170 



NA TURE 



[December 26, 1901 



" In many cases the first point of actual safety reached 

 by the audience is the street door into the open air, 

 althoiij^h the removal of a ii.vi walls, barriers, pay-boxes 

 and otlier obstniitions, now wrongly placed, would make 

 it 50 or 60 feet nearer the seats, and thus add greatly to 

 the convenience and safety of the visitors." 



" In some theatres the attendants seem to spend the 

 greater portion of their time in showing visitors the 

 way." 



" I should not recommend a licensing authority to 

 permit the existence of any exit requiring a guide, and 

 I greatly doubt whether any should be permitted which 

 could not be adequately described in half a-dozen 

 words." 



" For the safety of an audience it would be most im- 

 portant that the construction of simple separate exits 

 should be encouraged. I should prefer to see them 

 leading into the open air ; but the point is not so much 

 where they should lead, as that they should lead by a 

 short route to a place of safety." 



" In the event of a panic from smoke or fire or any 

 other cause, the essential conditions of safety for an 

 audience are light and air." 



" In the event of a panic, the first steps to be taken 

 by those responsible for the safety of an audience should 

 be to turn on all possible lights, to drop the heat-proof 

 curtain, and to open the smoke-outlet over the stage." 



Captain Shaw gives the numbers which could be 

 safely accommodated in the several parts of each 

 theatre, and he makes the total number for the forty-one 

 theatres of that date 53,336. 



It is to be regretted that this report cannot be given 

 in full ; but it may be hoped that the few selected ex- 

 tracts will supply a general indication of its purport. 



Of late years a society has been formed under the 

 title of "The British Fire Prevention Committee," the 

 main object of which is stated to be : " To direct atten- 

 tion to the urgent need for increased protection of life 

 and property from fire by the adoption of preventive 

 measures." 



This is an admirable idea, and cannot fail to effect 

 good practical results. The society is altogether private, 

 and has no public authority or sanction whatever, but it 

 is none the worse for this, and it is supported by many 

 persons of influence and practical knowledge, including 

 the late superindenting architect of the London County 

 Council, and will undoubtedly be the means of calling 

 special attention to the paramount importance of pre- 

 7'en/h'c measures, while it does not in any way ignore 

 the absolute necessity for means of dealing promptly 

 and effectively with catastrophes which have not been 

 prevented. 



A thoroughly efficient fire brigade qan certainly do 

 much, but, however perfect the supply and distribution of 

 water, or the mechanical appliances and personal intre- 

 pidity and skill of the firemen may be, still the safety of 

 any great city, and more particularly of any mercantile 

 city containing a great amount of massed property, must 

 eventually depend on the mode in which its buildings are 

 constructed, and the property within them classified with 

 special reference to risk of fire. 



.'\rcording to a paper read by Sir K. GifFen some years 

 ago at the Royal Statistical Society the wealth of this 

 country was estimated by that distinguished financial 

 authority as 1 1,500,000,000/., or eleven thousand five 

 hundred millions sterling, and Sir John Lubbock, about 

 the same time, stated that a sum of nearly eight thousand 

 NO. 1678, VOL. 65] 



millions was passed into the London Clearing House in 

 one year. 



Both these amounts would now be considerably in- 

 creased ; indeed, a recent number of the Saturday Review 

 gives the annual amount now passing through the 

 London Clearing House at more than eleven thousand 

 millions sterling ; but how closely these figures represent 

 the actual value of property liable to be consumed by fire 

 it is difficult to say. 



A consideration, however, of the deliberate statements 

 made by such high authorities as these must show 

 beyond doubt that this country contains an amount of 

 material wealth unparalleled in history, and common sense 

 indicates that it is a national duty to preserve it as far as 

 possible from diminution or annihilation. 



Emeritus. 



CUNEIFORM DECIPHERMENT. 

 Assyrian Language. Easy Lessons in ihi Cuneiform 

 Inscriptions. By L. W. King. I^p. xv -f 216. 

 (London : Kegan Paul and Co., Ltd., 1901.) Price 

 y. bd. net. 



MR. KING'S modest little volume on the Assyrian 

 language will, we believe, be welcomed by many 

 who are not Assyriologists, because it contains a brief 

 but lucid exposition of the principles upon which the 

 decipherment of Assyrian is based. It is now many 

 years ago since the first labourers in the stubborn field 

 of Assyriology produced their first fruits, and as two 

 generations of men have grown up since that time the 

 early labours of Rawlinson, Lassen, Hincks, and Norris 

 have become well nigh forgotten. Mr. King's book is, as 

 its title signifies, intended to help beginners in the study 

 of Assyrian to master that difficult language, but it is 

 good to note that he also means the beginner to come 

 behind the scenes and to see, not only the results, but 

 how the results have been arrived at. In these days we 

 are so much accustomed to see translations of cuneiform 

 documents in English, French and German that it is 

 hard to realise that less than fifty years ago the phonetic 

 values of a great number of .Assyrian characters were 

 unknown. 



The first chapter deals with cuneiform writing, and 

 shows how it came into being and developed. Though 

 so different in appearance now, the cuneiform characters 

 were originally of a pictorial origin, and they appear to 

 have been invented by the Sumerians, a race of people 

 who are generally believed to have come from a Turanian 

 stock. Their earliest forms we now know did not consist 

 of wedges, but of lines, and in the characters of linear 

 Babylonian the natural objects which they were intended 

 to represent can still be traced. In a table on p. 4 

 Mr. King gives us four distinct forms of fourteen 

 characters, which date from B.C. 45CX3, is.c. 3500, B.C. 700, 

 and B.C. 500 respectively ; these illustrate clearly the 

 manner in which linear picture forms become groups of 

 wedges, and in a series of notes he shows by comparisons 

 with Egyptian hieroglyphics that the old Sumerian 

 characters, when they were first written down, must 

 have been very similar to those of ancient Egyptian. 

 The Assyrians appear to have been ignorant of this 

 fact, and it is quite clear from their lists of archaic 



