May 29, 1902] 
NATURE 
107 
in the early part of May. We find the festival of El- 
Khidr and Elias in the middle of the wheat harvest in 
Lower Egypt ; of this we read :— ‘ 
“E]-Khidr is a mysterious personage, who, according 
to learned opinion, was a just man, or saint, the Visir of 
Zw'|-Karneyn (who was a great conqueror, contemporary 
with Ibrahim—Abraham—and identified in other legends 
with Alexander the Great, St. George, &c.). El-Khidr, 
it is believed, still lives, and will live until the Day of 
Judgment. He is clad in green garments, whence 
probably the name. He is commonly identified with 
Elias (Elijah), and this confusion seems due to a con- 
fusion or similarity of some of the attributes that tradition 
assigns to both.” 
“The ‘Festival of El-Khidr and of Elias,’ falling 
generally on May 6, marks the two-fold division of the 
year in the Turkish and Armenian Calendars, into the 
Ruz Kasim and the Rutz Khidr (of 179-80 and 185-6 
days respectively).” ? 
This last paragraph is important, as it points to ancient 
sun worship, Helios being read for Elias ; and 179 days 
from May 6 bring us to November 1. So we find that 
the modern Turks and Armenians have the old May- 
November year as well as the ancient Egyptians who 
celebrated it in the Temple of Min at Thebes. 
The traces of the Ptah worship are not so ob- 
vious. Finally, it may be stated that the second Tanta 
fair occurs at the spring equinox, so that the pyramid 
worship can still be traced in the modern Egyptian 
Calendar. The proof that this was an exotic is estab- 
lished, I think, by the fact that no important agricultural 
operations occur at this periodin Egypt, while in May we 
have the harvest, in August and November sowing, going 
on. 
THE NEW YEAR’s OFFERINGS. 
In my last article I showed that each year, whenever 
it began, was, if possible, associated with some fruit of 
the earth, and that at the winter solstice the chief avail- 
able vegetable product was the mistletoe. 
But about the mistletoe there is this difficulty. 
Innumerable traditions associate it with the Druids and 
the oak tree. Undoubtedly the year of the Druids was 
the solstitial year, so that so far as this goes the associa- 
tion is justified. But as a rule the mistletoe does not 
grow on oaks. This point has been frequently inquired 
into, especially by Dr. Henry Ball (Journal of Botany, 
vol. ii. p. 361, 1864), in relation to the growth of the 
plant in Herefordshire, and by a writer in the Quarterly 
Review (vol. cxiv.), who spoke of the mistletoe “ desert- 
ing the oak” in modern times and stated, “it is now so 
rarely found on that tree as to have led to the sugges- 
tion that we must look for the mistletoe of the Druids, 
not in the Vzscwm album of our own trees and orchards, 
but in the Loranthus Europaeus which is frequently 
found on oaks in the south of Europe.” 
On this point I consulted two eminent botanical 
friends, Mr. Murray, of the British Museum, and Prof. 
Farmer, from whom I have learned that the distribution 
of V. aléum is in Europe universal except north of 
Norway and north of Russia ; in India in the temperate 
Himalayas from Kashmir to Nepaul, altitude 3000 to 
7000 feet. 
The Viscum aureum, Viscum luteum or Loranthus 
Europaeus, according to Dixon,!is a near relation of the 
familiar mistletoe, and in Italy grows on the oak almost 
exclusively. There are fifty species of Loranthus in the 
Indian flora, but LZ. Europaeus does not occur. 
In the Viscum aureum we have the “golden bough,” 
the oak-borne Aurum frondens and Ramus aureus of 
Virgil; and it can easily be imagined that when the 
Druids reached our shores this would be replaced by the 
V. aloum growing chiefly on apple trees and not on oaks; 
indeed, Mr. Davies, in his “Celtic Researches,” tells us that 
1 Notes and Qurries, Ser. iv. vol. ii. p. 119. 
NO. 1700, VOL. 66] 
the apple was the next sacred tree to the oak, and that 
apple orchards were planted in the vicinity of the sacred 
groves. The transplanting of the mistletoe from the 
apple to the oak tree before the mystic ceremonies began 
was not beyond the resources of priestcraft. 
It must not be forgotten that these ceremonies took : 
place at both solstices—once in June, when the oak was 
in full leaf, and again in December, when the parasitic 
plant was better visible in the light of the young moon. 
Mr. Fraser, in his “‘ Golden Bough” (iii. p. 328), points 
out that at the summer solstice not only was mistletoe 
gathered, but many other “magic plants whose evan- 
escent virtues can be secured at this mystic season alone.” 
It is the ripening of the berries at the winter solstice 
which secured for the mistletoe the paramount import- 
ance the ceremonials connected with it possessed at 
that time, when the rest of the vegetable world was 
dormant. NORMAN LOCKYER. 
THE RECENT VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS IN 
THE WEST INDIES. 
ie continuation of the articles which have already 
appeared in NATURE upon the recent volcanic 
disaster in the West Indies, we are able to give this week 
some further information upon the character and conse- 
quences of the eruptions. Prof. Milne traces the 
development of the disturbances and uses his intimate 
knowledge of volcanic and seismic effects to show how 
they may be interpreted. In addition, we give two 
separate notes upon the ash ejected during the eruptions, 
and seismographic records in France on May 6. The 
nature of the dust ejected from the Soufriére will soon 
be satisfactorily determined, for last week’s West Indian 
mail brought to this country numbers of packets of 
the volcanic ash which fell at Barbados, 100 miles ¢o 
windward, during the night of May 7-8. The Imperial 
Department of Agriculture has despatched specimens 
to the Natural History Museum, the Geological Society, 
Prof. Judd, &c. 
Arrangements have been made for the small scientific 
expedition referred to in last week’s NATURE, and the 
members are to sail as we go to press with this number. 
The expedition consists of Dr. Tempest Anderson, Dr. 
Flett, and another member of the staff of the Geological 
Survey. The Colonial Office has promised to assist the 
Royal Society in defraying the expenses of this expedi- 
tion. 
For convenience, we bring together in diary form the 
reports of volcanic and other possibly related disturb- 
ances which have occurred during the past few days. 
This record of events is in continuation of those already 
abridged from dispatches published in the Z%mes, Daily 
Mail, Daily Graphic and other papers :— 
May 18, Autun ( France).—Uneasiness is beginning to be felt 
in regard to the volcano of St. Pierre-de-Varennes, between 
Couches-les-Mines and Le Creusot, which has always been 
considered extinct. Low rumblings have been heard, accom- 
panied by tremblings of the earth, and at 11.30 p.m. similar 
noises of more than usual loudness caused considerable alarm 
among the inhabitants of the district. 
May 18, St. Vincent.—An eruption of the Soufriére occurred 
between about 8.30 p.m. and midnight, accompanied by thunder- 
ing noises and incessant electrical discharges. 
May 19.—There was a great eruption of Mont Pelée. The 
volume of lava emitted surpassed that of May 8. It overflowed 
Grande Riviere and destroyed the buildings and cultivation 
which were previously untouched. 
May 20, Pointe & Pitre—Mont Pelée ejected thick black 
cloud and hot mud and stones, covering the greater part of 
Martinique. A heavy pall hung over Fort de France, followed 
by flashes of light. 
May 21, Fort de Fravce.—A further eruption of Mont Pelée 
occurred, 
May 22, Victoria (B.C.).—An explosion occurred in the 
Crow’s Nest coal mines at Fernie, in the Kootenay district. 
