190 



NATURE 



[August 10, 191 i 



ipbuilding, engineering, metallurgical, and electrical 

 Drks in the neighbourhood. In the evening there will 

 a reception of the members and their ladies, followed 

 ■ a conversazione, in the Laing Art Gallery, by invita- 

 >n of the Lord Mayor. On Thursday, September ai, 

 pers will be read and discussed at a morning session of 

 e institute, and in the afternoon there will be further 

 sits to works. For September 22 the Tyne Improvement 

 immissioners have placed a steamer at the disposal of 

 e local committee for a voyage to the mouth of the river 

 d back. 



The ninth annual meeting of the South African Associa- 

 m for the Advancement of Science was held at Bulawayo 



July 3-S, under the presidency of Prof. P. D. Hahn. 

 ie meeting was attended by members from Cape Town, 

 hannesburg, Salisbury, &c. The sectional presidents 

 •re as follows : — Section A, Rev. Father Goetz, S.J. ; 

 ction B, A. J. C. Molyneux ; Section C, F. Eyles 

 hodesia) ; Section D, G. Duthie. In addition to the 

 jsidential addresses, numerous papers were read before 

 ; various sections. In particular, Mr. R. N. Hall's 

 pers dealing with the Zimbabwe ruins gave rise to con- 

 lerable discussion. Papers were read before Section A 



electric clocks, by Prof. H. Bohle ; aviation in South 

 rica from a meteorological point of view, by R. T. A. 

 nes ; atmospheric electricity observations, by Prof. 

 . A. D. Rudge. Many interesting excursions were 

 •anged by the local Bulawayo committee. The Khami 

 ns and various Bushman haunts were visited under the 

 idance of Mr. R. N. Hall. A pilgrimage was made to 

 lodes's lonely grave in the Matopos, and after the con- 

 ision of the meeting several days were spent at the 

 :toria Falls. 



[\ the July issue of The Quarterly Review Mr. E. Clodd 

 ltributes a useful criticism of totemistic theories under 

 ! title of " Primitive Man on his Origin." While 

 dially welcoming Dr. Frazer's monumental treatise on 

 emism and exogamy, he is unable to accept his ex- 

 .nation of the origin of totemism from the Arunta 

 ■ory of conception, mainly on the ground that it does 

 : account for the clan totemism, which is admittedly of 

 mary importance, and because, so far from being the 

 >st primitive, the Arunta are probably the most advanced 

 the Central Australian tribes. He is inclined to prefer 

 '. A. Lang's solution that at the earliest period the 

 iups were nameless; that later on they obtained soubri- 



ts chosen from their fancied resemblance to this or 

 it object ; " no more than threr- things — a group animal 

 ine of unknown origin ; bi lief in a transcendental con- 

 :tion between all bearers, human and bestial, of the 

 ne name ; and belief in the blood superstitions — was 



:ded to give rise to all the totemic creeds and pi 



luding exogamy." Needless to say, this solution 



cilvcs certain special difficulties, of which Mr. Clodd is 



IIt- result of the discussion is to increase 



fei ling of doubt if any single solution hitherto advanced 

 nplex group of facts labelled as totemistic offers 

 - abli 1 xplanation of them. 



[*HE Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society continues its 



, >i studying the eastern European groups of 



ling race. We have two articles of special 



portance, one an account of the Gypsies of Central 



Mr. D. F. de l'Hoste Ranking, the second of 



ation of the South German Gypsies by Mr. E. 



ittich. The predatory habits of the Russian group amply 



•ount for the fear and hatred felt towards them by the 



•al population. On the other hand, in Germany their 



XO. 2l80, VOL. 87] 



moral standard seems to be decidedly higher, and their 

 tribal organisation provides for the control of social order 

 by the trial of offences committed by members under the 

 superintendence of their chief at an annual assemblage 

 Held in Elsass, where the proceedings are conducted in 

 secret session. This festival, however, often ends in a 

 general free fight between rival members of the tribe, who 

 take this opportunity of gratifying their feelings of revenge 

 for bloodshed or other injuries. If a reconciliation of 

 such quarrels is effected it is done by the exchange of 

 glasses charged with their favourite liquor. The tribal 

 code of social morality, with its curious system of taboos, 

 one being that a man who eats or drinks out of a vessel 

 which a Gypsy woman has touched with her dress or 

 stepped over becomes an outcast, will be of much interest 

 to students of primitive usages. 



In the same issue of the Gypsy Lore Journal Mr. J. 

 Teutsch describes a curious form of primitive lathe, re- 

 volved by a string, which is used by Gypsy spoon-makers 

 at their settlement in Kutusch, north of Kronstadt. The 

 bowl of the spoon is first shaped with a set of knives and 

 scrapers. The handles are then turned in this rude lathe, 

 the woman worker decorating them with a series of 

 circular stripes and bands by pressing against the wood 

 as it revolves a rag soaked in a green dye and moistened 

 in saliva. The method furnishes some analogies to that 

 used by the Indian makers of so-called " Benares toys," 

 in which, by means of a similar rude lathe, pieces of lac 

 of various colours are pressed against the toy as it is 

 revolved, the heat produced by this friction causing the lac 

 10 become partially melted, and leading to the deposit on 

 the wood of thin streaks of colour. 



Dr. Daniel Staret communicates to the current number 

 of The Psychol %ical Review an interesting experiment 

 upon the influence of suggestion, or unconscious imita- 

 tion, on handwriting. More than a hundred persons were 

 investigated by the following method. Each person was 

 provided with a set of live sheets, on the first of which 

 was written the instruction: "We desire records of your 

 handwriting. Will you accordingly write out the words 

 and sentences presented on the pages given you. Kindly 

 do this without further questioning or reflection." The 

 second sheet contained a short paragraph of typewritten 

 material, the subject's written copy of which provided an 

 illustration of his (or her) normal handwriting. The third 

 sheet was of vertical, the fourth of slanting, script; the 

 fifth contained unusually large script, all taken from 

 American "copy-books," and written out by the subjects 

 of the experiment. The measurements of the slope of the 

 subjects' handwriting were subsequently made by means 

 oi .1 scale oi variously inclined lines drawn on transparent 

 paper, which was superimposed on the handwriting; three 

 letters, /, /, />, were selected for measurement. The size 

 of the letters was determined by measuring their horizontal 

 width, the lengths of entire words being measured and 

 divided by the number of letters. All the subjects who 

 were investigated appeared to be (unconsciously) susceptible 

 to this form of imitation, women showing a greater 

 tendency towards imitation than men, and those persons 

 who showed a large amount of change in slope also show- 

 ing a large increase in the size of the letters. The more 

 " vertical " writers were, of course, influenced more by 

 the sloping than by the vertical copy ; the opposite rela- 

 tion obtained with the more " slanting " writers. 



The composition of Indian yams, as furnished by 

 chemical analysis, is discus-,' d by Mr. D. Hooper in a 

 short note published in the Journal and Proceedings, 



