JULY 29, 1915] 
NATURE 
539 

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 
[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for 
opinions expressed by his correspondents. Neither 
can he undertake to return, or to correspond with 
‘the writers of, rejected manuscripts intended for 
this or any other part of Nature. No notice is 
taken of cnonymous communications.] 
More Early Animal Figures. 
THERE is no better history of the rhinoceros, cover- 
ing the knowledge of this animal in antiquity, than 
the essay contributed by Dr. Barthold Laufer to vol. 
xiv. of the Anthropological Series of the Field Museum 

Fic. 1.—Elephant, from a Latin bestiary of the latter part of the 
i2th ceniury. 
(1914). It is illustrated by numerous figures ,copied 
after early designs. 
Two recent popular articles in English magazines 
deserve notice in this connection. One is by W. P. 
Pycraft, on the ‘‘Ancient Briton War-Horse,”’ which 
appeared in the Illustrated London News for October 
31 and November 28 of last year. The other is on 

Fic. z.—Giraffe, from a tomb at Thebes. Middle dynastic. 
““ Medizeval Ideas of the Elephant,” by E. D. Cuming, 
in the Field for April 3 of this year. 
One of the figures illustrating the latter article is 
here reproduced (Fig. 1), and we may also quote the 
following passage :— 
‘“About few animals did our ancestors weave more 
curious and fantastic legends than they built up round 
the elephant. This animal captured their imagination, 
NO. 2387, VOL. 95] 


storm. 
and no traveller’s tale concerning it could be too 
marvellous to ensure acceptance.” 
_In Figs. 2 and 3 are shown copies of two early 
Egyptian representations of the giraffe. The first of 
these is from manuscript 29,817 of the British 
Museum, already published in a coloured plate of 

eS 
Stes 
Fic. 3.—Giraffe, from an incised palette at Hierakonpolis. Early dynastic. 
Wilkinson’s ‘‘ Ancient Egyptians,” vol. i. The second 
is from an incised slate palette found at Hierakon- 
polis, figured by Quibell in ‘‘ Memoirs of the British 
Exploration Fund.” The probable period to which it 
may be assigned is early dynastic, or roughly, circa 
5000 B.C. G. R. Eastman. 
American Museum of Natural History. 
The Magnetic Storm and Solar Disturbance of 
June 17. 
THE argument appears to me to drift again towards 
the old wrangle whether a particular solar disturbance 
has contributed to this or that particular magnetic 
This is to me all the more surprising as for 
years past it-has been urged that to connect the two 
phenomena in this direct way was to be deprecated 
| and scientifically unsound; Fathers Cortie and Sid- 
greaves taking up a particularly uncompromising 
attitude in this respect. 
I had the sun under telescopic as well as spectro- 
| scopic observation for many hours on twenty-seven 
out of the thirty days of last June, being prevented 
from doing so only on June 10, 23, and 29. 
I submit that the mere telescopic appearance of a 
| spot oubreak is not a safe index and criterion as to its 
activity, and consider that spectroscopic evidence 
should accompany ordinary direct visual observation. 
Now there was plenty of such evidence during 
the greater part of June, though spots were, 
at least at the beginning of the month, not very 
abundant. With June 12, however, things began 
rapidly to improve in this respect, a period of most 
intense activity being initiated by that most extra- 
ordinarily short-lived and superlatively active outbreak 
in abnormal low latitude (north) for the present phase 
of the activity period. The unprecedentedly rapid 
growth of this outbreak, which was really of an 
“explosive” intensity, was almost matched by an 
extraordinarily rapid decay, so much so that in 
spite of the magnitude the outbreak attained at its 
