390 



NATURE 



[September 21, ign 



observer-in-charge for the latter being Mr. E. Kidson, 

 formerly of the Christchurch Magnetic Observatory, 

 and more recently observer on board the Carnegie. 

 Cooperation has also been effected between the Mawson 

 Antarctic expedition and Dr. Bauer's department. 



In the obituary notice of the Rev. F. J. Jervis-Smith, 

 F.R.S., which appeared in Nature of September 7, the 

 writer, who was an old friend, remarked : — " Trained as 

 a mechanical engineer, he gave up the calling of his choice, 

 went to Oxford, and entered the Church for family 

 reasons." Mr. E. J. Jervis-Smith writes to say that this 

 is not correct, as his father's education was entirely 

 classical. Also, he says, " My father intended from his 

 earliest childhood to enter Holy Orders, as it was his 

 father's greatest wish that he should do so." The Rev. 

 F. J. Jervis-Smith certainly knew all the tricks of the 

 engineer's workshop, and prided himself upon so doin^ ; 

 and this led the writer of the notice to believe that he 

 had been trained in mechanical engineering, instead 

 of receiving the usual classical education with the 

 intention of entering Holy Orders. His interests were, 

 however, scientific and engineering, whatever was his 

 educational course, for his son says : — " As a child my 

 father saw a great deal of Mr, William Ellis Metford, who 

 imbued him with a love of mechanics and scientific ap- 

 paratus. He had a small scientific and mechanical 

 laboratory of his own at Taunton, where he carried en 

 research work before going to Oxford as Millard lecturer." 



We learn from The Lancet that a society for the pre- 

 vention of diseases and epidemics (Gesellschaft zur 

 Bekampfung von Volksseuchen) has been founded in 

 Austria which will act in concert with the Public Board 

 of Health and the Sanitary Department of the Ministry 

 of the Interior. Its aims are to supplement the endeavours 

 of the public authorities in combating diseases, to improve 

 the general circumstances of patients and their families 

 belonging to the poorer classes, to provide adequately 

 trained attendants for the care and nursing of patients 

 during epidemics, and to organise medical help and 

 hospital accommodation in non-epidemic times. The 

 society will also encourage investigations relative to the 

 spread of diseases, as well as their prophylaxis and treat- 

 ment, and will, so far as possible, make the general public 

 acquainted with the results of these scientific researches. 

 The society will endeavour to improve the knowledge, not 

 only of the so-called epidemics, but also of all diseases 

 which prevail extensively. The present intention is that 

 the scientific part of the work shall be divided amongst 

 all practitioners in the country through the instrumentality 

 of the local medical unions and councils. It is thought 

 possible that an international society for the study of 

 epidemic diseases may in the course of time be called into 

 existence. 



Man for September contains an important report by Mr. 

 C. L. Woolley on the great collection of pottery brought 

 by Dr. M. A. Stein from Chinese Turkestan and western 

 China, which dates from the first century B.C. onwards. 

 Much of it consists of hand-made pots fired in an open 

 hearth, as is still the custom in modern India, and show- 

 ing in the section the uneven bands of colour usually 

 resulting from this process. An important advance is 

 illustrated by the moulded ware, in which the moulds 

 employed show distinct Gandhara influence. The wheel- 

 made pots arc usually of finely levigated clay, kiln-fired, 

 sometimes smothered, sometimes of a clear terra-cotta red. 

 It is not necessary to suppose that the glazed specimens 

 were imported, because similar glazes, though on a 

 different body, were certainly locally produced. 

 NO. 2l86, VOL. 87] 



Recent reports announce numerous important prehistoric 

 finds in this country. In a sepulchral barrow of the Bronze 

 age at Eye, near Peterborough, a pot containing food 

 offerings to the dead was unearthed in 1910. But it was 

 only in the present year that the actual interment was 

 discovered, the skeleton being that of a tall man, whose 

 corpse had been laid on the right side with the head to 

 the south-west, and the arms and legs flexed, a disposi- 

 tion typical of this period. The absence of articles accom- 

 panying the interment makes it difficult to fix the date 

 more closely than in the second millennium B.C. During 

 the visit of the Cambrian Association to Promontory Hill 

 Fort, which overlooks the Vale of Clwyd, near which 

 some fine bronze trappings were found some forty years 

 ago, the accidental discovery by a member of the party 

 of some fragments of pottery at the mouth of a rabbit 

 burrow enabled Prof. Boyd Daakins to conclude that this 

 site had been occupied from thSater Bronze and Iron age 

 down to the end of the seconci or third century of the 

 Roman occupation. 



The Times of September 6, in its second article describing 

 the excavations made by Commendatore Boni at the 

 Roman Forum, throws some light on the problems con- 

 nected with the famous Niger lapis, or black stone, which 

 was unearthed in 1890, and has since supplied the material 

 for a vigorous controversy. It is a slab of black marble 

 covering remains which are certainly of great antiquity, 

 including a broken rectangular stele bearing an inscription, 

 which has hitherto remained undeciphered. These remains 

 bear marks of intentional demolition ; and close to the 

 place were found a series of dedicatory gifts, such as small 

 idols of clay, bone, or bronze, with some river sand, which 

 was obviously brought here from a distance to serve some 

 special religious purpose. It thus appears to mark the site 

 of a ruined sanctuary, hitherto assumed to be an unlucky 

 spot — the grave of Romulus, or of his foster-father 

 Faustulus, or Hostus Hostilius. Commendatore Boni now 

 believes that this was the site of the rostra destroyed by 

 the patricians at the beginning of the civil war, about 

 124 B.C. The present remains, he supposes, mark an 

 expiatory rite performed in obedience to an oracle pro- 

 cured from the shrine of Demeter at Enna, in Sicily, from 

 which advice was sought how best to expiate the con- 

 tamination of the Forum by the slaughter of so many 

 Roman citizens. It thus represented a popular monument 

 intended to be a lasting memorial of plebeian resentment 

 against this outrage on the part of the aristocratic faction. 



The contents of Nos. 3 and 4 of the second volume of 

 the Economic Proceedings of the Royal Dublin Society 

 include an article by Prof. G. H. Carpenter on insects, &c., 

 injurious to crops and trees observed in Ireland in 1910. 



We have received a copy of the report of the museum 

 of the county borough of Warrington for the year ending 

 June 30. It may be noticed that the museum accepts such 

 miscellaneous objects as a Rhone beaver and a portion 

 of tree-trunk gnawed by the Canadian representative of 

 the same. 



In the September number of British Birds Miss E. L. 

 Turner records the breeding of the bittern in Norfolk 

 during the past summer. It appears that three adult birds 

 were observed in the latter part of December, 1910; 

 booming commenced at the end of the following January, 

 and continued, with the exception of February, until June 4, 

 when it ceased. A half-fledged young bird was taken on 

 July 8 (and subsequently liberated) which appeared to be 

 four or five weeks old ; and it is suggested that this was the 

 latest of the brood, the other members of which had dis- 



