NA TURE 



\jfan. 31, il 



point, and the discovery of another invaluable spring of fresh 

 water is the result. Recently we have had many discoveries to 

 record, all tending to encouraue the search for underground 

 water, on the supply of which the pastoral industry of tliis dis- 

 trict so much depends ; but none has been of more vahie to the 

 discoverers or has tended more to encourage others to persevere 

 in spite of difficulties. This latest di^covery was made last week 

 in the country known as the Pack-Saddle, forming the western 

 portion of Messrs. Donelly and Co.'s Gnalta run. The well 

 was started in the summer of 18S1, but had to be abandoned 

 some time after for want of water for the use of the men, and 

 Mr. Donelly « as urged to choose another site. He persisted, 

 however, in continuing the original work as soon as surface 

 water was available, and he has now come upon a practically 

 inexhaustible spring. The flow was cut at 272 feet in a properly 

 slabbed 6 feet X 3 feet shaft, and during the night following 

 the water rose 172 feet, or within 100 feet of the .surface. 

 The discovery is worth every penny of io,coo/., as it renders 

 immediately available a large tract of good country hitherto dry 

 and therefore comparatively useless. There is another fine 

 well on Gnalta, from which 30,000 sheep have been watered in 

 the dry season, and that discovered last week promises to be as 

 good, if not better." 



In my first letter I pointed out as one evidence of the under- 

 ground water the growth of huge gum trees where there was 

 no visible supply. In a recent number of the Scientific Ameri- 

 can it is stated that, on clearing out a well, the owner was sur- 

 prised to find the bottom covered with a dense mass of fine, 

 fitH'ous roots, which were traced to a Eucalyptus growing at a 

 distance of fifty yards. The large Eucalypti are trees of re- 

 markably rapid growth, \ihich implies the absorptio'i of large 

 quantities of water. By what subtle .sense did that root find 

 out where water could be had, and travel so far to get it ? Dar- 

 win has shown that there is some kind of irritability in the 

 growing points of plan.ts, and tliat it is sometimes communicable 

 to distant parts. We shall probably come in time to admit that 

 there is a nervous current in plant-, though without visible 

 nerves ; and that this rudimentary system of sensation is accom- 

 panied by rudimentary desires, and even by rudimentary ideas, 

 which guide the growing points in their search for the desired 

 olijects. F. .T. MOTT 



Birstal Hill, Leicester, January 20 



Deafness in White Cats 

 This subject has been of much interest to me, and otologists 

 as well as evolutionists must feel indebted to your contributor in 

 Nature of December 13, Mr. Lawson Tait, for his efforts to 

 determine the cause. May 1 be permitted, however, from an 

 otologist's point of view, to draw attention to a possible source 

 of error in conducting researches of this kind when deducti ius 

 are made, as they were in this instance, from acoustic experi- 

 ments mainly ? I allude to Mr. Tail's method of determining 

 the hearing power of the animal experimented on, namely, his 

 cat, " Old Pudge," and the conclusions that he has drawn from 

 the results obtained; thus he infers that purely "tympanic" 

 deafness, consisting in an entire failure of the tran.-mitting 

 mechanism of the middle ear to respond to aerial undulations of 

 sound, existed in the case of " Old Pudge," because ,the concus- 

 sion produced by stamping on rthe floor could be heard by that 

 animal, whilst the voice was not heard. Abnormal hearing of 

 this kind, I am convinced, by no means establishes the fact that 

 inner ear trouble does not exist, since such deaf-mutes as are 

 believed to be defective in this regard are very sensitive to grave 

 or deep tones — thunder, for example, being painful even to 

 them. Pudge's cochlear (inner ear) functions were believed to 

 be serviceable, inasmuch as he could use his voice ; but such 

 evidence cannot be accepted as conclusive, for absolutely deaf 

 persons, who have been deprived of both "tympanic" and 

 "cochlear" functions, are yet capable of making noises, and 

 often of learning to speak after a fashion. Another point is also 

 of interest in this connection : the ears of Pudge, it is said, were 

 found to be normal in every respect, both as to their transmitting 

 and perceptive functions, with the exception of the absence of a 

 triangular gap from either tympanic membrane. In reference to 

 this it may be said, in the first place, that it is diflicult to under- 

 stand how the delicate mucous membrane lining the tympanum 

 retained its "normal" condition under such expomre; and, in 

 the second place, these defects could scarcely be the cause of 

 absolute deafness, since it is a well-known fact that quite good 



hearing often remains in the human suliject where, from disease, 

 much greater loss in the tympanic membrane has bjen sustained 

 than was found to exist in the hearing organs of Pudge. Alto- 

 gether it seems probable that in certain white cats great con- 

 genital deafness may exist, and that the animal, on finding aerial 

 transmission of sound to be imperfect, comes finally, like man 

 under similar circumstances, to disregard its use entirely, and 

 place its reliance solely on sound that can be felt, as it were. 

