Feb. 5, 1874J 



NA TURE 



263 



minute survey, crept away about 7 or 8 ft. off and sat down with 

 its back to the snake. The other cat, a white' one, now caught 

 siglit of the strange object, aad, in a like stealthy manner, ad- 

 vanced to within a few inches of the gauze, and was in the act 

 of examining the cobra, when my friend, to see the result of a 

 su iden sound — for up to this time we hid both been still as 

 mice — moved his feet on the gravel. Had the effect been due 

 to electricity, it would not hare been more instantaneojs, nor 

 more starthng. At the first grate of the pebbles the white cat 

 flung himself backwards, tumbling — to use expressive terms — 

 ' heels over head "and "all of a heap " for about a couple of yards; 

 whilst the black cat shot vertically upw.irds to somewhere near 

 four leet in height, the impulse given by the spring of his hind 

 legs being sufficient to throw these and his tail higher than his 

 head. 



Now both these cats are tame, and bold to such a degree that 

 they reign supreme over all thi dogs in the house, so that 

 their great timidity on this occasion was evidently due to a per- 

 ception of danger. I have since found, however, that all snakes 

 are not equally feared by them. They will let the harmless 

 green tree snake \Fasseyita 7iiyitcrha)is) twine round them witli- 

 out showing any signs of repugnance, and some other harmless 

 snakes receive but little notice fro n them. Why is this? Is it 

 that the hood of the cobra renders it so frightful an object, or 

 have the cats in their nocturnal wanderings been struck at by 

 cobras? .Such is possible, for we know that in nine ca^es out of 

 ten the strike is made without intention to e.xert the deadly power 

 of the fangs. I believe indeed that unless irritated by an attack- 

 ing enemy, or to secure active prey such as rats, &c., the cobra 

 never strikes viciously. Experience of the ease with which its 

 fangs are drawn and its helplessness without them would teach 

 it to be carelul of them. 



Mangalore, Sept. 17 E. H. Pringle 



Earthquake in New Guinsa 



Whsv crossing the main land of New Guinea, from theGjel- 

 vinks B ly in the north, to the south coast, I slept on the night of 

 the I2th to the 13th of June, 1S73, in the swamps of thi Mac- 

 Cluer Gulf (fimous for ttie marder of some of the crew and the 

 ship's-doctor of H.M.S. Panther and Endeavour, Capt. .Mac- 

 Cluer, in 1791, and by the attack on Signor Cerruti, the 

 Italian traveller, several years ago). About 2 a.m. of the 

 13th I awoke, in consequence of a rittling noise like that of 

 gun-shooting. I roused my six Malay companions, who sle[)t 

 around me in a small native prouw, seized my guns, and listened 

 to what would follow. But nothing happened. It was unintel- 

 ligible to me what had been the cause of this noise, the natives 

 of these parts having no guns, so far as I knew, and even if they 

 had intended an attack, would not announce their arrival by 

 firing their guns, instead of approaching in silence. On the 

 other hand, when sleeping in a virgin forest like that which 

 bordered these swamps, crashing noises from falling trees and 

 from animals breaking down rotten branches often occur, but 

 never so many together. 



Nothing more being heard we fell asleep again. At about 

 4 A.M. the same thing happened once more. I remained awake. 

 At dawn the Papooas, whom I had brought with me from the 

 north coast — ten men — came back to my resting-place ; they had 

 left me, to sleep apart, had heard the noise, but could not 

 understand it either. 



When on the 13th I came back to Papooan houses at the 

 River Takasi, which falls into the MacClusr Gulf — a minuie 

 description of which will be published very soon in " Petermann's 

 Mittheilungen " — I heard the account of a heavy earthquake, 

 which had taken place the night before ; this of course explain- 

 ing the noises we had heard : many trees having broken 

 down at the same moment in consequence of the movement of 

 the ground. We did not fe»l the eardiquike in our small boat, 

 because it lay entirely in the swamp, which h-id not propagated 

 the shock. 



On the iSth I was back at my little schooner, which was at 

 anchor in the Geelvinks Bay, near a place called Passim. The 

 earthquake had been felt here at the same time, accompanied 

 by heavy underground thunder, and I could make out that th» 

 direction had been N. W. to S. E. 



