NATURE 



[May 29, 19 1 3 



There are no words beginning with the English 

 c sound in the dictionary, and all the words under 

 c in the dictionary are to be pronounced tch, or 

 as the c in "church." Why, then, should not the 

 simple c stand for this sound? The new c seems 

 unnecessary. 



The letter j is to be pronounced as 7 in "judge," 

 but it is to be written ]. In the Yoruba dictionary 

 the sound sh is written s. This sign, Mr. Thomas 

 says, stands for the cerebral s, and he writes 

 the sh sound s instead of s. There will be great 

 gnashing of teeth in Nigeria until the Government 

 takes the matter up and appoints a commission 

 to settle which system is to be maintained. 



Part iii. — Needless to say, Mr. Thomas has 

 treated the proverbs, narratives, and grammar 

 scientifically. The folklorist will revel in them. 

 The student of the Ibo language will be greatly 

 helped by the literal translations of the stories and 

 by the vocabularies. 



Mr. Thomas divides the languages in Southern 

 Nigeria into four groups. , 



(a) Yoruba with Igara and Sekri (Jekri). 



(b) Edo (Ado), including Sobo, Bini, Kukuruku, 

 and Esa (Ishan). 



(c) Ibo with Ika and numerous other languages. 



(d) Efik and Ibibio. 



The Government of Southern Nigeria is to be 

 congratulated on the production of these valuable 

 reports by its Government anthropologist, and we 

 hope that Mr. Thomas will soon give us equally 

 interesting books about the Ibibios and Efiks. 



THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF 



ACADEMIES. 

 'X'HE fifth meeting of the International Associa- 

 *■ tion of Academies was held at St. Peters- 

 burg during Whit-week. Of the twenty-two 

 academies which constitute the association, 

 twenty-one took part in the proceedings, the 

 British Academy being the only society which was 

 not represented. The delegates of the Royal 

 Society were : Sir David Prain, Prof. Arthur 

 Schuster, Prof. Sherrington, and Prof. Turner. 



Among the new proposals the most important 

 was that submitted by the Berlin Academy for 

 an international investigation of the problems con- 

 nected with volcanoes. It is not intended to form 

 an international institute similar to that for geo- 

 desy or seismology, but rather to encourage each 

 country to take its share in the investigation by 

 establishing, if desirable, a separate institute of 

 its own. An autonomous commission of the Inter- 

 national Association of Academies could then act 

 as connecting link between the different institu- 

 tions. A small committee was nominated to make 

 more definite proposals to the next assembly, and 

 was authorised to enter into communication with 

 the separate academies, each being asked to 

 nominate a representative, and thus form a larger 

 body to assist the committee in formulating a 

 scheme of joint investigation. 



An interesting proposal came from the Imperial 

 Academy of St. Petersburg. The want is appar- 

 NO. 2274, VOL. 91] 



ently felt in several branches of science to have 

 a more scientific scale and definition of compound 

 colours than exists at present. It ought to be 

 possible to define the colour, e.g. , of a particular 

 leaf, the skin of an animal, or a new chemical 

 compound in such a way that everyone could 

 obtain an accurate idea of it. Books, containing 

 numbered samples of the different shades of the 

 various colours, suffer from the defect that they 

 are subject to change ; and though in practice it 

 may be found necessary to use such books as 

 secondary standards, some means should be found 

 to compare them from time to time with a more 

 scientific scale of colours. The committee ap- 

 pointed to discuss this question consists of : Prince 

 Galitzin, Sir Wm. Abney, and Messrs. Nasonow, 

 Saccardo, Schuster, and Walden. 



It has become the habit of the association to 

 give its moral support to undertakings which it 

 considers valuable ; such support often enabling 

 those more directly interested in them to obtain 

 from other sources the financial help they need. 

 A proposal to encourage in this fashion an 

 organisation instituted at Frankfort by Prof. 

 Brendel for calculating the orbits of small planets 

 was adopted on the motion of the Academie des 

 Sciences of Paris. 



An enterprise to publish annually a table of 

 physico-chemical constants had already been sup- 

 ported at the meeting at Rome; and though the 

 utility of the work was subjected to some criti- 

 cisms, it appeared that there was a real demand for 

 it, and it received renewed support at the present 

 assembly. 



A report was presented by Prof. Turner on the 

 progress of the work connected with the nomen- 

 clature of features on the surface of the moon. 

 Although the committee has suffered much through 

 the deaths of Prof. Franz and Mr. Saunders, there 

 is good hope that the work will soon be completed 

 and prove a most useful help to students of lunar 

 phenomena. 



A question of wider interest was raised by the 

 French proposal to discuss the possibility of a 

 reform of the calendar. This includes not only 

 the question of fixing the date of Easter, but also 

 more sweeping changes intended to divide the year 

 into four equal quarters (at present the first six 

 months consist of 181 and the second six months 

 of 1S4 days) and the intercalation of an occasional 

 extra day in the week, introduced to secure that 

 the same day in each year should always be associ- 

 ated with the same day of the week. A committee 

 was appointed to consider this matter. 



The above, referring entirely to the work of the 

 section of science, does not exhaust the questions 

 which were raised and discussed before that 

 section. The section of letters also had a success- 

 ful meeting. 



The association is still young, and consequently 

 has to devote some attention to the statutes and 

 regulations for its procedure, which have not yet 

 become crystallised. A proposal to appoint a 

 permanent secretary was strongly supported by 

 some and opposed by other academies. It will 