 Moreover, is it not probable also that the trouble, in some degree 

 at least, may lie in the perceptive centre of the brain ? It is a sig- 

 nificant fact that in Pudge at lea-t some disease of the nervous 

 centres existed, since he v\as the subject of epileptic convulsions. 



Samuel Sexton 

 12, West Thirty-fifth Street, New York, January 3 



FURTHER DISCOVERIES IN THE FLORA OF 

 A^CIENT EGYPT^ 



SINCE my last communication on the Flora of Ancient 

 Egypt (Nature, vol. xxviii. p. 109) I have made 

 some interesting new botanical discoveries in connection 

 with the mummies of the twenty-first dynasty, found at 

 Deir-el-Bahari in July, 1881, which I will now describe in 

 soine detail ; the objects having been forwarded to the 

 IVIuseum of the Royal Gardens, Kew. 



In the coffin of the Princess Nzi-Khonsu of the twenty- 

 first dynasty there was a large number of well-preserved 

 wreaths, in which I found three species of plants of the 

 ancient flora not previously authenticated by specimens. 

 Besides wreaths of the leaves of Miinusops Schimperi 

 and the petals of Nymphica cantka, already described 

 from examples found on the mummy of Ramses II., there 

 were on the mummy of the Princess Nzi-Khonsu, daughter 

 of Tontonthuti, numerous floral wreaths composed as 

 follows : (0 folded leaves of a willow {Salix safsaf) strung 

 on threads of the leaves of the date palm, and serving as 

 clasps ; (2) perfect flowers of the corn poppy [Papaver 

 rhceas) ; (3) complete flower-heads of a corn flower (Cen- 

 tau7-ca depressa) ; and (4) complete flower-heads of a 

 composite (Pun's coronopifoiia). 



The flowers of Papaver ?-/ia'as equal in size those of 

 the small form one has an opportunity of seeing in such 

 abundance in the Mediterranean region in the spring 

 months as a weed in cornfields, by roadsides, and on 

 walls. In order to prevent the petals from falling, the 

 flowers were picked in an unopened condition ; and in 

 drying in the vault the petals had shrivelled and shrunk 

 up into a ball, to which circumstance is due the fact that 

 in examining the moistened flowers all the inner part: 

 appear before the eyes in a Avonderful state of perfection. 

 Not a stamen, not an anther is wanting ; nay, one might 

 almost say that not even a pollen-grain is missing. Rarely 

 are such perfect and well-preserved specimens of this 

 fragile flower met with in herbaria. The colour, too, of 

 the petals is maintained in a high degree, as in dried 

 specimens of the present day. It is a dark brown-red, 

 that leaves a deep stain on the paper where the flowers 

 have been soaked. The very caducous sepals were want- 

 ing in the flowers examined ; but all the peduncles were 

 thickly beset with the characteristic, horizontally-spre.id- 

 ing, bristly hairs. The petals are destitute of the dark 

 spot on the claw which is common to many varieties of 

 the species. The naked ovary is shortly obovate in shape, 

 or, in some of the very young flowers, cylindrical, though 

 never so much elongated that one could doubt its belong- 

 ing to the genuine variety described by Boissier in his 

 " Flora Orientalis." The stigmatic disk is obtusely and 

 broadly conical ; and the rays vary in number from eight 

 to ten. The edge of the stigmatic disk is bordered with 

 orbiculate, auriculate, white appendages incumbent upon 

 it. The anthers are oblong, twice as long as broad, and 



■ This article was sent by the author. Dr. G. Schweinfurth, to Sir Joseph 

 Hooker, together with the botanical objects described tlierein. The original 

 is in German, and the translation here given is as nearly hteral as possible.— 



\V. liOTTING He.MSLEV. 



