April 20, 1871| 
NATURE 
497 

to Lake Howe has been carefully measured, and, with the 
exception of the north-west portion of the colony, nearly every 
district has been emmeshed by the geodetic surveyors. The most 
important operation of late has been the determination of the 
termini of the boundary between New South Wales and Victoria.” 
It is much to be regretted that the late retrenchments in the public 
expenditure have materially interfered with the progress of the 
survey. 
After a few remarks on the commercial importance of local 
industries, especially the preservation of meat, the president 
referred to our vastly increased knowledge of the sun since the 
date of the eclipse of May 1869, to the nature of the sun’s 
spots, and to the connection of the latter with the occurrence of 
magnificent auroras and magnetic storms, and to the spectrum of 
auroral light. ‘‘During the most brilliant display in April last, 
I was able,” he observes, “‘to obtain a very bright spectrum of 
the light with a micro-spectroscope. Unfortunately the dispersion 
was small, but the light was so intense as to admit of a very 
narr>w slit. The spectrum obtained from the red streamers 
consisted of a strong red band or line (which [ estimated was 
rather more refrangible than C line), and bands in the green, 
which I believe to be the same as described by Angstrom. The 
spectrum of the green light which formed the lower arch of the 
aurora, however, contained no red band, and the appearance of 
it, as the spectroscope was passed up and down, so as to receive 
the light from the streamers or green arch, was very marked in- 
deed. I am not aware of this red band or line having been noticed 
by any previous observers ; and had it not been so clear and 
prominent, far brighter than the green ones—and had [I not 
proved that it belonged to the red streamers, and not to any 
other, of the auroral light, by the method referred to—I might 
have been doubtful as to the real existence of a line not hitherto 
noted in the spectra of aurora.”” The address concludes with a 
few observations regarding the possibility of our ever being able 
to ascertain the laws which govern the weather so as to predict 
with certainty the atmospheric condition of to-morrow. On this 
point Mr. Ellery does not express himself very hopefully, but he 
thinks that the greater climatal events, such as dry or wet, hot 
or cold, seasons mi1y be traced to varying conditions in the sun 
itself, and will be found to be extraneous to our globe. As 
GE. D: 


SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 
THE Journal of the Royal Geological Society of Ireland, vol. 
xii. Part 3 (vol. ii. Part 3, new series), containing the Proceed- 
ings of the Society for the session 1869-70, has just been pub- 
lished. It contains among other memoirs, Prof. Traquair on 
Griffithides mucronatus (M‘Coy) Plate xvi., and on Calamoichthys 
calabaricus. Rey. J. D. La Touche on Spheroidal Structure 
in Silurian Rocks, Plates xvii.-xx. Rev. M. Close on some 
Corries and their Rock Basins in Kerry, Plate xxi. Edward 
Hull on the Geological Age of the Ballycastle Coal-field, and 
its Relations to the Carboniferous Rocks of the West of Scotland, 
Plate xxiii. W. H. Baily on the Fossils of the Ballycastle 
Coal-field, Co. Antrim. 
Leitschrift fiir Ethnologie, 1870, Hefts 3, 4.—A paper by Bas- 
tian on the legend of the Amazons, is full of valuable information, 
but is written with less skill than learning. The footnotes make 
more than three-fourths of the whole, and the parentheses nearly 
half of the rest.—Hensel contributes a description of two skulls 
of Coroado Indians (Brazil) with figures. He agrees with many 
of our best ethnologis:s that the dimensions of the cranium afford 
us no safe ground for making racial or specific distinctions. On 
the other hand, he regards the structure of the facial bones as 
of great importance from this point of view.—R. Hartmann 
continues his studies on domestic animals by an account of 
the reindeer in its present condition, followed by an interest- 
ing discussion on the evidence of its domestication in prehis- 
toric times. This number also contains a short archzeological 
account of the Uglei See (one of the numerous lakes in the 
east of Holstein, situated in an enclave belonging to Olden- 
burg), by E. Friedel.—The last number of the same journal 
(1870, 4) is almost entirely devoted to American Ethnology. 
Prof. Strobel concludes his contributions to comparative 
ethnology by an account of the weapons and food of the South 
American Indians; Dr. Fonck has a paper on the Indians 
of Southern Chili ; Ernst of Caracas one on the Natives of 
the Peninsula of Goajiro, which forms the western boundary 


