Jan. 2 2, 1 8 74 J 



NA TURE 



233 



of limits, of being much more direct, and not exposed to any 

 attack, even specious. Instead of analysing the idea of conti- 

 ■ nuity he studies two successive states of a continuous function ; 

 t and continuity only comes in so far as that the difference between 

 i these two states may become as small as we choose without ever 

 I becoming nil, as seems to be the case in limits ; or infinitely 

 : little, in the old signification of the word, a signification simply 

 I absurd." 



j We simply name, in conclusion, the following zoological lists, 



I which make up the greater part of the volume : — Monography of 



the Malabrides, by ISI. de Marseul ; Synopsis of the Scolytides, 



by M. Chapuis ; and new or little known Araneides from the 



South of Europe, by M. Simon. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 



Zeitschrift fiir Ethiiologie (1873). The fifth number of the jour- 

 nal for last year is of less than average importance to English 

 readers, since the principal article — a most valuable and com- 

 prehensive one on the descriptive ethnology of Bengal — is a 

 translation of Colonel Dalton's digest of the official reports 

 drawn up by the different Commissioners of the province, 

 and published at the cost of the Indian Government. This 

 work, which supplies information that can nowhere else be found 

 in regard to the tribes occupying the Brahmaputra and Gangetic 

 valleys, must henceforth be considered as indispensable to every 

 student of Indian ethnology, and the editors of the Zeitschrift 

 have done good service in making it known to their readers. In 

 an article on a proposed impro\'ement in the methods of crani- 

 ometry now in u?e, Dr. Jhering passes in review the difference 

 in the values of the indices, proposed by Blumenbach, Retzius, 

 Broca, and others, for the definition of Dolichocephalic and 

 Brachycephalic types. His three main propositions are briefly 

 these : — i. All cranial measurements must be projected in a line 

 that is parallel or vertical to the horizontal base of the cranium. 

 2. The most important maximum and minimum dimensions 

 should be obtained per sc, and without reference to distances 

 from definite anatomical points. 3. For all parts not in the 

 medial plane, the percentage of lengths and heights must be 

 given at the points where such parts intersect these diameters. 

 Dr. Jhering thinks that it is time finally to set aside the theoiy 

 transmitted from Blumenbach, and through Retzius to the pre- 

 sent day, that every race possesses at once a special language, and 

 a special type of cranium. According to his viewit is neverpossible 

 to determine with certainty from the form of the skull the 

 precise race from which an individual has sprung, and in his 

 opinion the problems which ought to engage the attention of 

 future students of craniology are the determination of the mean 

 cranial type of each race ; and the definition of the limits within 

 which each special type varies among different races. Finally 

 the author wishes to show that craniology is not competent to 

 determine questions of race, but is merely to be accepted as an 

 auxiliary science to anthropology. The learned missionary, Th. 

 Jellinghaus, to whom we are already indebted lor many valuable 

 contributions to our knowledge of the languages spoken by the 

 outlying tribes of our vast empire in India, gives in this number 

 a short account of the language of the Munda Kohls of Chota 

 Nagpore. The peculiarities of their tongue seem to be a distinct 

 dual for aU three persons : the formation of the plural and dual 

 by the addition of an abbreviated form of the third personal pro- 

 noun ; the insertion of the letter / with the vocal accent for the 

 formation of the plural and dual of certain nouns and adjectives ; 

 the interpellation of the letter 12 in the root-syllable of the verb 

 to form the abstract noun. The units of the Munda Kohls' 

 numeral system are 10 and 20. The author describes these 

 people as kind and simple in their social relations with one another. 

 Herr Virchow draws attention to a specimen of a synostolic 

 cranium as the form has been figured and described by J. B. 

 Davis in his work on "Synostolic Crania among Aboriginal Races 

 of Man" (Haarlem, 1S65). As this skull belonged to a rachitic 

 child, and similar skulls, in which the calvaria was entirely obli- 

 terated, and the cranial bones were thickened outwardly, are 

 preserved in the Berlin and other Pathologico-Anatomical col- 

 lections, and were taken from rachitic subjects, Herr Virchow 

 considers that such forms must be held to be quite independent of 

 ethnological peculiarities, and that their occurrence amongst 

 savage or aboriginal races must be ascribed to the frequent pre- 

 sence amonst them of rachitism — a fact to which Pruner-Bey has 

 already drawn attention. We canno clQse our notice of the con- 



tents of this number without mentioning an interesting commu- 

 nication by Dr. Brehm in regard to his experience — based on an 

 eight years' acquaintance — of the habits of the Chimpanzee under 

 confinement. The last individual which fell under his notice, 

 and which died at the age of four from pulmonary disease, 

 showed, in many respects, an aptitude of comprehension, a 

 docility and a capability of practising the ordinary usages of 

 daily life which made the animal an interesting and wholly un- 

 objectionable inmate of Dr. Virchow's house, where he ran 

 about with little more surveillance than would have been 

 awarded to a human child of the same age. The result of the 

 learned author's experience of this, and other individuals of the 

 race is, that although not human, there is very much of the ele- 

 ment of humanity in the Chimpanzee. 



