April 8, I 



NA TURE 



537 



typical prehistoric objects, the originals of which are for the 

 most part in the Kiel Museum. The first 17 plates contain 149 

 objects of the Stone Age, vessels, flint, horn, and bone imple- 

 ments, and pottery, some of which is decorated ; the second 

 section is composed of 18 plates containing 227 objects from the 

 Bronze Age, swords, knives, saws, urns, &c. ; lastly, there are 

 27 plates with 399 objects belonging to the Iron Age, which 

 began in Schleswig-Holstein in the first or second century im- 

 mediately preceding our era. The last representatives of this 

 series are some silver denarii of Charlemagne's time. On the 

 whole the collection appears to be a remarkably complete one 

 for a single province to produce and preserve. 



The third volume of the Transactions of the Washington 

 Anthropological Society (November 1883 — May 1885) contains 

 a suggestive paper by the President, J. W. Powell, on the 

 growth of barbarism and civilisation from the savage state. This 

 paper, which formed the subject of the annual address delivered 

 on February 3, 1885, deals with the successive stages of savagery, 

 barbarism, and civilisation from a somewhat novel standpoint. 

 It is argued that the evolution of culture, that is, the gradual 

 development of mankind from savagery to civilisation, is essen- 

 tially the evolution of the humanities — the five great classes of 

 activities denominated arts, institutions, languages, opinions, 

 and intellections. Hence if the course of culture is to be 

 divided into stages, the several stages should be represented in 

 every one of the classes of activities. If there are three stages 

 of culture, there should be three stages of arts, of institutions, 

 and so on. Here the author deals more especially with the 

 essential characteristics of the first two stages, defining the epoch 

 of transition, and explaining how the lower phases of the various 

 activities are developed into the higher. The evolution has 

 evei7where proceeded on the same lines, because the human 

 race is fundamentally one in the strictly genetic sense. The 

 tendency to depart from the original type would doubtless have 

 resulted in the establishment of specific differences, as in the 

 case of other organisms, had it not been checked by various 

 causes arresting free biotic evolution, and bringing about a return 

 to homogeneity. For although much diversity exists it is 

 restricted to narrow limits, the essential characteristics being 

 everywhere the same. Again, after a certain stage is reached, 

 human evolution differs radically from that of all other organisms. 

 It proceeds, not by survival of the fittest, or adaptation of the 

 species to the environment, but on the contrary by adaptation of 

 the environment to the species. There is no aquatic variety of 

 man, no aerial, tropical, boreal, herbivorous, or carnivorous 

 varieties ; but man has everywhere adapted the environment to 

 himself, that is, created an artificial environment by his arts, 

 and in general by the development of his inventive and other 

 intellectual faculties. Man has inherited the body, instincts, 

 and passions of the brute ; the nature thus inherited has survived 

 in his constitution, and is exhibited along all the course of his 

 history. But man has risen in culture not by reason of his 

 brutal nature ; he has been evolved because he has been largely 

 emancipated from the laws of the brute creation. His develop- 

 ment has been through the development of the humanities, that 

 is, of those qualities which distinguish him from the brute. It 

 has been a mental and moral far more than an animal evolution. 

 Hence the curious result that, while the mind of man differs im- 

 measurably from that of the next highest in the scale of animal 

 evolution, his body is on the contrary in some respects actually 

 inferior, physically weaker, less able of itself alone to struggle 

 with the adverse conditions of the environment. 



The thirteenth meeting of Scandinavian Naturalists will take 

 place at Christiania between July 7 and 12. 



On the nth of last month, at about 6.15 p.m., a meteorite 

 fell on the ice off Aastvedt, in the province of Bergen, Norway, 



with the effect of making a hole about 18 inches in diameter, 

 though llie ice was 8 inches in thickness. It was accompanied 

 by an audible hissing. 



The great success of the oyster cultivation carried on by the 

 Norge Company in the Christiania fjord has induced the Swedish 

 Government to invite the manager of this establishment to 

 inspect the coast of the province of Bohus, on the opposite side 

 of the fjord, with a view to the arranging of similar establish- 

 ments there should the conditions be favourable. A gunboat 

 has been placed at the disposal of the inspector by the Govern- 

 ment. The subject is engaging much attention in Sweden, 

 where very few oyster-banks exist. 



On the night of March 30, between 8 and 9 o'clock p.m., 

 there w.is a very fair display of auroric light in the co. Donegal. 

 Mr G. II. Kinahan writes : — " At the time the sky to the north- 

 ward was clear and bright, but after 9 p.m. it became overcast, 

 with dark snow-clouds. The light was peculiar for Ireland, not 

 being of the usual type, but bright light silver-coloured, of the 

 type se?n in the autumn in Canada, although far less elaborate. 

 The light extended from the N.W. to the N.E. To the N.E. 

 was a wide column of white light, rather stationary, but at times 

 extending across the zenith in a broad arch to the N.W. 

 horizon. Between this column and the N.N.W. point, being 

 more numerous and prevalent between the N.N.E. and N. 

 points, were pencils .and horns of light, even shooting up and 

 down, with clouds of very bright light rising at intervals, and as 

 they ro e sent up pencils of light from the upper edges. In the 

 space between the N.E. and N.N.W. points, the pencils of 

 light rose, some perpendicularly, and some obliquely, in a north- 

 easterly direction. Towards the end of the display dull light- 

 reddish clouds rose at intervals, at one time there being a faint 

 marginal edge to the N.E. white column." During the last 

 winter aurorse appear to have been remarkably scarce, for 

 although on the look-out for them all Mr. Kinahan saw were 

 very faint and scarcely perceptible to any one but those who had 

 studied them. 



The American Government have forwarded a consignment 

 of landlocked salmon ova to the National Fish Culture Asso- 

 ciation, which arrived this week in excellent condition. A 

 large number of this species were reared by the Association 

 last year, and placed in nurseries pending their introduction to 

 the Thames, where it is felt they will thrive well in certain 

 places. The Thames Angling Preservation Society are particu- 

 larly anxious to naturalise this species in the river, it being an 

 excellent fish from a sporting point of view, and, moreover, it 

 does not migrate to the sea. 



The German Fisheries Union intend to try the acclimatisa. 

 tion of the sterlet in the Vistula and the Oder. About 2000 

 living sterlets are to be caught in the Save, under the personal 

 superintendence of Prof. Spiridion Brusina, the Director of the 

 Zoological Museum of Agram. They are to be sent to Thorn 

 and to Oderberg respectively for transfer into the two rivers 

 named above. Hitherto sterlets could only be obtained from 

 Russia. 



Messrs. Macmillan and Co. will publish in a few weeks 

 an elementary treatise on Statics, by John Greaves, M.A., 

 Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge. Although adapted for 

 those beginners whose mathematical reading does not go beyond 

 geometrical conies and trigonometry, the book contains proposi- 

 tions of a more general character, especially in connection with 

 the principle of work, than any other book that does not assume 

 a much wider range of knowledge on the part of the reader. In 

 order to meet the wants of students who can get little assistance 

 in their work, a large number of illustrative examples have been 

 carefully worked out. The mode of treatment chiefly differs 