of the entrance to the gulf and bay of Maracaybo, in Columbia ; 
and Erman contributes an account (with a map) of the various 
races inhabiting what was until lately Russian America, the 
Aleutian Isles, and the opposite coast of N.E. Asia ; he divides 
them into two great groups according to their system of 
numeration. 
In the Journal of the Ethnological Society of London (Octo- 
ber 1870) is an interesting paper by Mr. David Forbes ‘‘ On the 
Aymara Indians of the Peruvian highlands.” Very full informa- 
tion as to their physical structure is given, together with exact 
measurements, Beside their short stature and capacious thorax 
(which seems to be constantly fixed in the condition of inspira- 
tion) Mr, Forbes’s statistics show that the thigh is shorter than 
the leg, and that the heel is as much shorter than a European’s as 
a Negro’s is longer. The half-castes between these Indians and 
the white population are not believed by the author to be 
prolific, so that, as in the case of mulattos, the intermediate race 
would soon die out if not continually recruited by new accessions. 
Among many interesting details on the food of the Aymaras— 
especially their method of preparing potato so as to keep it 
from rotting—on their disposition and habits, their implements, 
and their language, perhaps the most remarkable is an account 
of a silver statuette (figured in pl. xx.) of a man ina strange 
headdress, who holds in one hand a mask, which he has appa- 
rently taken off in order to look through an instrument like a 
telescope. This tube he holds to his left eye (without shutting 
the other) and directs it upwards. Mr. Forbes believes this to 
be a unique specimen. 
THE last part (Band vii. Heft 1) of the Zeitschr ft piir Biologie 
contains : 1. The results of an elaborate series of experiments 
by Gustave Meyer of Oldenburg on the effects of feeding dogs 
and man on bread alone, and bread mingled with meat and 
other articles of diet. He shows what indeed has long been 
known, that to feed either animals or man on bread alone is a 
-great waste of material, and that immense quantities must be 
given in order that the body should lose no flesh, whilst on the 
other hand the addition of some, even though a small quantity, 
of meat is economical. He demonstrates that the tissues of the 
body become more watery with insufficient food, which renders 
the whole organism less capable of resisting injurious influences, 
In his experiments on man he endeavoured to ascertain which of 
the several kinds of bread in ordinary use (white bread, rye 
bread, black bread) was absorbed in greatest amount during its 
passage through the alimentary canal, and found that white 
wheaten bread occupies the first place, then leavened rye bread, 
then the bread (rye) prepared by the Horsford-Liebig process, 
and lastly the Pumpernickel (North German black bread). 
Nevertheless, the first is not so satisfying to the feeling of 
hunger as the three latter, and is more expensive in every point 
of view. He denies the great nutritious value often attributed 
to bran, since the nitrogenous compounds it contains are mingled 
with much non-assimilable matter, but admits that if these could 
be extracted and were then returned to the flour, the best results 
would be obtained, as the meal already contains abundance ot 
salts. 2. A paper by MM. Emst Schulze and Max Marcker on 
the determination of Nitrogen in the Urine of the Ruminants. 
3. A paper by Dr. J. Bauer on the Metamorphosis of tissue in 
poisoning with Phosphorus ; and lastly a short paper by Max 
von Pettenkofer on Typhus and Cholera as connected with the 
basal water line in Zurich, 



Lonpon 
Chemical Society, April 6.—Prof. Frankland, F.R.S., 
president, in the chair. The president, occupying the chair the 
first time since his election, returned his thanks to the Society 
for the honour conferred upon kim, and expressed his readiness 
to discharge the duties of his office to the best of his abilities. 
The following gentlemen were elected fellows :—F. Coles, C. E. 
Groves, E. W. T. Jones, L. T. MacEwan, and J. L. Shuter. 
The following papers were read: ‘‘On Burnt Iron and Burnt 
Steel,” by W. Mattieu Williams. Iron, which has been damaged 
by reheating, or excessively heated and exposed after balling in 
the puddling furnace, is designated ‘‘ burnt iron” by the work- 
men, It is remarkable that no amount of heat applied to the 
iron in the blast furnace or in the early stages of the puddling 
process produces burnt iron. Burnt iron is brittle, its fracture is 
