October 13, 19 10] 



NATURE 



461 



servatory of Belgium, under the auspices of which both 

 were prepared and published, is to be congratulated 

 upon having performed an exceedingly useful. If 

 tedious, duty. 



As anv attempt to separate magnetism and seis- 

 mology would have led to needless duplication and 

 confusion, the arrangement is purely alphabetical. 

 For each station are given the geographical position, 

 the altitude, the nature of the ground on which the 

 observatory stands, the publications wherein the 

 results appear, the names of the staff, a brief history 

 of the observatory, and the nature and distance of 

 anv disturbing elements, such as tramways, &c., and, 

 finally, a descriplion of the instruments and the 

 special researches to which they are dedicated. 

 Other lists show the continental and national distri- 

 bution of the two kinds of observatories, and, 

 alphabeticallv, the names of the observers. 



Such a list was to have been prepared by the Inter- 

 national Commission for Terrestrial Magnetism, but 

 the project failed; the data then collected, however, 

 have been placed at the .service of the compilers of 

 the present work, and have proved very useful. 



W. E. R. 



.4)1 Inconsistent Preliminary Objection against Posi- 

 tivism. By Prof. Robert .Ardigo. Translated by 

 Emilio Gavirati. Pp. 52. (Cambridge : W. Heffer 

 and Sons, Ltd., 1910.) Price ix. net. 

 This pamphlet, by the veteran leader of Italian posi- 

 tivism, is issued in translation by a devoted admirer 

 and disciple who wishes to find an English helper in 

 the translation and publication of other works by the 

 "great master." Its argument is directed against 

 those opponents who, on behalf of modern idealism, 

 contend that in positivism there is to be found this 

 fundamental fault — ^namely, that, according to the 

 method which the positivist has prescribed to himself, 

 the subject ought, in his system, to become an object 

 which cannot have, therefore, any of the character- 

 istics belonging to subjectiveness. Prof. Ardigo, as 

 St. George to the dragon of metaphysics, develops 

 a subtle and closely reasoned argument for a positivist 

 treatment of psychology, criticising the positions asso- 

 ciated with the names of Bergson and Boutroux. He 

 is also careful to show that positivism differs widely 

 from, materialism, with which there is — very naturally 

 — a tendency to confound it. The substance of this 

 pamphlet is contained in the second part of volume x. 

 of .Ardigo's " Philosophical Works." 



Analytical Chemistry. By Prof. F. P. Treadwell. 



.Authorised translation from the German by William 



T. Hall. \o\. ii. Quantitative Analysis. Second 



edition. Pp. x + 787. (Xew York: John Wiley and 



Sons; London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 1910.) 



Price \ys. net. 



A REVIEW of the first edition of Mr. Hall's translation 



cf Prof. Treadwell's work on quantitative analysis 



was published in N.xture of .\ugust 11, 1904 (vol. Ixx., 



p. 341). In the present issue certain additions have 



been made which are not found in the German text, 



and the main part of the work has been compared 



with the fourth German edition. 



Students' Life and Tl'orfe In the University of Cam- 

 bridge. Two lectures by Prof. Karl Breul. Revised 

 edition. Pp. 60. (Cambridge : Bowes and Bowes, 

 1910.) Price IS. net. 

 The two lectures delivered by Prof. Karl Breul to 

 the students attending the University Extension 

 summer meeting in 190.S give an interesting and in- 

 formative account of the life and work of Cambridge 

 undergraduates. In the revised edition a few cor- 

 rections and additions have been made. 



NO. 2137, VOL. 84] 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 

 [The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions 

 expressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake 

 to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected 

 manuscripts intended for this or any other part of Nature. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous comtnunications.] 



Early Burial Customs in Egypt. 



.'\ll who are interested in the serious attempts that are 

 being made to reconstruct the real history of ancient 

 Egypt and to sift established truth from wild conjecture 

 must deplore Prof. Flinders Petrie's attempt (see Nature 

 of September 29, p. 401J to revivify the corpse of a belief 

 in the supposition that the archaic Egyptians were in the 

 habit of cutting up their dead, a view which has been so 

 effectually hanged, drawn, and quartered during the last 

 ten years. 



When Prof. Petrie states (0/). cit., p. 401, quoted from 

 Man, September) that " it has long been known that in 

 prehistoric burials the corpse was stripped of its flesh, the 

 bones even being broken to extract the marrow," he 

 should have written that he and M. de Morgan had stated 

 that the prehistoric Egyptians dissected the bodies of their 

 dead. But, even though Profs. Maspero, Sayce, Wiede- 

 mann, and Lortet repeated these or similar statements 

 (Sayce and Lortet invoking the aid of birds of prey to do 

 the bone-cleaning !), the e.^perience gained by other 

 excavators has totally shattered and destroyed every scrap 

 of evidence that could lend any support to the belief in the 

 reality of such practices. 



In 1896 Prof. Petrie (" Naqada and Ballas," p. 32) 

 attempted to explain the disturbed condition of the skele- 

 tons found in many archaic Egyptian graves by saying 

 " that bodies were sometimes — with all respect — cut up 

 and partly eaten " ! 



Four years later Dr. George .\. Reisner proved that 

 such disturbances of the bones as Prof. Petrie mentioned 

 were the result of the operations of grave-plunderers (see 

 the Egyptian Exploration Fund's Archeeological Report for 

 1900-1, p. 25); and every year since then this explanation 

 has been proved to be true in every case where disturb- 

 ances have been found amongst many thousands of burials 

 of all ages and in every part of Egypt and Nubia, which 

 have been submitted to the most thorough and critical 

 examination, not only by Dr. Reisner himself, but also 

 of many independent witnesses. The evidence referring 

 to Nubia is set forth in extenso in the First Annual Report 

 of the .Archsological Survey of Nubia, which is being 

 published in Cairo this month. During my ten years' 

 association with Dr. Reisner, my collaborators in the 

 anatomical branch of the work and I have examined and 

 made notes on the remains of more than 15,000 human 

 beings buried in the Nile Valley, and we.iteve not seen 

 a single case which afforded any evidence wnatsoever of 

 the practices postulated by Prof. Petrie. 



Secondary burials, of course, occurred in ancient Egypt : 

 but they were exceedingly rare, probably more so than in 

 modern England. Perhaps some arch.TeoIogist of the next 

 millennium will find infinitely more evidence in English 

 graveyards of the twentieth century in support of specula- 

 tions on our " customs of mutilation of corpses and 

 cannibalism " than Prof. Petrie has been able to gather 

 in Egypt. 



It would, indeed, be a matter for astonishment if such 

 a people as the ancient Egyptians, whose respect for their 

 dead is proverbial, did not attempt to restore to order the 

 graves of relatives that had been desecrated by grave- 

 plunderers. The surprising thing is not that we find 

 instances of reburial, but that they are so exceedingly 

 rare. 



During the Graeco-Roman period in Egypt and Nubia, 

 when the decadence of the art of mummification had 

 definitely begun, it often happened that bodies handed 

 over to the embalmers were treated in such a careless 

 manner that they fell to pieces in an early stage of the 

 process, and had to be rebuilt — sometimes with limb-bones 

 reversed, leg-bones as skeletons for arms, portions of other 

 skeletons introduced, and often foreign materials added. 

 This " faking " of mummies is described in detail in the 

 forthcoming Report of the Archseological Survey of Nubia. 



