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NATURE 



[July 28, 1910 



of the young Prince's time was mapped out by his governors 

 and preceptors ; and it is not surprising that under this 

 high-pressure system, and without the stimulus of competi- 

 tion, the Royal pupil did not reach the lofty standard 

 always before the mind of the Prince Consort. Every book 

 was placed before the boy as a task, and the subjects in 

 which he received instruction appear to have been pre- 

 sented in their driest form. Had more reasonable educa- 

 tional methods been adopted, and the Prince's individuality 

 been considered instead of making it subservient to 

 scholastic ideas, there would have been no occasion for the 

 expressions of disappointment at his want of studious re- 

 flection. He was an acute observer, and could learn better 

 from things than words. Even in his early days his 

 teacher said of him that he was " learning almost un- 

 consciously from objective teaching much which, 1 think, 

 could never have been taught him subjectively " ; and this 

 capacity was his characteristic through life. While at 

 Edinburgh as a lad of eighteen, he attended Lord Play- 

 fair's lectures on the composition and working of iron 

 ores, and he never altogether forgot them. " They 

 imparted to him a certain liking for practical science and 

 its votaries which he never wholly lost." His interests 

 were practical rather than academic, and his brilliant 

 success as Prince of Wales and King was achieved not 

 so much by his studies with tutors as in spite of them. 



We regret to announce the death of Mr. J. EUard Gore, 

 the well-known amateur astronomer, who did much to 

 popularise astronomical science. While in the Public 

 Works Department in the Punjab, he interested himself in 

 scientific studies, and the result was the publication of 

 " Southern Stellar Objects " (1877). From that date he 

 was a voluminous writer on the descriptive side of astro- 

 nomy, and his works have been welcomed on account of 

 the general accuracy of his facts and the enthusiasm which 

 his writings inspired. On double stars, variables, and 

 planetary markings he was regarded as an authority. 

 One of his noteworthy works was his share in the volume 

 of astronomy which he wrote in the " Concise Knowledge " 

 series in collaboration with Prof. Fowler and the late Miss 

 Clerke. He was also well known for his translations of 

 several of Flammarion's works. 



The processes of pottery-making as it appears in pre- 

 historic interments in Europe is well illustrated by two 

 contributions in Man for July, in which Mr. N. W. Thomas 

 and Capt. A. J. N. Tremearne describe the methods in 

 vogue in South and North Nigeria respectively. In neither 

 district is the wheel used, the vessel being built up out of 

 flattened ribbons of soft clay over the neck and shoulders 

 of an old broken pot. Capt. Tremearne heard of, but did 

 not witness, a still ruder method, in which the clay is 

 shaped for the body of the pot in a hole in the ground, the 

 upper portion being subsequently added in the way already 

 described. 



Much discussion has arisen regarding the date of the 

 narrow cultivation terraces known in England as lynchets, 

 and some authorities, like Dr. Mackintosh and others, have 

 gone so far as to deny that they are artificial, asserting 

 that they are merely natural raised beaches. Their 

 contiguity to Neolithic and Bronze-age camps certainly 

 lends much support to the view that they represent a form 

 of prehistoric agriculture. Mr. W. A. Dutt, in Man for 

 July, quotes an account of similar constructions in 

 Abyssinia from Capt. Stigand's " To Abyssinia through an 

 Unknown Land." The close analogies presented by these 

 to the English examples are clearly in favour of the view 

 that they are the work of a primitive race. 

 NO. 2126, VOL. 84] 



.An interesting phase of lacustrine culture is described 

 in a monograph by Mr. S. A. Barnett, on the Klamath 

 Lake and .Modoc Indians of north-west California and 

 southern Oregon, contributed to vol. v. of the Memoirs 

 issued by the University of California. This specialised 

 culture is largely based upon the use of the tule reed for 

 hut-building, basketry, and other purposes. Their food is 

 procured from the lakes on the shores of which they dwell, 

 and for this purpose they use a peculiar duck arrow, fish- 

 ing and bird nets, hooks of bone, and dug-out canoes. 

 Stone implements, such as mullers, mortars and pestles, 

 or mauls, are in common use. But many of these are 

 relics of earlier Indian tribes, and their gradual disappear- 

 ance before a culture based upon the use of metals is' 

 shown by the fact that they are now largelj' used as 

 charms in medicine and gambling. A man, for instance, 

 will take a large obsidian knife or spear-point, and, after 

 reciting a charm, will place it under the mat on which a 

 game is being played to ensure good luck. Fire is pro- 

 cured with a drill consisting of a piece of dry willow root 

 twirled in a base block of cedar wood, for which purpose 

 the canoe paddle is very commonly used. 



Under the editorship of Messrs. W. M. Webb and E. S. 

 Grew, Knowledge is much improved in general appearance, 

 and, if we may judge from the July number, in the 

 character of its contents. In one of the articles, the Rev. 

 T. R. R. Stebbing urges that the gender of all generic 

 names in zoology should be regarded as masculine, mainly 

 on account of the difficulty of deciding as to the true gender 

 of many of the terms now in use. 



We have been favoured with a copy of the report of the 

 Danish Oceanographic Expedition during the winter of 

 1908-9, under Dr. J. Schmidt, published in Geograf.sk 

 Tidskrift (20, B.H. vi., 1910, pp. 243-55)- The area sur- 

 veyed extends from Iceland through the North Sea on the 

 one hand, and along the eastern border of the Atlantic on 

 the other, into the Mediterranean as far east as Greece. 

 The report is illustrated with bathymetric tables of tem- 

 perature and salinity in different parts of the area, and 

 likewise with a chart of the isotherms and " isohalines " 

 on the two sides of Gibraltar. The dissimilarity between 

 the distribution of isothermal and isohalic areas in the 

 latter region is very striking and curious. 



Determin.\te evolution in the colour-pattern of " lady- 

 beetles " forms the subject of an elaborately illustrated 

 memoir by Mr. R. H. Johnson, published by the Carnegie 

 Institution of Washington (Publication No. 122). Lady- 

 birds, to give these beetles their ordinary name, were 

 selected for the purpose of this investigation on account of 

 their abundance, the facility with which they can be reared 

 in confinement, their distribution, and the circumstance 

 that they were recently, and perhaps still are, in an active 

 state of evolution. Members of the leaf-eating epilachnine 

 o-roup were chosen for special study as being easier to rear 

 than the aphid-eating forms. As regards the object of the 

 colouring of the Coccinellidse, the author accepts the view 

 that it belongs to the warning, or aposematic, type. No 

 single pattern can at present be recognised as forming the 

 ancestral type, and it is evident that Elmer's laws of 

 pattern-development are inapplicable to the present case. 

 " Natural selection, if at all active, is principally conserva- 

 tive of the spotted pattern. In spite of this, determinate 

 variation, largely actuated by the effect of the environment 

 on the germ-plasm, and probably preponderance as well, 

 have accomplished marked evolution of the pattern from 

 this condition. Evolution proceeds by waves as well as by 



