592 



NA rURE 



[Ap7-il 2\, 1887 



and an en\blem of perfect good,'' also belongs to this 

 class. It has the body of a deer, the tail of an ox, and a 

 single horn, so that it resembles the unicorn. The phoenix 

 is another animal of this kind, with the head of a pheasant, 

 the beak of a swallow, the neck of a tortoise, and the 

 outward resemblance of a dragon. It is regarded as an 

 omen of good, and heralds the advent of a beneficent 

 reign. " In works of art it is a nondescript bird of 

 gorgeous plumage, intermediate between that of the 

 peacock and bird of paradise, and bears flame-like 

 appendages where the neck joins the body." 



All the creatures referred to here, and many more 

 belonging to one or other of the classes of zoological 

 myths, are represented pictorially in the li'a-Kaii-Sa/i- 

 Sai (isu-yc, already mentioned, and in the Mdiit^-cua of 

 Hokusai, a book to which access can be obtained without 

 difficulty in most of the capitals of Europe. 



To the mythical animals already mentioned, which 

 are common to China and Japan, the Japanese have 

 added some of their own invention. Such are serpents, 

 giant centipedes, monster devil-fishes ; earth-spiders, pro- 

 bably representing the troglodytes of old Japan ; the 

 raccoon-faced dog, which possesses in a minor degree the 

 evil powers and tendencies of the fox ; the wolf-like animal 

 which produces thunder ; the " whirling neck," or being 

 which has the power of so elongating the neck that the 

 head appears in places remote from the body ; the man- 

 devouring kappa, which frequents rivers and ponds, and 

 politely challenges wayfarers to single combat ; and many 

 other equally strange creatures. An outline sketch of 

 Japanese demonology will be found at p. 59, and a striking 

 myth of a demon spider at p. 109. 



Enough, however, has been said to show that if Mr. 

 Anderson, in his catalogue and larger work on the 

 " Pictoral Arts of Japan," has revealed to British readers 

 a new and most important branch of art, he has in- 

 cidentally indicated to his readers a new world of myth, 

 which has hitherto found no place in the consideration 

 of students of comparative mythology in Europe, but 

 which can now be no longer neglected. Mr. Anderson 

 of course treats it almost solely in its relation to art, but he 

 informs the reader in every case where further and more 

 detailed information may be obtained. The task of tracing 

 these myths to their source and of finding analogies else- 

 where is one for the scientific inquirer. Mr. Anderson 

 has done the more laborious part of the work in bringing 

 them together. He also suggests that very many of them 

 will be found to have their homes in India, and to have 

 spread with the doctrines of Buddha to China and other 

 far eastern countries. One great advantage which the 

 student of the zoological and other myths of China and 

 Japan will have is that in the exhibition of the Anderson 

 Collection, which is shortly to be opened at the British 

 Museum, he will be able to see in the most graphic form 

 the conceptions of successive generations of artists of the 

 beings to which the myths relate — an advantage which 

 could not be obtained even in the countries themselves 

 without considerable expenditure of money, time, and 

 labour. It only remains to be said that we have adopted 

 Mr. Anderson's classifications, and in many instances 

 have employed his own words in the descriptions of the 

 myths scattered in so much profusion throughout the 

 catalogue. 



NOTES 



We regret to have to announce the death, on Good Friday, 

 at the Nice Observator)', of M. ThoUon, the eminent spectro- 

 scopist. Few men devoted to spectroscopic inquiry have worked 

 so unceasingly and successfully ; and in him Science loses one 

 of the most single-minded of her vjtai-ies. He has been cut 

 off in the midst of his labours, which, especially since his loca- 



tion at M. Bischoffsheim's magnificent observatory and the 

 completion of the spectroscopic installation there, have borne 

 such rich fruit in the shape of a method of sorting ou; the 

 telluric from the true solar lines (a method slightly modified 

 by Cornu), and of a map of the solar spectrum as observed by 

 the new form of spectroscope of his own invention, which vastly 

 surpasses in dispersion and purity of image anything that 

 preceded it. Dr. ThoUon has not only worked at Nice, but at 

 the Pic du Midi and the Paris Observatory ; be was also one 

 of the observers of the total solar eclipse in Egypt in 1882. In 

 all his wanderings, as in his work, he made many friends, and 

 all who knew him will mourn his loss, not only as a man of 

 science, but as one possessing, above the ordinary degree, a true 

 and genial nature. 



On March 5 a drawing-room meeting for the promotion of 

 technical education was held at the house of Mr. E. C. Robins, 

 under the presidency of Prof Hu.xley. A Memorandum of 

 the proceedings has now been printed for private circula- 

 tion. An address on the technical training at the Central 

 Institution at South Kensington was delivered by Prof Ayrton. 

 The address was followed by a discussion, in which Prof 

 Silvanus Thompson, Mr. Brewin, Prof Perry, Prof Henrici, 

 and others took pari. In summing up the debate. Prof. 

 Huxley remarked that something had been said about rivalry 

 between the Central Institution and the Finsbury School. 

 That most excellent and vigorous school which the City and 

 Guilds Institute had established at Finsbury was chiefly intended 

 to give primary technical instruction to workmen and others who 

 could .snatch only a few hours a week from their daily labour for 

 the purpose of receiving it. The Central Institution, on the 

 other hand, was chiefly intended for the advanced instruction of 

 persons who could give up their time for one or more years to 

 the higher branches of technology. Exhibitions enabled the 

 promising student of the schools at Finsbury and elsewhere to 

 pass to the Centra! Institution, and profit by the advantages 

 it offered him. To talk of rivalry between the two was 

 like talking of a rivalry between Eton and Cambridge. No 

 doubt the day would come when a score of such schools as that 

 at Finsbury would be sending their picked scholars to the Cen- 

 tral Institution ; but, before that day could come, the organisa- 

 tion of the Central Institute must be so far completed that it 

 could receive them and deal with them. A great deal had been 

 said about the 100,000/. or 150,000/., or whatever it was, that had 

 already been spent on the Central Institution, and of the 10,000/. 

 a year that it cost. He begged leave to repeat that which he 

 had said elsewhere, that if in the course of the next ten years 

 the City and Guilds Institute could succeed in catching and 

 training another Faraday or Whitworth or Armstrong, he would 

 from a mere commercial point of view be worth all the expendi- 

 ture initial and assured. 



A HIGHLY interesting series of experiments has recently 

 been successfully carried out by M. Olszewski. The more 

 permanent gases have not 'only been liquefied at pressures 

 averaging only 740 mm. by aid of excessively low tempera- 

 tures, but the boiling-points, melting-points, and densities 

 of these so-called gases have been determined at atmospheric 

 pressure. The glass tube in which the condensation was effected 

 was surrounded by a bath of liquefied ethylene, which could be 

 caused to boil by reduction of its pressure, and, by use of a 

 specially constructed air-pump, was reduced in temperature to 

 - 150°. When this point was reached, the gas to be liquefied 

 was admitted into the tube from a Natterer cylinder containing 

 the gas at about 40-60 atmospheres pressure, and was readily 

 liquefied. A hydrogen thermometer was used to determine the 

 temperature of the liquid, and the boiling-point of methane at 



