March 25, i 



NATURE 



489 



Since the above has been in type we have received the 

 report of the annual general meeting of the Society, held 

 in the great hall of the Engineering College of Tokio on 

 January 23, amongst those present being some of the 

 most prominent members of the Japanese Government, 

 and many representatives of foreign Powers in Japan. 

 The annual report stated that the Society now numbers 

 over 6000 members, scattered over the various provinces 

 of the Empire. A proposition having for its aim the 

 retention of the old syllabary system of spelling, was 

 rejected by a large majority in favour of phonetic sim- 

 plicity, as above described. The Minister for Foreign 

 Affairs, Count Inoue, delivered a speech, in which, view- 

 ing the aims, methods, and probable future of the Society 

 from a great variety of standpoints, he expressed his 

 complete sympathy with the movement. The British 

 Envoy, in describing the objects of the Association, said : — 

 " We aim at nothing less than one of the greatest changes 

 ever yet made in the history of literature, or indeed, I 

 may say, of the world. We hope to bring the thoughts 

 of a nation of 37,000,000 into closer communion and 

 intercourse with the thoughts of the rest of the world, 

 and by freeing memory from the task of learning many 

 thousands of characters, the sense of which can be satis- 

 factorily rendered by a couple of dozen letters, to give the 

 intellect some leisure to acquire the many and varied 

 branches of learning which the necessities of modern 

 civilisation render so important to us all." 



THE SURVEY OF INDIA 1 

 II. 

 T N our first notice we reviewed the principal topo- 

 ■^ graphical and cadastral operations. We have now 

 to review the interesting information regarding the physio- 

 graphy of the localities of operation and other subjects 

 which is scattered over the Report, but chiefly in the 

 appendixes. 



The Andaman Islands were being brought under survey 

 for the first time ; they form a portion of the belt of 

 islands extending from the south-west point of the Burman 

 mainland to the north-west point of the great Island of 

 Sumatra, which are all that is now left of what was pro- 

 bably once a long, tapering off-shoot from the Asiatic 

 continent, such as we still have in the Malayan Peninsula. 

 These islands became of interest to the Government of 

 India only of late years, when a convict settlement was 

 established at Port Blair, on the South Andaman Island ; 

 but as yet little intercourse has been established with the 

 inhabitants, who are wild and barbarous aboriginal 

 Negritos with very dark skins and of very small stature. 

 They are said to consist of nine distinct tribes known as 

 Akas, which occupy separate islands and speak different 

 dialects. Our influence has been most operative on the 

 Aka-Bojigngiji, who are settled nearest Port Blair, and our 

 relations with some of the other tribes are said to be on a 

 fairly friendly footing, but very little is known about them, 

 and nothing of the interior of the islands which they 

 inhabit. 



The Aka-Jdrawas, who occupy the Little Andaman, have 

 ever been openly hostile ; they are professional wreckers 

 whom it has been necessary to punish on more than one 

 occasion for barbarities perpetrated on shipwrecked crews, 

 but they still retain their reputation for treachery and 

 cruelty, and hold aloof from friendly intercourse ; of late 

 years they have been visited annually by the Chief Com- 

 missioner, and presents have been made tothem witha view 

 to bringing about more amicable relations, but they have 

 been known to accept the proffered presents and then 

 attack the bearers on their way back to their boats ; their 

 language is said to be unintelligible to the anglicised or 



' ''General Report on the Operations of the Survey of India Department, 

 administered under the Government of India during 1883-84." Prepared 

 under the direction of Col. G. C. De Free, S.C., Surveyor-General of India. 

 Continued from p. 444. 



tamed Andamanese, who are employed as a go-between ■ 

 The Survey officers landed on the island and deposited 

 presents on the beach, and then retired to their boats ; 

 the Jarawas advanced and appropriated the presents some- 

 what sulkily and retired into their forests, and consequently 

 nothing could be done with them ; but their dwelling- 

 places were entered and examined by the surveyors in 

 their absence. These were found to be substantial, well- 

 built huts, affording shelter for from 30 to 40 people, circular, 

 dome-shaped, about 60 feet in diameter, and rising to a 

 height of some 35 feet in the centre ; the dome was 

 thatched, and supported on long poles set up in three con- 

 centric circles within the hut. Small cots and a rocking- 

 cradle were found inside ; and all round the interior pigs' 

 skulls, beautifully cleaned and neatly bound up, were 

 closely arranged about three feet from the ground. 



Barren Island (lat. 12' 15' by long. 93° 50') and the 

 Island of Narcondam (13° 26' by 94° 16') were visited and 

 surveyed by Capt. Hobday, whose exquisitely shaded maps 

 of these interesting volcanic islands are published with his 

 report Barren Island is circular in shape with a diameter 

 of 2 miles and an area of 3'07 square miles. Its principal 

 features are a main crater and an inner cone. The main 

 crater is elliptical in shape, with axes of li and i mile, the 

 walls rising to a height of 11 58 feet above the sea-level on 

 the south-east, and sinking down to the sea on the north- 

 west ; the cone is about half a mile in diameter at its base, 

 and rises 1015 feet above the sea, terminating in a small 

 elliptical crater, with axes of 300 and 190 feet and a maxi- 

 mum depth of 74 feet. Steam and smoke were issuing 

 from the highest point of the cone ; sulphur was found in 

 large quantities near the vent, at a temperature sufficiently 

 high to be felt through the boots. There was evidence of 

 three distinct outbursts of lava on the sides of the cone, 

 half-way up ; the slopes were coated with fine volcanic ash, 

 which made the ascent very laborious ; loose cinders and 

 scoriffi of various sizes lay heaped together in confused 

 masses around the base, amid which occasional tongues 

 of alluvial soil, overgrown with thick grass, were found 

 jutting from the inner slopes of the main crater ; the outer 

 slopes were covered with thick vegetation, the principal 

 tree being a species of fig. The island was infested with 

 rats, which had not yet learnt to become shy of man, and 

 were readily knocked over with sticks ; bats and large 

 crabs were found on the summit of the main crater. The 

 outer slopes of the main crater would, if prolonged, meet 

 in a point immediately above the present apex of the cone ; 

 thus it is conjectured that the crater was originally a true 

 cone rising to about twice its present height, and that the 

 upper portion has been carried away by a violent eruption, 

 such as recently occurred at Krakatab, leaving the present 

 truncated crater. The volcano is known to have been in 

 an active state towards the end of the last century ; since 

 then it has been gradually cooling, and the temperature of 

 a hot spring on the beach was found to be considerably 

 less than it had been when measured by previous 

 visitors. 



The Island of Narcondam is about ih miles in length 

 by It in breadth, and rises to a height of 2330 feet above 

 the sea ; it is composed of trachytic lava, but no trace of 

 any crater was discerned. The slopes were covered with 

 dense forest, but water was not found anywhere ; flocks of 

 hornbills or toucans, uttering a peculiarly shrill note, 

 followed the surveyors on their way to and from the sum- 

 mit ; and a large iguana, with long prehensile claws, was 

 captured and sent to the Museum at Calcutta. 



In Assam a raid of the semi-savage Akas who inhabit 

 the hills on the borders of Tezpur and Lakhimpur, led to 

 the acquisition of some new geography by Colonel Wood- 

 thorpe and a party of surveyors who accompanied the 

 troops which were sent to recover the British subjects who 

 had been captured by the Akas and carried away into their 

 hills. The country of the Daphlas was crossed, when a 

 river, never before heard of, the Kaneng, was discovered 



