January 12, 1899] 



NA TURE 



255 



the Zoological Park appears to have become one of the estab- 

 lished institutions of the City of New York. The magnificent 

 site, and the fine biiTldings and enclosures which will eventually 

 be erected upon it, will give the people of the metropolis of 

 Greater America reason to be proud of their Zoological Park. 



Dr. Robert Munro writes to the Glasgow Herald with 

 reference to the archaeological remains recently discovered in 

 the estuary of the Clyde (see Nature, vol. Iviii. p. 48S), and 

 with which his name has been associated. He desires it to be 

 known that he does not endorse the opinions that have been 

 promulgated as to the age, structure, and marvels of the Dum- 

 buck crannog, for he regards it neither as a pile-structure nor 

 as a monument of Neolithic times. 



The curator of the Perak Museum at Taiping reports in the 

 Blue Book on the Straits Settlements (c-9108 of 1898) that the 

 museum is now overcrowded, and that there is consequently 

 much difficulty in arranging the collections in their natural 

 sequence, while there is practically no room for new specimens. 

 The Taiping collections are specially rich in the ethnological 

 and mineralogical branches, and the zoological specimens have 

 recently been greatly improved. The photographic and 

 botanical branches were extended during the year, and the 

 museum now contains a valuable section allotted to economic 

 botany. Investigations were carried out, with satisfactory 

 results, on the subject of insects attacking coffee, rice, and other 

 agricultural products, and some experiments were made in 

 connection with tapping rubber. Discussion has been going on 

 as to constituting the museum at Taiping a central museum, 

 supported by all the Federated Malay States. The curator 

 at Taiping suggests that local museums, of which one has 

 been in existence for several years in Selangor, and which, it is 

 to be hoped, will soon be established in the other States, might 

 either be affiliated to, or form branches of, the Federal museum. 

 On the other hand, the British Resident at Selangor urges that 

 the existence of a local museum creates and sustains in the 

 minds of the community an interest in local products, their 

 sources and uses, which cannot fail to be beneficial and deserv- 

 ing of encouragement, and it cannot be argued that people in 

 Selangor or the Negri Sembilan will obtain any advantage from 

 a museum in Perak, however complete, which few of them will 

 probably ever see. 



The January number of the Reliquary and Illustrated 

 Archaeologist contains a note on a paper recently read before 

 the Society of Antiquaries by Mr. P. Norman, on the discovery, 

 at Millfield, Keston, Kent, of a shallow, circular pit containing 

 nearly a thousand chips, flakes, and cores of flint. Mr. Norman 

 drew attention to the fact that a very large proportion of the 

 well-shaped flakes had lost their pointed end, consisting of 

 about one-fourth or one-third part of the entire -flake. This 

 had evidently been broken oft" purposely, and, as none of the 

 points were found among the debris, while many butt-ends 

 remained, it seemed probable that the flakes were produced for 

 the sake of their points. These were broken off and used as 

 arrow-heads, or for some purpose requiring sharp angular 

 points, and thus dispersed about the surface of the surrounding 

 country. A number of cores from which the flakes had been 

 struck, and some large pebbles which had apparently served as 

 hammers for detaching the flakes therefrom, were found lying 

 among the fragiiients of flint on what must have been the floor 

 of a Neolithic workshop. The hut in which this ancient 

 industry was carried on was about fourteen feet in diameter, 

 and its site was found under an accumulation of earth about 

 two feet thick. Evidence was given that the Millfield pit 

 formed one of the remarkable group of Neolithic hut circles on 

 Hayes Common, some of which had been excavated and 

 described ten years ago by Mr. George Clinch. 

 \U. 1524, VOL. 59J 



To determine the probable meteorological conditions likely 

 to prevail along the path of the total eclipse of the sun, which 

 will occur in the Southern States of America on May 28, 1900, 

 Prof. F. H. Bigelow obtained observations of the state of the 

 sky, and other meteorological conditions along the path of 

 totality, for the period from May 15 to June 15 in the years 

 1897 and 1898. The results for the former year have already 

 been referred to (vol. Ivii. p. 159), and those for the year 1898, 

 containing reports from eighty-seven stations, are given in the 

 latest number of the Monthly Weather Review (September 

 1898). Last year's observations give precisely the same result 

 as was obtained in 1897, namely : — The weather conditions in 

 the interior of Georgia and Alabama were better than in 

 Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi, and 

 Louisiana ; and it would be much safer for the eclipse expedi- 

 tions to locate their stations in the northern portions of Georgia 

 and Alabama, upon the southern end of the Appalachian 

 Mountains, where the track crosses the elevated areas, than 

 nearer the coast-line in either direction north-eastward towards 

 the Atlantic coast, or south-westward towards the Gulf coast ; on 

 the coast itself the weather is more unfavourable than in any 

 other portion of the track. — The inquiry will be repeated during 

 May and June of the present year. 



The reports issued by the Meteorological Office show that, 

 notwithstanding the stormy character of the weather during 

 December, and the almost continual succession of atmospheric 

 disturbances which reached our coasts from the Atlantic during 

 the latter part of the month, the rainfall during that period was 

 only in excess of the average in the north of Scotland, the north 

 of Ireland, and the southern and central parts of England. In 

 the Hebrides, which experienced the full force of many of the 

 storms, the excess was most marked, rain having fallen at 

 Stornoway on every day of the month, on five occasions the fall 

 exceeding an inch, and the total amount measured being little 

 short of 15 inches, or more than 9 inches above the average. 

 There was a considerable deficiency in the east and west of 

 Scotland and the north-east and north-west of England. 

 Reckoning from the beginning of the year, the only marked 

 excess above the average is 16 inches in the north of Scotland. 

 In all other districts, except Ireland, there is a considerable 

 deficiency, the greatest being about 7 '6 inches in the south of 

 England. 



The "enclosed " type of alternate-current arc-lamp is much 

 steadier in burning than its predecessors, it is therefore particu- 

 larly well suited to photographic investigations as to the nature 

 of arcs in general, using rapidly moving photographic plates. 

 Mr. N. H. Brown, in the Physical Review, vol. vii. pp. 210- 

 216, 1898, describes his experiments made with an " enclosed " 

 arc. The pictures obtained are not simply broad discontinuous 

 bands of light ; they exhibit, as a rule, a symmetrical arrange- 

 ment of bright patches, in more or less regular alternation, the 

 second patch being " reversed " to the first — like its image seen 

 in a plane mirror. The front end of each patch makes an 

 appreciable angle with the diameter of the plate, representing 

 that the arc starts from one side, and then from the other, 

 successively. The shape of the back ends of the bright patches 

 indicates that the light dies out first near the carb ons, and later 

 near the middle of the arc-space. The shape of the back and 

 front ends of the bright patches does not seem to depend upon 

 whether the current curve is or is not a true sine function. 



Prof. James S. Stevens's "Study of various styles of 

 cross-wires," in \he Journal of Applied Microscopy for October, 

 deals with a subject of such importance in astronomical and 

 other observations, that a short rc'sume oi the conclusions may 

 even now be of interest. Four styles of crossed wires were 

 experimented on ; in the first, the intersection of t«'o wires 



