June 6, 1912] 
In future, the Royal: Observatory is to perform 
part of the work hitherto done by the Compass 
Branch of the Hydrographic Department. After -1912 
the observatory will prepare the declination charts, 
and will also collect the data available from land 
stations; the observations made on board ships will 
be collected and reduced by the Compass Branch and 
forwarded to Greenwich for incorporation: in the 
charts. Additional responsibility is placed on the 
Astronomer Royal in the chronometer department 
also, and in future permission to submit chronometers 
and watches for the annual trials must be addressed 
to him directly. 
Some interesting experiments were carried out on 
the effect of a magnetic field on the rates of chrono- 
meters and watches, and the results are soon to be 
published in the Monthly Notices (R.A.S.). 
The chief feature of the meteorology of the twelve 
months was the breaking of several records, but 
details regarding these have already appeared in our 
notes columns. 
EIGHTEENTH INTERNATIONAL CON- 
GRESS OF AMERICANISTS. 
a HERE have been eighteen sessions of the Inter- 
national Congress of Americanists, but this is 
the first time that a meeting has taken place in the 
British Isles, though six years ago an enjoyable 
meeting was held in Quebec. Although some very 
good work has been done in the past on the archzxo- 
logy of Central America and Peru by several English- 
men, there are at the present day very few students 
of American ethnology, linguistics, or archeology in 
this country—indeed, it may be said that the number 
of those who pay any attention to these subjects is 
also small, and it is to be hoped that the visit of the 
congress will do something to kindle an interest in 
the past and present history of the American 
aborigines. : 
The congress was invited to London by the Royal 
Anthropological Institute, on which body has fallen 
the duty of making the necessary arrangements. 
H.R.H. the Duke of Connaught kindly consented to 
be the patron, the services of our veteran Americanist, 
Sir Clements R. Markham, were fortunately secured 
as president, Dr. A. P. Maudslay was chairman of 
the organising committee, Sir R. Biddulph Martin 
and the late Mr. J. Gray were the treasurers, and 
Dr. F. C. A. Sarg and Miss A. C. Breton the secre- 
taries. The chief work of organisation was under- 
taken by Miss Breton, and the success of the meeting 
was mainly due to her untiring energy and her 
personal knowledge of the delegates. Owing to the 
courtesy of the University of London the meetings 
were held at the Imperial Institute from May 27 to 
June 1. 
The programme consisted of the usual business 
meetings, papers, and discussions; Sir Richard and 
Lady Martin gave a reception on May 28, the presi- 
dent and committee received the congress at the 
Natural History Museum on May 29, and a dinner 
was given to the delegates on May 30. A visit was 
paid to the American collections in the British 
Museum, there were excursions to Cambridge and 
Oxford, and arrangements were made for a visit to the 
Blackmore Museum at Salisbury, and to Stonehenge 
and. other places. 
gress was the exhibition arranged by Dr. Maudslay; 
it contained a large number of beautiful photographs 
of monuments investigated by him at Quiriqua, 
Tikal, Chichen Itza, Palenque, and Copan. . Miss 
NO. 2223, VOL. 89| 
NATURE 
Sai 
A valuable feature of the con- | 
Breton showed some of her masterly paintings of 
pottery and copies of frescoes, those from Acanceh, 
Yucatan, being of especial value, as the originals are 
now destroyed. - Mrs. Zelia Nuttall exhibited a collec- 
tion of photographs of documents and maps connected 
with Sir Francis Drake’s last voyage. Mr. J. Cooper 
Clark lent a number of embroidered cloths from 
Mexico and Guatemala. Sir Clements Markham and 
others showed a number of antiquities, stone imple- 
ments, pottery, and the like. Dr. A. V. Frié had a 
small ethnological collection from Gran Chaco. A 
very interesting series of paintings was exhibited by 
Dr. I. Heger, director of the Vienna Museum, 
which represent the mixture of races in Mexico; the 
subject of each picture is a father, mother, and 
child. The parents belong to different races or mixed 
breeds, and the progeny generally resemble one 
parent more than the other; each picture has an 
explanatory legend, and the whole series constituted 
a valuable demonstration in miscegenation. b 
The large number of the papers presented necessi- 
tated the liolding of simultaneous sections, and the 
papers were grouped as follows :— 
Palaeo-anthropology.—Dr. C. Peabody directed 
attention to the archzological importance of the 
recent work of T. Volk in the gravels at Trenton, 
New Jersey. Dr. Ambrosetti exhibited a fossil skull 
and femur from Argentina; in the discussion it was 
pointed out that the skull was of the ordinary Indian 
type, with a slight amount of artificial deformation, 
the mineralisation was no criterion of age, and the 
position in which it was found did not prove a high 
antiquity. Dr. Hrdliéka made an admirable report 
on ancient man in South America, in which he 
showed that there is no evidence of any extinct race 
| of man that differs from recent man, and that proof 
is lacking of geological antiquity for man in South 
| as well as in North America; he paid a high tribute 
to the zeal and honesty of the late Prof. Ameghino, 
but was unable to accept his conclusions. Miss 
Breton showed a photograph of an implement of 
Palzolithic type from the coast of Peru, and the ques- 
tion of a Paleolithic age in America was discussed 
by Dr. Capitan. 
Physical Anthropology.—Dr. J. C. Tello demon- 
strated by means of lantern-slides the many methods 
of trephining practised by the ancient Peruvians; 
Dr. Hrdliéka discussed the ethnic nature and prob- 
| able origin of the American aborigines, in which he 
supported the generally recognised view of a sole 
Asiatic origin for them. A paper on _ Bolivian 
anthropology was contributed by Dr. Chervin. 
Linguistics.—Dr. Waldemar Jochelson stated that 
the Aleut language is of Eskimo origin. W. Thal- 
bitzer identified four Skrzeling words in Eirik the Red’s 
saga as Eskimo, from which he inferred that the 
Eskimo probably peopled parts of Newfoundland in 
the eleventh century. Dr. F. Boas discussed the 
morphology and phonetics of the Mexican language. 
Dr. K. T. Preuss showed that the hitherto unstudied 
language of the Cora is structurally related to the 
Nahuatl. Among other contributions was one by Dr. 
S. A. Lafone Quevedo on the pronominal classifica- 
tion of certain South American Indian languages, and 
one by Prof. J. F. Oliveira on the language of the 
Cherentes of Central Brazil, a very primitive people. 
A large number of papers dealt with the Ethnology 
| and Archaeology, among which may be mentioned 
Prof. G. G. MacCurdy on shell gorgets from 
Missouri. Dr. Preuss indicated that thoughts and 
words are the intrinsically effectual part of the cere- 
monies and magic arts of the Cora Indians; the 
leaders of the ceremonies are called ‘‘ thinkers —they 
