April lo, 1884] 



NA TURE 



55' 



thigh in other lands than India, I may say that I have observed 

 the same mode of operating upon paper in Japan very fre- 

 quently. The paper used there is tough and fibrous, and a 

 Japanese is never at a loss for card to tie a parcel with if he 

 has paper beside him. I have seen the spindle-whorl in actual 

 use in upland districts, and it was employed even in Tokio very 

 recently. Henry F.-vulds 



Laurel Bank, Shawlands, Glasgow, April 7 



Colony of Cats 



It may interest those of your readers fond of cats to know 

 that a colony of cats live and breed under the wooden platform 

 of the Victoria Station of the District Railway. They may be 

 seen crossing the rails right in front of trains, and considering 

 the enormous traffic, and the consequent noise and vibration, it 

 certainly does seem remarkable that such naturally timid animals 

 as cats should live amidst such unnatural surroundings. It may 

 tend to show the plasticity of the animal creation generally in 

 adapting itself to surrounding conditions. A female cat may have 

 taken refuge there originally, and hence the railway domestica- 

 tion of the animals. George Rayleigii Vicars 



London 



Earthworms 



Seeing the correspondence on this subject, I am led to give 

 the following fact, wliich aflbrds a further proof of the necessity 

 of a vegetable deposit being formed previous to the existence of 

 earthworms as stated by Mr. JNIelvin (vol. xxi.x. p. 502). A field 

 two years ago was converted into a garden, and on account of 

 bad cultivation, and by reason of each crop being altogether 

 removed for several years in succession, no worms were there, 

 but after the application of a large quantity of stable manure 

 worms have appeared by hundreds, and their castings after rain 

 afford ample proof of their activitj'. TRAXSfoi-mation of vege- 

 table mould combined with animal refuse into available food for 

 plants is here made evident. J. Luvell 



Driffield, April 7 



"The Axioms of Geometry" 



Prof. Henrici, in Nature, vol. xxix. p. 453, considers Hamil- 

 ton's proof of Euclid I. 32 invalid ; and asserts that from his reason- 

 ing it would follow that the sum of the three angles of a siherical 

 triangle equals two ) i^ht angles. I venture to oiffer from him 

 for the f(llov\ing reason: — The only thing which Hamilton re- 

 quires to be granted is that when a moving j^; a?^/;/ line slides 

 along a fixed straight line its direction is unchanged. This 

 axiom will, I suppo: e, be granted by every one. Of course it 

 is not true that in every case rotation is independent of trans- 

 lation. But Hamilton's proof djes not require it to be true in 

 every case, but only in the case of a slraight line. Hence I 

 maintain that Hamilton's reasoning is perfectly correct, and his 

 proof valid. Edward Geoghegan 



Bardsea, March 26 



GEOLOGY OF CENTRAL AFRICA 



THE following extract from a letter received by Mr. 

 Geikie from Mr. Henry Drummond, who is at 

 present exploring the Lake region, may interest our 

 readers : — 



" MaraDWura, Central Africa, November i, 1883 

 " I have now completed a traverse from the mouth of 

 the Zambesi, by way of the Shire highlands, in a north- 

 west direction, until the line joins Mr. Joseph Thomson's 

 route, about half way between Lakes Nyassa and Tan- 

 ganyika. I have filled in the geology so far as is possible 

 in a single survey, and hope thus to be able to extend the 

 sketch geological map, begun by Thomson, for some 

 distance south and west. I may still further extend this 

 by an expedition to Lake Bangvveolo, after the rainy 

 season, but there are circumstances which may make it 

 necessary for me to leave for home in February or March. 

 Perhaps the most interesting thing I have to note is the 

 discovery here of a small but rich bed of fossils. The 



strata alluded to consist of light coloured limestones and 

 shales, with beds of fine gray sandstones, and the fossils 

 include plant, fish, and molluscan remains. Plants are 

 the most scarce, but fish-scales and teeth exist in vast 

 numbers. Unfortunately whole fish are extremely rare, 

 and after three or four days' search I have only succeeded 

 in securing two or three indifferent specimens. The 

 mollusks, on the other hand, are obtainable in endless 

 quantity, and are in fine preservation. Indeed there is 

 one small bed of limestone entirely made up of these 

 remains, all, however, belonging to a single species. From 

 the general character of the beds I am inclined to think 

 they are of lacustrme origin. These fossihferous beds are 

 the only sedimentary rocks I have crossed between the 

 mouth of the Shire — say 130 miles from the coast — and 

 the centre of the Nyassa-Tanganyika plateau. At the 

 point where I crossed them they are not more than a 

 couple of miles in breadth, and are flanked on either side 

 by granite and gneiss. They lie at a short distance from 

 Lake Nyassa, and are probably part of the Mount Waller 

 series. This series stretches for some short distance 

 along the north-west shore of the lake, but is apparently 

 of no great extent. These deposits may possibly throw 

 some light on the problem of the lake. 



" As regards the controversy between Mr. Thomson and 

 Mr. Stewart about (i) the Livingstone Mountains, and (2) 

 the bed of iron between the lakes, I should say that on 

 both points both explorers are right from their own point 

 of view. 



" Mr. Stewart had only been dead a few days when 

 I reached the north end of Nyassa. It was a great 

 disappointment and blow to me, as I looked forward to 

 much help from him. No one living possesses anything 

 like his knowledge of the physical geography of this part 

 of the interior.'' 



CHhVESE PAL^ONTOLOG Y 



PAL.'EONTOLOGY is not a study that commends 

 itself to the attention of Chinamen. With archaeo- 

 logy the case is different. That is a pursuit which within 

 historical limits the Chinese follow with enthusiasm. 

 Every one who possesses any pretensions to culture, and 

 who can aft'ord to indulge the inclination, collects all that is 

 old from cracked china to coins. So prevalent is this taste, 

 and so keen is the competition for objects bearing the 

 stamp of age, that a flourishing trade, such as rivals the 

 celebrated traffic in " antiquities" carried on at Jerusalem, 

 exists in fabricated antiques for the benefit of inexpe- 

 rienced native collectors and foreign purchasers. But 

 natural antiquities are, speaking generally, left unnoticed, 

 or if thought of for a moment are hastily explained by 

 random conjectures. Topsy's celebrated explanation of 

 her existence is about on a par with the guesses which 

 are hazarded by the most learned Chinamen to account 

 for palaeontological phenomena. Science has always a 

 borderland of unsolved questions, but in China this 

 borderland exceeds in extent the territory of know- 

 ledge in the possession of the people. They have no apti- 

 tude for palaeontology, and few writers make any reference 

 lo it. ,'\mong the rare exceptions to this rule is Ch'en 

 Kwah of the Sung Dynasty (A. u. 960-1127), who, in an 

 interesting work entitled " Notes from a Dreamy Valley," 

 has collected a number of facts on natural antiquities as 

 well as on other matters. His knowledge is not deep, 

 but when we remember that Voltaire accounted for the 

 presence of marine shells on the top of the Alps by sup- 

 posing that pilgrims in the Middle Ages had dropped 

 thein on their way to Rome, a great deal may be forgiven 

 a Chinese waiter of the eleventh century. 



The Chinese have so completely lost sight of the possi- 

 bility of the existence in China of any civilisation but 

 their own that when they meet with traces of earlier 

 man they attribute them either to blind chance or to 



