Vlprd 1 , 1 8 c 



NATURE 



517 



jury, including some of the most eminent English and French 

 engineers, to M. de Mey, Engineer^ of Fonts et Chaussees, 

 Bruges, against fifty-nine competitors. The subject for the essay 

 at the next international competition is "The Progress of Elec- 

 tricity applied to Motive Power and Illumination, its Applica- 

 tions and Economical Advantages." The essays for competition, 

 which must be written in French, or translated into that 

 language, are to be sent before January i, 1889, to the Minister 

 of Agriculture, Industry, and Public Worlis, from whom the 

 conditions of the competition may be obtained. 



Botanists will be pleased to learn that the "Flora of the 

 West Riding of Yorkshire," which Dr. F. Arnold Lees has been 

 engaged on for some years, will shortly be ready for the press. 

 It will be a complete and comprehensive enumeration of species 

 in all the groups, phanerogamic and cryptogamic, which occur 

 in the wide and diversified area of which it treats, together with 

 chapters on lithology, climatology, bibliography, &c. The 

 account of each plant will include its range, horizontal and 

 vertical, and its history as a West Riding species. The work 

 is to be issued by subscription under the auspices of the York- 

 shire Naturalists' Union, and will constitute an important volume 

 of their series of memoirs dealing with the flora and fauna of 

 Yorkshire. 



The Sheffield Free Library Committee can report a greatly 

 increased use of the specifications of patents in the Reference 

 Library as well as of the books of the Science and Art Class. 

 The issue also of works of fiction in the circulating departments 

 has also fallen off, while that of history and travels and arts and 

 sciences has increased in both central and branch libraries. Of 

 this, however, the Committee may probably take much of the 

 credit, as they have not only spent a larger amount of money in 

 the more valuable books, but have also purchased a larger 

 number of volumes. The value of branch libraries is shown by 

 the result that three in Sheffield have scarcely reduced the 

 average issues of the central one ; and if, in a place of so great a 

 rental, further progress is crippled for lack of funds, how highly 

 necessary must something beyond a penny rate be in many 

 towns only a small fraction of its size. Although during the past 

 year the Observatory was open only thirty-seven nights, yet the 

 Committee report that its "utility is confirmed by experience." 



A lioness's brain was recently dissected and studied by Herr 

 Familiant at the Anatomical Institute of the Berne Veterinary 

 School. Among other results he finds {Mittlieilungen of Berne 

 Naturalists' Society, 1885) that in form it is in many respects 

 intermediate between the do^'s and the cat's brain ; from both it 

 is distinguished by relatively small projection of the cerebellum 

 and narrowness of the lobin pyr^fonnis. Further, the chief 

 fissures of the brain of carnivores are to be found in that of 

 primates, the principal differences between homologous fissures 

 being partly in imperfect formation or perhaps retrograde for- 

 mation of certain parts, and partly in confluence of some 

 sections of originally separate fissures. In some varieties 

 of the fissuring of man's brain, the original relations of 

 the carnivore's brain recur. The parieto-occipital fissure 

 is a special formation not met with in the brain of carni- 

 vores. The secondary fissures, especially in the frontal lobes, 

 are due to a special mode of fissuring that has appeared late, 

 and is therefore subject to wide variations. 



Arch.-eologists are placed under fresh obligations to Dr. 

 A. B. Meyer, the indefatigable curator of the Dresden Natural 

 History Museum for his recent publications on the prehistoric 

 settlements and graveyards of Gurina in Karinthia and of Hall- 

 stadt in Upper Austria. .Since about the middle of the century, 

 Gurina, which lies on the Upper Gail, an Alpine stream flowing 

 to the Drave above Klagenfurth, had been vaguely spoken of in 

 connection with a few stray antique objects from time to time 



falling into the hands of collectors. But the very locality of the 

 place was scarcely known until, one of these objects coming in 

 the way of the author, he was induced to visit the neighbourhood 

 during the summer of 1884 on behalf of the Viennese Anthro- 

 pological Society. Although able to do little more than 

 " scratch the surface," he was soon convinced that Gurina must 

 have been an important centre of European culture, either 

 Etruscan or more probably Illyrian, some centuries before the 

 new era, consequently that a systematic exploration of the locality 

 is urgently demanded in the interest of archreological science. 

 The results of his own preliminary investigations are embodied 

 in an elaborate monograph, entitled "Gurina im Obergailthal ' 

 (Dresden, 1S85), which also contains a ftdl account of all the 

 interesting finds hitherto made and here figured on fourteen admir- 

 ably executed photographic plates. Although mostly picked up 

 accidentally without any systematic research, these finds are of 

 the most varied character, including Greek (Alexandrian), Roman 

 (Imperial), Keltic (?), and other barbaric coins in silver, bronze, 

 copper, and brass ; bronze and iron fiiiuUe, iron chains, bronze 

 chains and plaques, bronze and tin statuettes, iron swords and 

 knives, glass ware, potsherds plain and ornamented, and other 

 artistic remains, some apparently of local manufacture, some 

 introduced from Greece, Italy, Gaul, and other countries during 

 a period ranging from perhaps 200 or 300 years before to as many 

 after the new era. Amongst the most interesting objects are the 

 bronze plaques, pins or bodkins inscribed with Etruscan or 

 Illyrian characters, a few words of which have been deciphered 

 and referred by Paoli to the Illyrianbranchof the Aryan linguistic 

 family. The Illyrian (Thraco-Illyrian) peoples would seem to 

 have reached their extreme western limits in this part of Noricum, 

 where they came in contact with the Etruscans and Kelts, and 

 were ultimately absorbed in the Roman Empire. 



On his return from Gurina, Dr. Meyer made an excursus 

 to the prehistoric necropolis of Hallstatt in Upper Austria, 

 an account of the past and present state of which he com- 

 municates in a short memoir, "Das Griiberfeld von Hall- 

 statt" (Dresden, 1885), illustrated with a photographic view 

 of the place and photographic plates of two of the 

 finest objects found there. Although Hallstatt has been "ex- 

 ploited" by treasure-seekers ever since 1835, during which 

 nearly 200D graves have been opened, Dr. Meyer's hasty survey 

 satisfied him that the place is still far from exhausted. Most of 

 the graves have been rifled ; but the site occupied by the neigh- 

 bouring prehistoric settlement appears to have been scarcely 

 touclied, and there remain several thousand square yards of 

 ground still to explore. Until this is done it will be difficult to 

 come to any definite conclusion as to the origin, period, and 

 duration of the settlement. The fact that no Keltic coins have 

 ever been discovered at Hallstatt seems to support Morlot's view 

 that the foundation dates from about the fourth century before 

 the new era. Basing his calculations on the number of graves 

 in the place. Dr. Meyer thinks that it cannot have flourished for 

 more than two hundred years, if so long. The two objects here 

 figured and now preserved in the Museum of Linz, are a large 

 fibula or brooch with twelve long chain pendants spreading out 

 like a fan, and a knife with peculiar bronze handle and iron 

 blade. 



Some little time since an account was given in Natukk 

 (vol. XXX. p. 271) of the edible birds'-nest caves at Gomanton, 

 in British North Borneo. A recent number of Die Natiir con- 

 tains a translation from the Danish Geop-aphical Journal of an 

 account of a visit to certain caves in islands off the coast of the 

 Malay Peninsula, where these nests are also produced. The 

 islands are very small, and almost inaccessible ; they lie between 

 8° and 10° N. latitude, and lie between twenty and forly 

 miles off the coast. They belong to the Siamese Government, 

 and are farmed out to contractors, who collect the nests, and 



