May 2, 1912] 
for cases and other purposes, which led to consider- 
able discussion; he also exhibited and described a 
relief model of the district surrounding the Keighley 
Museum, which could be used as a basis for the 
elementary teaching of geology, natural history, and 
history, as well as for geography. Mr. Hewitt 
(Stockport) read an account of the history of the 
Stockport Museum, pointing out the difficulties under 
which it labours, and foreshadowing the lines on 
which it might profitably be developed. 
Mucu new light is thrown on the possibility of the 
production of symmetrically formed prehistoric pottery 
without the use of the wheel or a regularly con- 
structed kiln by the researches of the Rev. J. W. 
Hayes, recorded in the Journal of the Royal Anthro- 
pological Institute for July-December, 1911. At one 
small factory at Verwood, near Wimborne, he found 
most primitive methods in operation for the produc- 
tion of mill and water pans, the clay being worked 
up in a tank by barefooted boys, as Italian peasants 
tread the grapes in a wine-vat, the only tool used, | 
besides a piece of string to cut the finished article 
off the wheel when finished, being a piece of hoop iron 
to smooth the edges of the pot. It is interesting to 
note that the process of building up the jar by the 
junction of separate pieces, the joinings being closed 
by tapping with a mallet, is still apparent in many 
prehistoric pots in the British Museum. 
In the issue of the Journal of the Royal Anthro- | 
pological Institute for July-December, 1911, Major 
A. O’Brien gives a graphic and interesting account 
of the difficulties experienced by a district officer in 
dealing with the guardians of the multitudinous 
shrines of Mohammedan saints which abound in the 
valley of the Indus. 
stitutes the working faith of the majority of the 
population, and the appeal to Allah or the Prophet 
is forgotten in the reverence paid to their local vice- 
regents. All sorts of miracle-working powers are 
attributed to these holy men, and pilgrimages to their 
shrines are undertaken to provide for all the ordinary 
wants and hopes of the peasantry. The permanence 
of primitive animistic beliefs of this kind is shown 
in the fact that sanctity clings to certain sites from 
prehistoric times. Thus at the shrine now occupied 
by the saint Sakhi Sarwar, in the Dera Ghazi Khan 
district, men, women and children, Sikhs, Hindus, 
and Mohammedans alike resort to make vows and 
present offerings to the officiating guardians, in- 
cluding a company of old women representing the 
wife of the holy man, who devote themselves to the 
collection of dues from female votaries. 
A SEVENTH report on research work, by Dr. 
Houston, director of water examinations, has been 
issued by the Metropolitan Water Board. The 
search for pathogenic microbes in raw river water, 
with special reference to the typhoid bacillus, has 
been continued. Taking all the results together, the 
study of 20,771 specially selected organisms derived 
from 215 samples of raw river water has resulted in 
the discovery of only two typhoid-like microbes. 
Typhoid bacilli derived directly from the patient, and 
without cultivation on artificial media, are found to 
NO. 2218, VOL. 89] 
NATURE 
Devotion to these worthies con- | 
225 
be less resistant and to die out quicker in water 
than the same organisms after artificial cultivation. 
The temperature of the water influences the rate of 
disappearance of typhoid bacilli from water; the 
effect of low temperature (41° F. to 32° F.) is to delay 
considerably the diminution in numbers of typhoid 
bacilli. In a previous report, storage of the raw 
river water was shown to improve materially the con- 
dition of the water. Experiments are detailed on the 
use of a precipitation method (with ‘alumino- 
ferric ’’) antecedent to storage as an additional means 
of purification. This is found to possess considerable 
advantage, but it materially increases the cost of 
purification. 
Tue April number of The American Naturalist con- 
tains the first part of a Harvey lecture delivered by 
Prof. H. F. Osborn on January 20 on the continuous 
origin of certain unit characters as observed by a 
paleontologist. Comment may be reserved until the 
completion of the report. 
EeLs, new and otherwise, from all parts of the 
| world, form the subject of a long article by Dr. H. W. 
Fowler in the February issue of the Proceedings of 
the Philadelphia Academy. The forms described as 
new are nine in number, and two new subgeneric 
terms are also proposed. It may be noted that the 
name Leptocephalus conger is adopted for the conger, 
and that Echidna is employed for another genus, the 
latter usage barring the application of that term, in 
a generic sense, to the spiny anteater of Australasia. 
Fossit whales akin to the modern finners form 
the subject of an article by Prof. F. W. True, pub- 
lished as vol. lix., No. 6, of Smithsonian Miscel- 
laneous Contributions, which mainly consists of a 
summary of a paper in Danish by Dr. H. Winge. 
Both writers consider that among a multitude of 
extinct generic divisions which have been proposed, 
four are undoubtedly valid, namely, Aulocetus, Ceto- 
therium, Herpetocetus, and Plesiocetus, and of these, 
as well as of the two allied existing genera, diagnoses 
based on osteological characters are appended. 
As the first portion of a work entitled ‘‘ The Fishes 
of the Indo-Australian Archipelago,” Drs. Max 
Weber and L. F. de Beaufort have compiled an index 
to the ichthyological papers of Pieter Bleeker, pub- 
lished, as a volume of 410 pp., by E. J. Brill, Ltd., 
Leyden. Bleeker’s papers are not only very numerous 
—the more important comprising no fewer than 432— 
but much scattered; and this index, not only of the 
articles themselves, but of the genera and species 
mentioned in them, will prove of great value to 
ichthyologists. The volume commences with a por- 
trait and biography of Bleeker, who was born at 
Zaandam in 1819 and trained as an apothecary. In 
1840 he qualified, however, as a surgeon and general 
practitioner, and in the following year was appointed 
surgeon in the Dutch East Indian Army. He arrived 
at Batavia in the spring of 1842, where he spent the 
greater portion of the next sixteen years, the intervals 
including sojourns at other stations and a trip to- 
Celebes and the Moluccas. Here he soon commenced: 
the study of the local fish-fauna, which culminated ins 
