272 



NA TURE 



[July 20, 1905 



tumuli which in all probability represent more recent 

 additions to the original scheme of observation, as 

 we have found at Stenness ; and show that Trowles- 

 worthy was for long one of the chief centres of 

 worship on Dartmoor. Their azimuths are S. 64° E. 

 and S. 49° W., dealing, therefore, with the May year 

 sunrises in November and February and the solstitial 

 sunset in December. It is probable that, as at the 

 Hurlers, tumuli were used instead of stones not 

 ■earlier than igoo B.C. 



Stalldon Moor (lat. 50° 27' 45") I have already 

 incidentally referred to. The azimuth of the stone 

 row as it leaves the circle, not from its centre as I 

 read the 6-inch map, is N. 3° E. ; as the azimuth 

 gradually increases for a time, we may be dealing 

 with Arcturus, but local observation is necessary. 



The differences between the Cornish and Dartmoor 

 monuments give much food for thought, and it is 

 to be hoped that they will be carefully studied by 

 future students of orientation, as so many questions 

 are suggested. I will refer to some of them. 



(i) Are the avenues, chiefly consisting of two rows 

 of stones, a reflection of the sphinx avenues of Egvpt? 

 and, if so, how can the intensification of them on 

 Dartmoor be explained? 



(2) Was there a double worship going on in the 

 avenues and the circles at the same time? if not, 

 why were the former not aligned on the circles? 

 On a dead level, of course, if the avenues were 

 aligned on the centre of the circle towards the rising 

 or setting of the sun or a star, the procession in the 

 via sacra would block the view of those in the circle. 

 We have the avenue at Stonehenge undoubtedly 

 aligned on the centre of the circle, but there the naos 

 was on an eminence, so that the procession in the 

 avenue was always below the level of the horizon, 

 and so did not block the view. 



(3) Do all the cairns and cists in the avenues re- 

 present later additions, so late, indeed, that they 

 may have been added after the avenues had ceased 

 to be used for ceremonial purposes? The cairn at 

 nearly the central point of the S. avenue at Merrivale 

 was certainly not there as a part of the structure 

 when the avenue was first used as a via sacra for 

 observing the rising of the Pleiades. I have always 

 held that these ancient temples, and even their 

 attendant long and chambered barrows, were for the 

 living and not for the dead, and this view has been 

 strengthened by what I have observed on Dartmoor. 



There was good reason for burials after the sacred 

 nature of the spot had been established, and thev may 

 have taken place at any time since ; the most probable 

 time being after 1000 B.C. up to a date as recent as 

 archaeologists may consider probable. 



Mr. Worth, whose long labours on the Dartmoor 

 avenues give such importance to his opinions, ob- 

 jects to the astronomical use of those avenues because 

 there are so many of them; he informs me that he 

 knows of 50 ; I think this objection mav be considered 

 less valid if the avenues show that thev were dedicated 

 to different sacred uses at different times of the vear. 

 For instance, Challacombe is not a duplicate of Mer- 

 rivale ; one is solstitial, the other deals with the May 

 year, and a complete examination of them — I have 

 only worked on the fringe — mav show other differ- 

 ences having the same bearing. 



In favour of the astronomical view it must be 

 borne in mind that the results obtained in Devon and 

 Cornwall are remarkably similar, and the dates are 

 roughly the same. Among the whole host of heaven 

 from which objectors urge it is free for me to select 

 any star I choose, at present only six stars have been 

 considered, two of which were certainly used after- 

 wards at Athens ; and these six stars are shown by 

 NO. 1864, ^Ol.. 72] 



nothing more recondite than an inspection of a pre- 

 cessional globe to have been precisely the stars, the 

 "morning stars," wanted by the priest-astronomers 

 who wished to be prepared for the instant of sunrise 

 at the critical points of the May or solstitial year. 

 Norman Lockyer. 



THE BOTANICAL CONGRESS AT VIENNA. 



THE International Botanical Congress, held at 

 Vienna on June 11-18, was an impressive 

 demonstration of the activity of botany as a science, 

 and of the enthusiasm of its adherents. Vienna is 

 not the most central town for a meeting-place, but, 

 nevertheless, more than six hundred botanists, men 

 and women, representing nearly all the important, 

 and many of the less important, botanical institutions 

 of the world, met together there. As might have been 

 expected, the central European element predominated, 

 but there were a goodly number of Americans re- 

 presenting the southern and far western as well as 

 the eastern States, while from the Far East came a 

 deputation of two Chinese. 



On the first day of the Congiess, members were 

 invited to be present at the opening of the Botanical 

 Exhibition, which was held in the orangery of the 

 historic Palace of Schonbrunn, just outside the town. 

 The exhibition was an interesting one, and gave a 

 good '.dea of the present position of botany from a 

 teaching as well as from a more general point of 

 view. Ihere were fine series of diagrams, and 

 coloured photographic lantern-slides of microscopic 

 preparations, flowers, plant associations, and other 

 objects ; living cultures of Alga? ; apparatus of all 

 kinds ; and some beautiful photographs of tropical 

 vegetation in Brazil, Malaya, and elsewhere. A re- 

 markable feature was the unique specimen of Fockea 

 capensis, a member of the family Asclepiadacese, 

 which, originally brought from the Cape, still remains 

 the only known specimen. The plant has a hard, 

 woody rhizome, as big as a child's head, from which 

 in the rainy season numerous shoots are developed. 

 It was figured and described by Jacquin in his 

 " Fragmenta " at the beginning of the last century. 



The Botanic Garden of Sckci:ibrunn brings to mind, 

 at any rate for the systematic botanist, the name of 

 Jacquin, and some of his manuscript and original 

 drawings were an important feature of the exhibition, 

 and a subject of envious adm.iration of certain 

 -American botanists ; we in London are proud to 

 possess some of Jacquin 's work, in the form of 

 botanical letters to Sir Joseph Banks's librarian, 

 Dr3?ander, copiouslv illustrated with exquisitely deli- 

 cate drawings. His herbarium, consisting largely of 

 plants cultivated in the Vienna and Schonbrunn 

 gardens, was bought by Banks, and is now in the 

 general collection at the Natural History Museum- 

 Nicolas Joseph Jacquin was professor of chemistry and 

 botany at Vienna from 1768-96 ; later in the week 

 of the congress a bust was unveiled in his honour 

 in the Fest-Saale of the university. To quote from 

 Prof. Wiesner's appreciation at the ceremony : — " His 

 broad horizon and great powers of organisation were 

 shown in the fact that, in the second half of the 

 eighteenth century, no scientific, and especially no 

 natural scientific, undertaking was started in which 

 Jacquin did not take an important part. He embodied 

 the ideal of the academic teacher." On the same 

 occasion was also unveiled the bust of Jan Ingen- 

 housz (1730-99), a Netherlander bv birth, who spent 

 the greater part of his working life in Vienna. 

 Physician to the Empress Maria Theresa and the 

 Emperor Joseph II., botanists know him best as one 

 of the earliest workers in the sphere of plant 



