June 26, 1913] 



NATURE 



425 



In the upright pianos of fifty years ago the hammer 

 was hinged on to a vertical rod called the " hopper " 

 or "sticker," which pulled it back with a variable 

 force, the escapement being below, between the 

 hopper and the key. With a shallow touch in such an 

 instrument it is just possible to avoid bringing the 

 escapement into action, and thus not to hasten the 

 return of the hammer, but the effect is decidedly 

 difficult to produce, and the mechanism has become 

 obsolete owing to its unsatisfactory working'. 



In modern uprights the hammer is more free, for 

 the escapement is a stage higher, between the hammer 

 and the hopper ; a piece of tape passing from the 

 hammer to the hopper exerts an elastic pull on the 

 hammer, assisting gravity in causing the return of 

 the hammer, but only when the key is released. 



In the grand piano the hammer is left as inde- 

 pendent as possible, so as to ensure rapid repetition ; 

 and I have not yet found or read of a horizontal 

 action in which any accessory mechanism can influ- 

 ence the return of the hammer. Therefore in the 

 horizontal piano (and probably in the ideal upright) 

 the hammer at the moment of hitting the wire is an 

 unencumbered projectile, and the variables (i) and (2) 

 are not separable. 



It should be remembered that staccato and legato 

 effects are functions, not of the hammer, but of the 

 damper. But after all, the most important element in 

 a good touch is the player's ability to strike the different 

 notes in chord with different intensities. The artist 

 instinctively gives their relative importance to the 

 various notes of a chord as surelv as to those of a 

 melody ; and this is one of the features which distin- 

 guish him from the mere executant or the most 

 perfect player-piano. F. J. Allen. 



Cambridge, June 10. 



A Mechanical Vacuum-Tube Regulator. 



The mechanical vacuum-tube regulator, in which 

 the position of a movable glass sheath relatively to 

 the kathode determines the speed of the kathode rays, 

 mentioned in Nature of June 19 (p. 415) as recently 

 brought before the Cambridge Philosophical Society 

 by Mr. R. Whiddington, is not new, Mr. J. C. M. 

 Stanton, Mr. H. L. T. Wolff, and myself having, in 

 1898, devised a similar arrangement, which is de- 

 scribed and illustrated in the discourse which I gave 

 at the Roval Institution in that year. 



We had previously shown, in a Royal Society paper 

 read in i8q7, that the speed of the kathode rays is 

 increased by diminishing the size of the kathode 

 itself, and what is new and interesting is Mr. Whid- 

 dington 's discovery that the mechanical regulator 

 operates by reason of the effective size of the kathode 

 being diminished owing to the electrostatic repulsion 

 of the rays by the negatively charged glass sheath. 

 A. A. Campbell Swinton. 



66 Victoria Street, London, S.W., June 20. 



The Crossing of Water by Ants. 



It may not be new to observers of animal life, but 

 I have been much interested in watching the common 

 house ant here. We have an American fly-trap : the 

 sugar was one day covered with ants, so I placed 

 the trap on a finger-bowl standing in a plate of 

 water. The ants, when they came to the edge of 

 the water, ran round the bowl until convinced there 

 was no way across, and then calmly " took to the 

 water," and ran across it by aid of surface tension 

 without getting their feet wet. Having presumably 

 been home to the nest, they returned for more sugar, 

 crossing in the same way, and this went on regularly, 

 a steady procession crossing the water. 



John C. Willis. 



Jardim Botanico, Rio de Janeiro, June 4. 

 NO. 2278, VOL. 91] 



h 1HNOGRAPHICAL JVORKS. 1 

 (1) "T^HIS magnificent monograph of the races 

 J- of Borneo, by Dr. Hose and Mr. 

 McDougall, illustrated by an unrivalled gallery 

 of artistic views, covering the life of the natives of 

 that island from the swinging-cot to the grave, 

 will be welcomed with enthusiasm by all classes 

 of readers. The ground had indeed to some 

 extent been prepared by the publication in 1896 

 of Mr. H. Ling Roth's "Natives of Sarawak and 

 British North Borneo," which actually contained 

 (i., 37), seventeen years before the appearance of 

 the present work, a "List of Tribes in Borneo," 

 specially prepared by Dr. Charles Hose. 



The book before us is a singularly happy ex- 

 ample of joint authorship. Dr. Hose, with his 

 record of twenty-four years' service and priceless 

 experience under the Sarawak Government, sup- 

 plemented (as he tells us himself) by his travels 

 in other parts of Borneo, the neighbouring islands 

 of the Archipelago, and the Malay Peninsula, was, 

 indeed, more than ordinarily fortunate in securing 

 a collaborator whose special qualifications as 

 reader in mental philosophy at Oxford were 

 crowned by his experience in the field as a member 

 of Dr. Haddon's famous expedition to the Torres 

 Straits and Borneo in 1898. The chief corner- 

 stone of the book is, of course, the invaluable 

 classification (ii., ch. xxi) of the tribes of Borneo, 

 which is supplemented by an admirable appendix 

 on the statistics and comparative literature of 

 the same subject by Dr. Haddon, who correlates 

 so far as possible the ethnological work of the 

 best Dutch authorities. The classification in the 

 text, described (ii., 224) as resting only "on a 

 slight basis," gives us the mature views of Dr. 

 Hose's unequalled experience, and satisfies us that 

 the foundations of anthropological science in 

 Borneo have here, once for all, been "well and 

 truly laid." 



Excluding the coastwise "Malays," the authors 

 recognise six main ethnic groups, viz., Kayans, 

 Kenyans, Klemantans, Muruts, the nomadic 

 Ptinans, and Ibans, or Sea "Wanderers," com- 

 monly called "Sea Dayaks." But since (ii., 245) 

 both Kenyahs and Klemantans are " sections of 

 the aboriginal population of nomadic hunters 

 (Sc. Ptinans) who have absorbed Kayan culture," 

 these six clearly represent but four original stocks, 

 viz., Kenyah-Klemantan-Punans, Kayans, Muruts, 

 and Ibans ; and this agrees with the statement 

 made elsewhere that " the present population of 

 the island is derived from four principal sources," 

 the last three being regarded by the authors as 

 later immigrants. 



The members of the first group are identified as 

 " Indonesians," that much-misused term which, as 



1 (i)"The Pagan Tribes of Borneo." A description of their Physical, 

 Moral, and Intellectual Condition, with some Discussion of their Elhnic 

 Relations. By Dr. Charles Hose and William McDougall, F.R.S. With 

 an Appendix on the Physical Characters of the Races of Borneo, by Dr. 

 A. C. Haddon, F.R.S. Vol. i., pp. xv+28 3 +i 43 plates. Vol. ii., pp. x+ 

 374+211 plates+4 maps. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1912.) 

 Price43c.net. 2 vols. 



(2) "In the Shadow of the Bush." By P. Amaury Talbot. Pp. xiv+500 

 + plates+map. (London: W. Heinemann. ior2.) PricerSs.net. 



(3) "Monumental Java.' By J. F. Scheltema. Pp. xviii+302+xl 

 plates. (London: Macmillan and Co.. Ltd., igi2.) Price 12s, 6d. net. 



