Fune 16, 1870] 
Facial Urns”’ (Gesichts-arnex), which has been printed separately. 
Funereal urns, containing bones and ashes, have long been known, 
in museums, from Egypt and Etruria, the lids of which, gene- 
rally of stone, were fashioned into the shape of a human head, or 
that of some other animal. The human heads, if not portraits, 
are supposed to have at least indicated the condition of the de- 
ceased. In the course.of the last forty years facial urns have 
been discovered in mounds in various parts of Germany, mostly 
near the Roman settlements on the Rhine, but more recently in 
the neighbourhood of the watering-place Zoppot in Pomerania, 
but confined to a very circumscribed district, and exhibiting, 
according to Dr, Virchow, points of marked difference from those 
found in Rhenish Prussia. Many of these have well-developed 
human faces, others have rough drawings of animals, sometimes 
difficult to make out, scratched upon them, Similar urns are 
described as having been found in Mexico and Peru; but Dr, 
Virchow believes that the peculiar contour and form of orna- 
mentation of these North German urns indicate an Etrurian 
origin, and possibly point to a colonising of the Baltic from 
Italy. 
AT the last meeting of the Scientific Committee of the Horti- 
cultural Society, the Rev. M. J. Berkeley exhibited some speci- 
mens of the female form of Zychuis diurna, in which the flowers 
were infested with smut, and the stamens, usually abortive, were 
developed. Mr, Berkeley believes that ‘‘the Us¢i/ago penetrates 
the plant, but as it can only fructify in the stamens, it would 
appear to be the determining cause of the production of those 
organs in the normally female flower.” It is laid down as a rule 
in Mr. Darwin’s works that no change can take place in a species 
through the agency of Natural Selection unless the change is 
for the benefit of the species, It is difficult to see how the ab- 
normal production of stamens for the purpose of finding a home 
for the smut can benefit the Zychnis ; and it would be inte- 
resting to know whether vegetable physiologists generally will 
sanction the idea of such a power in the plant to develope organs 
which assist in its own destruction. 
WE have received a letter from Mr. Walenn pointing out 
that in our report of the meeting of the Chemical Society on 
May 19, we haye omitted to mention that the calico-printing 
roller which was exhibited was immersed for some days ina bath 
containing sulphuric acid and cupric sulphate, then coated with 
brass in an alkaline liquid, and finally coated with copper in an 
acid bath, A deposit, ;*; of an inch thick, weighing 29 lbs,, 
and of compact copper, was thus produced. 
THE Chemical News describes a new method of heating stone- 
ware vessels, and of obtaining regulated high temperatures, 
which will be of considerable importance in conducting chemical 
anc pharmaceutical operations for manufacturing purposes, 
By this new method, which has been patented by Mr, J. A. 
Coffey, the pharmaceutical engineer, any temperature ranging 
from 100° to 700° F. can be safely and easily obtained. The 
principle is to cause heavy paraffin oil to circulate, first through 
a coil of pipes in a furnace, and then through the jackets of 
the pans, It moves by its own convection, As contrasted 
with steam-heat, the inventor claims for his process a saving 
of 30 per cent. in fuel, the large amount of heat necessary to 
convert water at 212° F. into steam at 212° being economised, 
“THE Autotype Process ; being a practical manual of instruc- 
tion in the art of printing in carbon or other permanent pig- 
ment,” is a handsomely-printed pamphlet of 48 pp., very clearly 
written, and describing all the modern improvements in the 
process, which are considerable. 
which treat of the nature and history of carbon printing, its 
general practice, its special practice for non-inverted pictures, its 
special practice for inverted pictures, and concluding obserya- 
tions 
NATURE 
It is divided into five parts,” 
129 
ETHNOLOGY 
The Meenas of Central India 
Lieut-Cot, C. L. SHowers has communicated to the Pro- 
ceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, a paperuy'on the Meenas, 
a wild tribe of Central India. Lieut.-Col. Showers says, that 
when the Meenas first fell under his observation in the year 1854, 
they were in a condition of entire lawlessness. Emboldened by 
long impunity they carried their audacity so far as to attack and 
pillage several walled towns in the British district of Ajmur, 
carrying off not only the entire plunder to their hill fastnesses, 
but numbers of the inhabitants also, holding them to ransom. 
