— | a 
} 
: 
May 28, 1885] 
the same year the most notable are those obtained at Roben- 
hausen, including several pretty knife-handles made of yew, 
some excellent specimens of mechanical industry, such as thread, 
woven fabrics, fishing-nets, &c., and ears of barley and wheat, 
one being a specimen of the rare Zyiticum turgidum. 
THE Zoological Society of Philadelphia, according to the 
Thirteenth Report of the Board of Directors, appears to have 
suffered during the past year, like many other institutions de- 
| pendent on the public for support, from the general depression 
of trade. The financial balance shows a large reduction ; never- 
theless the Superintendent is able to report that the collection 
‘* presents to-day a greater and more typical variety of animal 
forms, in furtherance of the educational facilities which have 
been one of the chief aims of the Society, than at any previous 
period of the history of the garden.” Among the principal 
additions during the year was a hippopotamus, the first obtained 
by the Society, a collection of European water-fowl, and a 
brush-turkey (Za//egalla lathami) of New South Wales. The 
specimen procured is a female, but it is hoped that a male may 
also be obtained, and that its extraordinary habit of hatching 
its eggs, by covering them with decomposing vegetable matter, 
may be shown in the garden. 
Ir seems that the experiments of Dr. Ferran in inoculation 
for cholera have been stopped by the Spanish Government. 
THE Sanitary Congress at Rome has been engaged during the 
past week mainly in discussing quarantine regulations. 
WE have received Prof. Theodore Gill’s ‘‘ Account of the 
Progress in Zoology” for 1883, from the Smithsonian Report— 
a substantial pamphlet of over fifty pages. The special dis- 
_ coyeries recorded have been selected either on account of the 
modifications which the forms considered force on the system, or 
because they are or have been deemed of high taxonomic im- 
portance, or the animals fer se are of general interest; or, 
finally, they are of special interest to the American naturalist. 
The arrangement of the account is as follows :—General Zoology, 
Protozoans, Porifers, Ccelenterates, Echinoderms, Worms, 
Arthropoids, Molluscoids, Mollusks and Vertebrates. Each of 
these divisions is sub-divided according to the discoveries 
to be noted. At the end, a brief bibliography of note- 
worthy memoirs and works relating to different classes is 
appended. ‘‘ The statement,” Prof. Gill says, ‘‘is not intended 
for the advanced scientific student so much as for those who 
entertain a general interest in zoology, or in some of the better- 
known classes. It is compiled for the many rather than the few, 
and hence, perhaps, zoologists cultivating limited fields of 
research may find omissions, as well as notices of discoveries of 
minor importance.” 
On May 20 a terrific storm raged in Paris ; a stupendous peal 
of thunder was heard at Ir a.m. It seems the lightning struck 
_ the top of a high furnace at St. Ouens, near Montmartre. It is 
supposed that it was attracted by a mass of lead which was 
placed at this elevated situation for some purpose. The pecu- 
liarity is that no trace of the lead was afterwards found 
THE centennial celebration of Blanchard and Jeffries crossing 
the Channel in a balloon was celebrated on Sunday at Guine, 
Pas de Calais, where the two travellers landed. 
SHocks of earthquake were felt at Wartberg and Kindberg, 
Austria, on May 20 towards 1.30 a.m. A sharp shock was felt 
at Smyrna at 7.15 p.m. on May 26. 
Pror. Dewar, F.R.S., will give a discourse on ‘‘ Liquid Air 
and the Zero of Absolute Temperature ” at the last Friday evening 
meeting of the season on June 5, at the Royal Institution. 
NATURE 
85 
A FEwyears since the German Anthropological Society initiated 
an exhaustive investigation among German school children as to 
the proportion of those with dark and with fair complexions. This 
has been foliowed by similar investigations in Belgium, Switzer- 
land, and Cislethian Austria, and these have supplied gaps in the 
German inquiry. The result was, according to Dre Natur, laid 
before a recent meeting of the Berlin Academy of Sciences by 
Herr Virchow. In all, 10,077,635 children were examined as 
to the colour of the skin, hair, and eyes ; 6,758,827 in Germany» 
608,678 in Belgium, 505,609 in Switzerland, and 2,304,501 in 
Austria. The geographical boundaries were the Pregel and 
Dniester on the east to the Vosges on the west ; the Baltic and 
German Ocean on the north, to the Adriatic and the Alps on the 
south. The following is the result:—Of pure blondes there 
were found in Germany 2,149,027; in Austria, 456,260; in 
Switzerland, 44,865 ; a total of 2,650,152, which, on a total of 
9,468,557 (Belgium being omitted here) children examined, is 
rather more than one-fourth. The number of brunettes was: 
in Germany, 949,822 ; Austria, 534,091 ; in Belgium, 167,401 ; - 
in Switzerland, 104,410; a total of 1,755,724, or about one- 
sixth of a total of 10,077,635. Hence more than half the 
school children of Central Europe are of the mixed type. The 
distribution of the pure types is very different. In Germany 
31°80 per cent. is fair and 14°05 per cent. dak ; in Austria the 
dark predominate, being 23°17 per cent., while the fair amount 
only to 19°79; in Switzerland the disparity is still greater, for 
the blondes are only 11°10 per cent., while the brunettes are 
25°7; and in Belgium the blondes are 27°50 per cent. In Ger- 
many, therefore, the fair complexions predominate ; but even 
here the proportions vary greatly, getting less and less as we 
go towards the south. In North Germany the proportion is 
between 43°35 and 33°5 per cent.; in Central Germany, 
about 25°29; and in the south, only 18°44; while, on 
the contrary, the proportion of dark children diminishes 
from 25 per cent. in South Germany, to 7 per cent. in the north. 
This appears to show the incorrectness of the theory of the 
French anthropologist that we must seek the real Germans in 
South Germany, and that North Germans are a dark race, a 
mixture of Finns and Slavs. The fair people are most numerous 
in Sleswick-Holstein, Oldenburg, Pomerania, Mecklenburg, 
Brunswick, and Hanover. That this should be the case in 
Mecklenburg—formerly a Slav district—is due, according to 
Herr Virchow, to a return-emigration of the Germans. Middle 
and Western Germany were especially the cradle of this emigra- 
tion. Flemings, Dutch, and Frisians thus reached Holstein, 
Westphalia, Brunswick, Mecklenburg, and Pomerania. Saxony, 
Silesia, and Northern Bohemia were colonised through Eastern 
Franconia, Austria from Bavaria. The emigration of the German 
tribes took place at two different periods: the first, a move- 
ment from south to west, which ended with the foundation of 
the Frankish monarchy ; the other a return to the last, which 
began with the Karolingian period, and is not yet concluded. 
The latter has led to a permanent colonisation, and to the forma- 
tion of a new pure German people. The deep brown colour of 
the south and middle Germans, as well as of the Swiss, is traced 
by Herr Virchow to the Romans, Rhetians, and Illyrians, and 
especially to the remnants of the Celtic or pre-Celtic in- 
habitants, which have now become mixed with the Germans. 
Tue experiment of acclimatising the American Whitefish 
(Coregonus albus), lately tried by the National Fish Culture 
Association, has met with great success. Until now the attempts 
made were unsatisfactory, the utmost difficulty being experienced 
in finding suitable lakes for the reception of this valuable edible 
fish. The whitefish in question were incubated at'South Kens- 
ington in March, and afterwards transferred to ponds at Delaford 
where they have thrived well ever since. 
