592 
NATURE 
| April 7, 1870 
valuable contribution by Dr, Gustav Fritsch, assistant in the 
anatomical museum at Berlin, on the comparative anatomy of 
the hearts of amphibia, illustrated by four plates and many 
drawings. 
THE American Naturalist for March contains several interest- 
ing articles. The longest is by Mr. E. G. Squier, ‘‘On the 
Primeval Monuments of Peru compared with those in other parts 
of the world.” He describes a class of stone structures in Peru 
belonging to what is regarded as the earliest monumental period, 
coincident in style and character with the cromlechs, dolmens, 
and ‘‘sun” or ‘* Druidical” circles of Scandinavia, the British 
Islands, France, and Northern and Central Asia. Considerable 
aboriginal Peruvian tribes once lived in houses built on piles, or 
on floats in the shallow waters of the Andean lake. The rem- 
nants of such a tribe still live in this manner, and bear the name 
of Antis ; they spoke and still speak a language differing equally 
from the Aymara and Quichua, called Puquina. Early chroniclers 
speak of them as extremely savage, and calling themselves, not 
men, but Uros. Whole towns of them, it is said, lived on floats 
of ¢ortora or reeds, which they moved from place to place accord- 
ing to their convenience or necessities. —Prof. Joseph Leidy con- 
tributes remarks on some curious sponges ; and Mr. W. W. Bailey 
a sketch of the Truckee and Humboldt valleys between the 
Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains. 
Silliman and Danas American Fournal of Science and Art for 
March contains the following articles :—Photometric Experi- 
ments, Part I., byO. N. Rood. Contributions to the Chemistry 
of Copper, Part L, by T. Sterry Hunt. Notice of a recent 
Land-slide on Mount Passaconaway, by G. H. Perkins. On the 
Silyer Mines of Santa Eulalia, Mexico, by J. M. Kimball. 
Machinery and Processes of the Industrial Arts, and Apparatus 
of the Exact Sciences by F. A. P. Barnard. On Norite or 
Labradorite Rock, by T. Sterry Hunt. On the Cause of the 
colour of the water of Lake Leman, by A. A. Hayes. On the 
Potassio-Cobaltic ‘Nitrite known as Fischer’s Salt, by S. P. 
Sadtler. Notice of some Fossil Birds from the Cretaceous and 
Tertiary formations of the United States, by O. C. Marsh. 
Descriptions of Shells, from the Gulf of California, by A. E. 
Verrill. Notice of Dr. Gould’s Report on the Transatlantic 
Longitude. Meteors of November, 1869, by Prof. H. A. 
Newton. 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 
LONDON 
Ethnological Society, March 22.—Prof. Huxley, F.R.S., 
president, in the chair. Mr. R. S. Newall was announced as 
a new member. —A paper was read on current British My- 
thology and Oral Tradition, by Mr. J. F. Campbell (of Islay). 
After explaining the sources whence his popular tales of the 
Western Highlands had been derived, he referred to the tradi- 
tional character of myths, and expressed an opinion that many 
genuine British traditions orally preserved in Celtic may pro- 
bably be old Aryan myths, mingled perhaps with pre-Aryan 
myths. Popular oral history must be founded on a real event, 
but minor details gradually drop out, while the most conspicnous 
incidents approach each other. The author showed how a 
legend sprouts from a fact which, being at first accurately told, 
passes into a tradition, while the dates and persons and locali- 
ties become uncertain. Poetry is a good vehicle for preserving 
facts, and many current traditions carry with them a rhyme ora 
proverb to aid the memory. Hence, too, historic events are 
readily preserved in the ballad form. The president, Dr. Archi- 
bald Campbell, and Mr. Bouverie Pusey spoke upon this com- 
munication. —Dr. Campbell then read a note by the Rey. R. 
Mapleton on a Cist with Engraved Stones on the Poltallock 
Estate, Argyleshire. 
Zoological Society, March 24.—Dr. E. Hamilton, V.P., 
in, the chair. Mr. P. L. Sclater exhibited a coloured drawing 
received from Dr. Salvadori, of Turin, of a bird which Dr. Sal- 
vadori had proposed to describe as a new genus and species, but 
which was evidently referable to the singular pigeon recently 
named by Mr. Gould as Ofdiphaps nobilis.—Mr. W. B. Teget- 
meier exhibited and made remarks on a living specimen of an 
Axolotl (Sivedon pisciformis) which had undergone the change 
into the Salamandroid form recently described by Professor 
Dumeril, of Paris. —A third letter was read from Mr. W. H. 