At that period it fell to the duty of Lieut.-Col. Showers to take 
them in hand. He proceeded to Jehazpoor, the centre of the 
disturbed district, and inaugurated certain measures for the 
tranquillisation and reclamation of the race. From time im- 
memorial, Jehazpoor, in the State of Adeypoor, had been a 
notoriously disturbed district, A period of brief tranquillity was 
accorded to Jehazpoor during the early part of the present 
century by the appalling severity of the measures of the noted 
minister Lalim Sing, after Jehazpoor fell into the possession of 
Kotah in 1806. On the restitution of the district, however, to 
Meywar, in 1819, it soon relapsed into its former disturbed 
condition. Jehazpoor was, in truth, a position well chosen for 
the lawless occupation of professional marauders, being a strong, 
hilly, and jungly country, where the boundaries of four jurisdic- 
tions meet, viz.— Meywar, Boondee, Jeypoor, and Ajmur. 
There are twelve tribes of Meenas in Central India, but the one 
under notice is called the Purihars, who were the dominant race 
in Marwur, till dispossessed of their ancient capital Mundore by 
the Rhatees towards the close of the fourteenth century. Ina 
generation or two afterwards they are found in the Chronicles 
lurking on the quadruple boundary already alluded to, a race of 
outcasts without a common head; and such they have continued 
eyer since, “their hand against every man, and every man’s hand 
against them,” plundering in gangs and joining any of the great 
marauding movements that have from time to time been organised 
under noted leaders, Thus in 1847, some of the boldest of the 
outlawed Thakur Javahir Singh’s followers were these Meenas. 
The same indomitable spirit which carried the Purihars forth out 
of the land of their lost dominion seems to have maintained 
them in a state of wild independence throughout the long 
interval since; for though nominally owing allegiance to the 
States upon the verge of whose territories it has suited their 
purpose to locate themselves in /a//ahs or gangs, they have 
never really succumbed to any power, but, hanging together 
as one man, have always united to repel the frequent futile 
attempts that have been made from time to time by the rulers 
of States to coerce any of their Meena subjects, so-called, 
The aggregate of male adults in the tribe is about 24,000; 
of this number about 10,000, distributed in 200 villages, 
are located along these border tracts. Individually the men are 
brave to desperation, athletic and hardy, many of them tall with 
fine countenances, denoting their superior origin. The Meena 
will neither eat, smoke, nor intermarry with the aboriginal 
Buhl, Mair, Kole, or low-caste Meena of the Arayulla ; that is 
to say, he will not give a daughter in marriage, though he will 
take to his bed as many daughters of inferior tribes as he can 
support. Their pride of birth is indeed excessive, fostered by 
traditions ascending beyond the bounds of history to the regions 
of myth. ‘The genealogist of the tribe is the honoured guest in 
every village he visits in his annual round. Each family engages 
his company for one entire day, which is occupied in recording 
in the ponderous MS. volume the recent additions to the family 
tree, whether in the male or female branch; for even the 
ancestry of the women is duly recorded, About half the tribe 
are armed with matchlocks of a superior manufacture, about 
half with the bow, and all with the kattar, or double-hilted 
dagger, which is a weapon they peculiarly affect. It is a weapon 
never detached from the person a moment, waking or sleeping. 
Free from the ordinary prejudices of caste, the Purihars are 
great eaters of meat, which their cattle-lifting raids furnish in 
profusion, They are also great drinkers of spirits, which serve 
to increase their natural ferocity. All are married, and many 
besides take in keeping the widows of their deceased clansmen 
to the number of two or three each, or otherwise forcibly domi- 
cile women abducted in their raids, Perhaps the most note- 
worthy fact relating to the tribe was their ignorance, up to the 
day of Lieut-Col. Showers’ arrival among them, of the true 
character of the British Government as the paramount power 