Aftsrsome days I came to a place just at the foot of the so 

 much spoken of Arfak Mountains, called Audai ; the earthqu.ake 

 had been heavy here, and even more shocks were felt on the 

 following day. The direction had been W.E. Several native 

 houses, built on very high poles near the slope of a hUl, were 



destroyed, the Papooas (.-Vrfiks) still frightened and of opinion 

 that the earthquake had been " made" by their enemies, another 

 tribe on the mountains. 



But in the Bay of Dorey, which has so often been visited by 

 expeditions to New Guinea and by naturalists, where I arrived a 

 fortnight later, the shocks appeared to have b;en the heaviest. 

 .\11 the Papooas in the dilferent settlements there were living on 

 shore in small shelters or huts, hastily erected, whereas they are 

 known always to live in th jse large houses on the water s ) often 

 described. Several of these large houses had broken down, and 

 the natives were still very much frightened ; they would not re- 

 move into their houses on the water. On the island of Manas- 

 wari ( Vlansinam), in the Bay of Dorey, the seat of a missionary, 

 the shocks had been from S.W. to N. E. I afterwards sought in- 

 formation about the extent of this earthquake, and male out 

 that it was felt at Amberbiki, on the North coast of New 

 Guinea, at Salwatti, the island in the North-west, and on the 

 island of Tobie, in the east. The centre hrd been undoubtedly 

 oa the Arfak Mountains. Light earthquakes sometimes occur in 

 New Guinea, heavy ones seldom. The destruction by the last 

 heavy one in i S64 could even be seen by me in I S73 along the sea- 

 shore from Dorey to Wariab, and up the Arfak Moantains, in the 

 south of the bay of Dorey. Volcanic eruptions in these parts 

 are not known or recorded from earlier times. But one of the 

 tops of these mountain chains bears in the native language the 

 name of " Fire Mountain," and some of my hunters pretended 

 to have seen on one of their excursions (some thousands of feet 

 hign) the ground split open quite fresh, in consequence oj the 

 earthquake, as they believed. 



This earthquake has not been felt in Halmabeira and the Mo- 

 lukkos Islands, where shocks occurred some weeks afterwards, 

 so that the convulsions, referred to above, appear to have been 

 local ones in New Guinea. Dr. A. B. Meyer. 



Sensitive Flames at the Crystal Palace Concerts 



Last Saturday, Jan. 31, at the Crystal Palace, while Mr. 

 Vernon Rigby was singing Beethoven's " Adelaida," I heard 

 what I thought was strangely out of place — an accompaniment 

 to the song played on the highest notes of a' violin, sometimes 

 closely following the air note for note, at other times being one- 

 third lower. I soon found that this proceeded from one or two 

 sensitive gas jets, notwithstanding they were at the end of the 

 winter concert-room farthest away from the orchestra. The 

 very perfect manner in which they responded to every note, no 

 matter how piano, was curious. 



It happened that the gas pressure had just been increased. 

 Had this occurred earlier the effect of Mdme. Normin-Neruda's 

 fine performance of Mendelsohn's violin concerto would have 

 been totally destroyed, as far as regards a large part of the 

 audience. This shows that it is a matter of no small import- 

 ance in a concert-room to have the size and number of the gas- 

 burners properly proportioned to the gas supply. 



King's College, Feb. 3 W. N. Hartley 



THE PHOTOGRAPHIC SOCIETY 



THE metropolitan photographic journals contain evi- 

 dence that the Photographic Society of London is 

 menaced with revolution or dissolution. If both were to 

 befall it, the interests of Science would hardly suffer, since 

 a more singularly inefficient organisation, under the guise 

 of a scientinc body, it would hi di.iicult to find, or one 

 whoie results in the scientinc world are so trivial. 



It is difficult indeed to conceive]th\t aso;iety intJ whose 

 hands, faulc dc mieux, the recognition and fostering of 

 research in so important a branch of science as photo- 

 graphy has fallen, should have done absolutely nothing 

 for so many years but organise itself into a pocket 

 borough in the direction of which no man of eminent 

 scientific capacity takes part ; which not only has no 

 scientific reports or even investigations, but seems to care 

 only to make of itself a weak mimicry of an arc club, 

 the chief objects of which are to prove that a photo- 

 grapher ought to have a chance for the Royal Academy, ttj 

 discuss the most effective style of getting up portraits to 



