490 

NATURE 
[JuLy 2, 19m5 

matics, Physics, Meteorology, Geodesy, Surveying, 
Engineering, Architecture, and Irrigation, F. E. 
Kanthack; B—Chemistry, Geology, Metallurgy, 
Mineralogy, and Geography, H. Kynaston; C—Bac- 
teriology, Botany, Zoology, Agriculture, Forestry, 
Physiology, Hygiene, and Sanitary Science, C. P. 
Lounsbury ; )—Anthropology, Ethnology, Education, 
History, Mental Science, Philology, Political 
Economy, Sociology, and Statistics, J. E. Adamson. 
Among the papers to be read are the following :— 
The fault system of the south of Africa, Prof. E. H. L. 
Schwarz; Some South African radio-active minerals, 
Prof. P. D. Hahn; Darwin’s theory of natural selec- 
tion, tested in the light of our knowledge of Crassula- 
cee, Prof. S. Schénland; The economy of termites, C. 
Fuller; The history of the ostrich industry in South 
Africa, R. W. Thornton; Anti-venomous serum and 
its preparation, F. W. FitzSimons; The inheritance 
and characters of certain cross-bred sheep, J. Burtt- 
Davy; The Bagananoa (Malaboch), with notes on the 
traditional history of the tribe, Rev. N. Roberts; 
Sesuto etymologies, Rev. W. A. Norton; practical 
education, W. J. Horne; and The economics of the 
east coast fever, Rev. J. R. L. Kingon. A popular 
evening discourse will be delivered by Mr. C. W. 
Mally, on the house-fly under South African condi- 
tions, and one by Dr. E. T. Mellor on the Witwaters- 
rand Goldfields. The medal and grant for 1915 have 
been awarded to Mr. C. P. Lounsbury, chief of the 
division of entomology, Union Department of Agri- 
culture, and will be presented during the session. 
Tue National Clean Milk Society (2 Soho Square, 
London, W.), which has been formed to improve the 
milk supply of Great Britain and Ireland, has pub- 
lished a pamphlet showing how by a system of marks 
it is possible to conduct the inspection of dairy 
farms in an efficient and educational manner. The 
score-card system which has been developed so largely 
in the United States for judging stock, agricultural 
produce, etc., has also been applied to the inspection 
of dairy farms, town dairies, etc. By making altera- 
tions that would bring the score-card more in touch 
with British conditions, it has been possible to arrive 
at what promises to be a most satisfactory way of 
judging of the sanitary condition of any farm that 
is producing milk for human consumption. The 
score-card is divided into two main sections, one sec- 
tion dealing with equipment, the other with methods, 
and 60 per cent. of the total marks is allotted to the 
latter. Most excellent explanatory notes are appended 
to the score-card, and are presumably intended for 
the guidance of the inspector. A perusal of them 
would be of great value to the farmer himself, for 
frequently lack of cleanliness is due more to tailure 
to appreciate the necessity of being careful in the 
handling of such an important food as milk than to 
any desire to evade regulations. Sanitary inspectors 
in particular should see this pamphlet, and if every 
landowner would take the trouble to observe how 
large a proportion of marks on the score-card depend 
the cowshed there might be improvements in 
buildings. 
NO... 2383, VOL. 95] 
upon 
farm 

Dr. R. Hamriyn-Harris, the director of the Queens- 
land Museum, has set himself the task of forming a 
collection of the ‘“‘Implements of Superstition and 
Magic”’ used by the natives of Queensland. As these 
are dying out with appalling rapidity, ethnologists 
the world over will be grateful to him. A most wel- 
come summary of the results so far achieved appears 
in vol. iii. of the Memoirs of the Queensland Museum. 
He prefaces his account with a word of warning which 
in the interests of science cannot be too widely circu- 
lated. The wily aboriginal, having discovered that 
his implements and weapons have a marketable value, 
has taken to manufacture on an extensive scale, but 
such specimens bear, in every detail, the mark of the 
bungler. Nevertheless, it would seem that tons of 
material are being exported to museums all over the 
world by unscrupulous dealers who are inciting the 
natives to pursue this reprehensible means of obtaining 
money or its equivalent. Death-bones, quartz crystals, 
magic stones, and rain-sticks are severally described 
in this essay, which contains a valuable collection 
of myths and customs which are fast disappearing. 
THE concluding portion of the paper by Prof. 
Flinders Petrie on the Stone age in Egypt, published 
in Ancient Egypt, part iii., for. 1915, raises a very 
interesting question of synchronism. The writer 
notices a striking resemblance between the coarse 
flakes which abound in prehistoric Egyptian graves 
with those of the Magdalenian Cave type. In other 
cases the snubbing of the edge by scraping is char- 
acteristic of European Aurignacian flints. The Mag- 
dalenian flint types in Egypt are associated with bone 
harpoons, which are also of that age in Europe. A 
bone harpoon found in Egypt belongs to the first and 
part of the second prehistoric civilisation, say Sooo- 
6000 B.c. ‘‘This,’’ he writes, ‘“‘raises the question 
whether it will be possible to extend the Magdalenian 
Cave period as late as the Egyptian graves of about 
7000 B.c., or to trace a descent of the type to a later 
time. This connection is an additional reason for 
keeping to the Egyptian chronology, and not adopting 
the arbitrary theories of Berlin which would bring 
down these Magdalenian types to about 3500 B.c.” 
This suggestion of a possible synchronism between 
the Cave periods of Europe and graves in Egypt which 
can be dated with some approach to certainty may 
lead to important results. It is unfortunate that so 
much haphazard collection of flints has gone on in 
Egypt, without regard to their seriation or character- 
istics, and thus evidence of much value has been lost. 
Tue Miocene insect beds of Florissant, Colorado, 
promise to yield an even richer harvest than the 
celebrated beds of -Oeningen in Baden. Prof. 
T. D. A. Cockerell, in the Proceedings of the Academy 
of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (part iii., vol. 
Ixvi.), describes a number of species new to science 
collected by Prof. Wickham. In an excavation about 
20 ft. longand 6 ft. deep he obtained more than ninety 
species of beetles, of which at least forty are new 
to science. But various other groups are also repre- 
sented in this collection, of which apparently sixty are 
new species. 
SE ID 
