462 
NATURE 
[March 3, 1870 
and beautifully-chipped leaf-shaped arrow-heads” have | 
been found in one or two instances, and this type of | 
arrow-head, which is unbarbed, is the only one yet dis- 
covered. In no case has any trace of metal been found 
with the primary interments. Iragments of a coarse black 
pottery are occasionally met with, and in one barrow, 
that of Norton Bavant, Dr. Thurnam was fortunate 
enough to discover a tolerably perfect vessel of extremely 
rude construction, and utterly devoid of the ornamentation 
usually found in the pottery from the round barrows. 
Thanks to the courtesy of the Society of Antiquaries, we 
are enabled to reproduce Dr. Thurnam’s drawing of this 
vessel. We are likewise indebted to the same Society for 
the other figures which illustrate this paper, 
Remains of oxen of the ancient small species, Bos 
longifrons or Bos brachyceros, are often found in long 
barrows not far from the human remains ; antlers and 
bones of the red deer are still more frequent. Tusks 
and bones of swine have also been discovered. It would 
appear that oxen were slaughtered at the funeral feasts, 
and that the heads and feet (the bones of which parts are 
more frequently found), not being used for food, were 
buried in the barrow, perhaps as offerings to the gods or 
to the spirits of the dead. 
Secondary interments in the upper portion of long 
barrows are not infrequent, and afiord valuable evidence 
of the antiquity of these tumuli. Some of these inter- 
ments are assigned without hesitation to the Anglo-Saxon 
period ; others, again, undoubtedly belong to the Ancient 
Britons of the bronze age, being sometimes burials after 
cremation, sometimes interments of entire skeletons in 
the contracted posture characteristic of the round bar- 
rows. In the latter case the remains are frequently 
associated with pottery undoubtedly of the round-barrow 
period. In order to show the difference between this 
pottery found with secondary interments in long barrows, 
and part of the long-barrow period itself, we reproduce 
(Fig. 3) an elegantly ornamented drinking-cup found at 
Figheldean, and now in possession of Dr, ‘Vhurnam. 
In the present article we have only touched upon some 
of the most interesting of Dr. Thurnam’s researches. It 
still remains for us to notice the chambered long barrows, 
and the most important evidence of all, that derived from 
the skeletons disinterred in both chambered and un- 
chambered barrows. We have been able from the archzeo- 
logical evidence to gain some idea of the state of barba- 
rism in which these primitive people lived ; but stiil 
further information is to be obtained even on this point 
from the very bones of the people themselves ; and from 
these sad relics alone can we obtain any ray of light as to 
the relation of these most ancient Britons to the popula- 
tion of more civilised times. 
HOW LARGE SEEMS THE MOON? 
N a communication addressed to the Association 
Scientifique, M. Viguier remarks on the linear 
dimensions which ordinary observers employ to define the 
size of celestial objects. They seem to imagine that they 
are really pointing out the size of a meteor, for instance, 
when they state that it was a yard in diameter, or the like 
Of course, such a statement is absolutely without meaning 
to the astronomer ; while the seemingly less precise mode 
of speaking which compares the size of a meteor to that 
of the moon, is in reality much more valuable. It is true 
that when an observer says a meteor was as large as the 
moon, he makes a wider error than when he says it was a 
yard in diameter; but the astronomer knows what one 
statement means, whereas he can form no real estimate 
even of the meteor’s apparent size from the other. 
If every observer formed the same estimate of the 
linear dimensions of a celestial object, one might indeed 
interpret a statement of the Jinear dimensions of a meteor. 
But this is not the case. As M. Viguier justly remarks, 
| the short-sighted or the far-sighted person each forms his 
own estimate of the moon’s real size, the position of the 
moon affects the judgment, nay, even the state of the 
weather influences our instinctive estimate. 
But it is interesting to consider what is really implied 
by such a statement as that the moon is a foot in diameter. 
This is a size often assigned to the moon, I may remark, 
though many judge her to look larger. The moon sub- 
tends an angle of about half a degree, so that this estimate 
makes half a degree of the celestial sphere one foot in 
length. Thus the circumference becomes about 720 feet, 
and the radius about 115 feet. This, at any rate, is the 
distance which the estimate assigns to the moon, And 
this last view is the more correct, since the varying esti- 
mates made of the moon’s dimensions according to her 
position, suffice to show that the mind instinctively assigns 
to the celestial vault a somewhat flattened figure, the part 
overhead seeming nearest to us. In fact, a common 
opinion that the moon’s diameter looks about twice as 
large when she is on the horizon as when she is nearly 
overhead, would assign to the celestial dome the figure of a 
segment of a sphere, less than a fifth of the sphere’s 
surface being above the horizon. 
It is worth noticing, though M. Viguier does not con- 
sider the point, that we can conclude from the estimated 
size of the moon as compared with the intervals separating 
certain stars, that the mind intuitively assigns to the 
moon a distance considerably greater than that of the 
fixed stars. For example, I find that if, when the moon is 
below the horizon, an observer be asked whether the 
distance separating the three stars in Orion’s beit (¢ from 
e, or ec from 6, I mean) be greater or less than the moon’s 
diameter, the answer is that it is about equal to that 
dimension. In reality, the moon’s apparent diameter is 
but about one-third of the distance between these stars. 
It follows that the mind estimates the distance between 
the stars on a scale one-third only even of the small scale 
according to which it measures the moon; in other words, 
that it regards the distance of the fixed stars as about 
one-third that of the moon. 
It may be, however, that the result of this comparison 
merely indicates that the mind assigns to the celestial 
sphere as seen on a moonless night a distance equal to 
only one-third of that which separates us from the faintly 
seen stars of a night on which the moon is full. 
Ricub. A. PROCTOR 
NOTES 
We are informed that her Majesty’s Government has deter- 
mined to issue a Royal Commission to ingnire into the present 
state of Science in England. This step will be hailed with the 
liveliest satisfaction on all sides, and much good will certainly 
follow from such an inquiry, especially at a time when the ar- 
rangements for the prosecution of Science in this country are 
acknowledged on all hands not only to be ‘‘ chaotic,” but posi- 
tively detrimental to the national interest. We learn that some 
of the commissioners have already been designated, but as their 
number is not yet complete, we withhold the names, 
WE have been favoured with a copy of the report just issued 
by the Rivers Pollution Commissioners on the Mersey and Ribble 
basins. We hope to return to this subject shortly. 
THE first Royal Society’s Soirée of this Session will take 
place on Saturday evening next. 
Mr. E. Ray LANKESTER has been elected by examination to 
the Radcliffe Travelling Fellowship at Oxford. 
WE have received the third part of Vol. I. of the Transactions 
of the Edinburgh Geological Society, containing the communi- 
cations made to that body during its session 1868-1869. These 
are numerous, and testify to the activity of the members of the 