Poggcndorfi'' s Annalen dcr Physik unci Chctiiic, No. 9, 

 1873. — This number commences with a theoretical examination, 

 by the editor, of the action of Holtz's electrical machines of the 

 " second " kind, those being meant which have two discs rotat- 

 ing in opposite directions, whereas in the " first," and more com- 

 mon kind, one disc rotates while the other is stationary. The 

 author's view is, not that there is suction, by the conductors, of 

 the electricities expanded in the insulators, as commonly sup- 

 posed, but conversely, that electricities separated in the conduc- 

 tors, through induction, stream over to the insulators. In this 

 way, both modes of excitation, by induction and by inflow 

 (Einstromung), are explained on one principle. The same holds 

 good for machines of the first kind. — M. Julius Thomsen con- 

 tinues his " Thermo-cheniical Researches," investigating here 

 the action of four agents of reduction, and seven of oxidation. 

 — Dr. MixUer describes a new tangent galvanometer and rheo- 

 stat, free from the disadvantages of not being equally available 

 for cuiTents of all degrees of intensity, and of waste of time in 

 use. The galvanometer differs from ordinary ones in the arrange- 

 ments for reading and deadening ; and, in the rheocord, to neu- 

 tralise heating effects with strong currents, the wires are sur- 

 rounded by distUled water. — There are four papers referring to 

 the "horizontal pendulum;" in two of which M. Zollner de- 

 scribes the instrument as he constructs and uses it, giving seve- 

 ral observations made with it, which indicate its great sensitive- 

 ness. In a third paper he represents that the idea was first 

 conceived by Lorenz Hengler, a writer in "Dinglcr's Polytech- 

 nisches Journal" in 1S32 ; while in a fourth note on the subject. 

 Prof Safarik produces evidence of the same fact, and also shows 

 that the Ijold idea of demonstrating the variations of gravity and 

 of cosmic attractions by terrestrial observations in one place, 

 had already been expressed and experimented on by Gruithui- 

 sen, some fifty-two years before Zollner, viz., in 1S17. — M. von 

 Bezold communicates the first part of a valuable paper on the 

 law of colour mixtures, and the physiological primary colours ; and 

 Prof Clausius discusses a new mechanical proposition with refe- 

 rence to stationary motions. — In a note translated from the Ita- 

 lian, the question is considered by Prof Roiti, Is the electric 

 current an ether current ? He argued that if this were the case, 

 then the velocity of propagation of light in a body traversed by 

 a galvanic current must be altered by the direction of this current. 

 In his experiments he caused rays from two parallel slits to pass 

 through two cell-divisions, respectively, of a rectangular glass 

 vessel containing sulphate of zinc solution (the tliickness of the 

 dividing wall being equal to the interval between the slits). In- 

 terference fringes were obtained at the exit of the rays. Four 

 electrodes being inserted, so that a current passed in opposite 

 directions in the two cells, this had no effect in displacement 

 of the fringes. M. Roiti concludes that if the galvanic current 

 were an ether current, it must have a very small velocity, less 

 than 200 metres per second, which does not agree with the phe- 

 nomena of galvanic electricity. — Prof Mach's paper on the 

 stroboscopic determination of the pitch of tones, deserves the 

 attention of musicians and others. 



Der Naiurforscher, Nov. 1873. — Among the botanical notes in 

 this number is one on the age and mode of growth of woody plants 

 in Greenland. M. Kraus finds that these plants often attain 

 great age (150 years, e.g. in the case of some willows), but that 

 the annual increase of thickness is extremely small, i '5 mm. al 

 the maximum. — Some experiments described by M. Godlewski 

 prove that formation of starch in chlorophyll granules is not 

 possible without access of CO; ; that the liberation of starch 

 from these granules may occur in bright light ; that we cannot, 

 from absence of starch, infer there is no process of assimilation ; 

 and that the cause of change of form in etiolated plants does not 



