plates in illustration of his opinion, one of which shows the 
Narthex reduced to the size of the plant delineated on the 
Cyrenian coin, the other being a /acsimle of the coin itself. The 
resemblance between the two is most striking. 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 
Paris 
Academy of Sciences, October 16.—M. Chasles commu: 
nicated some theorems concerning the determination of a series 
of groups of points ona geometrical curve.—M. P. A. Favre 
read a continuation of his thermic investigations upon voltaic 
energy, in which he described the results obtained under various 
conditions with batteries consisting of a plate of the alloy of palla- 
dium and hydrogen in dilute sulphuric acid and of a plate of plati- 
num in solution of sulphate of copper. He tabulates his results, 
and also gives the results of experiments on the electrolysis of the 
acids employed.—M. Lecoq de Boisbaudran presented a memoir 
on some points of spectrum-analysis and on the constitution of 
induction-sparks.—M. F. M. Raoult presented a memoir giving 
the results of investigations of the calorific coefficients of the 
hydro-electric and thermoelectric currents, from which he con- 
cludes that the heat evolved by an electric current is independent 
of the nature of the battery employed, the calorific coefficient Ke 
being the same for all sources of voltaic electricity. —M. Delau- 
nay noticed the reappearance of Tuttle’s comet, which was dis- 
covered at Marseilles by M. Borelly on the night of the 12th 
13th October. The reappearance of this comet at the time cal- 
culated is important as confirming its supposed identity with the 
second comet of 1790.—M. Chasles replied to the remarks made 
by M. Bertrand at the last meeting on the subject of the Arabian 
astronomer, Aboul Wéfa.—M. Berthelot communicated a further 
note on his researches upon the ammoniacal salts of the weak 
acids, relating chiefly to certain thermic phenomena observed 
when a solution of carbonate of ammonia is mixed with solu- 
tions of other alkaline carbonates.—A note by MM. C, Friedel 
and R D. Silva on the action of chlorine upon various bodies of 
the series in C® and on the isomers of trichlorhydrine was read. — 
M. Marey communicated a note on the duration of the electric 
discharge in the torpedo, in continuation of a note presented by 
him to the last meeting. 
PHILADELPHIA 
Academy of Natural Sciences,—April 18.—Mr, Vaux, 
Vice-President, in the chair.—Prof. Leidy made the follow- 
ing remarks on some extinct turtles from Wyoming Territory, 
Several species of extinct turtles from the tertiary deposits 
of Wyoming differ from those previously described by me 
from the same formation. They are indicated by imperfect, 
though sufficiently characteristic, remains, sent to me by Dr. 
J. Van A. Carter, of Fort Bridger; and by others obtained 
during Prof. Hayden’s exploring expedition the last year,— 
“*Anosteira omata.” One of the turtles is founded upon 
a number of isolated plates and tragments of others of the caras 
pace of about four different individuals, obtained from Church 
Buttes and Grizziy Buties, Wyoming. The specimens are mainly 
marginal, includiug two pygal plates. The latter are remarkably 
thick at the fore part, where they are ho!lowed into a concavity 
directed forward, and bounded below by a projecting ledge. 
This concavity continues outward and forward upon the contigu- 
ous marginal plates as a groove, bounded by an inferior ledge, 
which would appear gradually to b-come narrower, and disappear 
at the third marginal plates in advance. he upper part of the 
pygal plate slopes on each sde froma median acute ridge, or 
carina, which subsides at the posterior third. The marginal and 
pygal have all been conjvined with the costal plates by suture, 
and the former in addition by gomphosis, as in living emydes. 
The iree surfaces oi the plates are closely covered with radiant 
elevations. These ceatrally form rounded tubercles and periphe- 
rally more or less interrupted ridges with more or less interrupted 
branches. Ajparently in younger p.ates the elevaiions form 
| more coutinuous radia it and branching ridges, which would ap- 
pear in older animals to have become more and more broken so 
as to form rounded tubercles. In some specimens the radiant 