Hudson, containing remarks on the ornithology of the vicinity 
of Buenos Ayres.—Mr, Osbert Salvin read a paper on the birds 
of Veragua, based on large collections recently formed by Enrique 
Arce in that country, and in continuation of a former memoir on 
the same subject. The present communication contained an 
account of 214 species not given in the former list, and made 
altogether 434 species now known to occur in this limited 
district. Of these additional species several were stated to be 
new to science and of great interest.—Mr. P. L. Sclater read a 
notice of two rare species of pheasants from Upper Assam 
recently added to the society’s living collection. These were a 
Monaul (Lophophorus sclateri) and a Tragopan (Ceriornis bhyhii), 
both lately described as new by Dr. Jerdon. For these specimens, - 
both of which were in fine plumage and of very remarkable 
beauty, the society was indebted to the liberality of Major 
Montagu, of the Bengal Staff Corps.—Mr. P. L. Sclater read 
some further notes on the cuckoos of the genus Coccyzes, in 
continuation of a former paper on the same subject.—A com- 
munication was read from Professor J. V. Barboza du Bocage, 
containing a description of anew species of pelican from Angola, 
proposed to be called P. sharpi.—A communication was read 
from Dr. J. C. Cox, giving descriptions of eight new species of 
shells from Australia and the Solomon Islands.—A communica- 
tion was read from Mr. Jonathan Couch, of Polperro, describing 
a new species of 4fZysia or sea-hare, which had recently occurred 
on the coast of Cornwall, and which he proposed to call 4. 
melanopus. 
Chemical Society, March 17.—Prof. Williamson, F.R.S., 
president, in the chair. The following gentlemen were elected 
fellows: D. Brown, A. Muirhead, T. L. Patterson, D. Penny, 
S. T. Smith. The first paper read was on artificial alizarine, 
by W. H. Perkins,*F.R.S. The lecturer commenced by sketch- 
ing the history of the researches which had finally led to the 
artificial production of alizarine. ‘This colouring matter was first 
obtained by Robiquet and Colin from madder root, and investi- 
gated by Schunk, who assigned to it the formula C,, Hy) O4 ; 
it will subsequently be seen how very near this formula comes to 
the truth. Strecker and other chemists had reasons to write 
C,)H,O3 as the composition of alizarine, relating it to the com- 
pound C,,H;Cl O, which Laurent had produced from naphtaline, 
and which Strecker regarded as chloralizarine. A few years 
since Graebe, when investigating a hydrocarbon known as 
quinone, C,H,O,, found it to be a benzol in which two atoms 
of hydrogen were replaced by the group [O—O].” A deriva- 
tive of this body, the chloranil, C,Cl, [O2]’ yields hydric chlo- 
ranilate on successive treatment with caustic potash and hydric 
chloride. This reaction induced Graebe to view the chloride of 
Laurent’s chloroxynaphtalic acid as the dichlorinated quinone of 
naphtaline, — 
C, Hs 
(pele Ot! 
Naphtaline. FT Cl, [02] 
Chloride of chloroxynaphtalic acid 
or Dichlornaphtoquinone. 
and indeed when this naphtaline derivative is acted upon succes- 
sively by potash and hydric chloride, it furnishes chloroxynaph- 
talic acid. After it had thus been shown that chloroxynaphtalic 
acid, Strecker’s chloralizarine, was a quinone acid, Graebe and 
Liebermann thought it probable that alizarine might also be the 
quinone acid of some hydrocarbon, and it was now only neces- 
sary to know this hydrocarbon. On reducing a specimen of 
natural alizarine, a substance of the composition C,,H,,) was ob- 
tained ; but this is the formula of anthracene of coal tar, and 
indeed the substance obtained by the reduction of alizarine pos- 
sessed all the properties of anthracene. This fact led Graebe 
and Liebermann to assume alizarine to be the quinone acid of 
anthracene,— 
: ; auton 
Cy yAyo C1 4H (O,) C,H, 4 HO | 
HO 
Anthracene Quinone of anthracene Anthraquinonic acid 
or Anthraquinone. or Alizarine. 
Having obtained anthracene from alizarine, it now remained 
to produce alizarine from anthracene. For this purpose it was 
first required to have the quinone of anthracene. Graebe and 
Liebermann found the desired substance in the oxygenated 
compound, C,,H,O,, which had been obtained by Laurent from 
anthracene. They heated this anthraquinone with bromine, 
acted upon the dibromanthraquinone thus gained with potash, 
and decomposed the potash salt thus obtained by hydric chloride. 
The product of these successive reactions was alizarine. But to 
turn this beautiful discovery to practical account, it was necessary 
to replace the bromine required in the process by some cheaper 
re-agent. A good substitute has been found in sulphuric acid. 
