110 
NATURE 
[Fune 4, 1885 
Exhibition Buildings, South Kensington, to-morrow evening, 
from nine to twelve. The Society of Arts conzersazzone will be 
held in the same place on July 3 next. 
A PUBLIC meeting has been held in Birmingham to make pre- 
liminary arrangements for the reception of the British Association 
for the Advancement of Science on its visit to Birmingham in 
1886. The mayor, Mr. Alderman Martineau, presided, and 
there was a large attendance. After referring to the four previous 
visits of the Association to Birmingham, the last of which was 
in 1865, the mayor stated that the forthcoming visit would 
involve a large amount of preliminary work, for which arrange- 
ments had to be made by the appointment of local committees. 
The meeting would probably be under the presidency of Prin- 
cipal Dawson, of Montreal. A large local committee was 
appointed, together with honorary officers, and the meeting 
terminated with a vote of thanks to the mayor. 
THE statue to Linnzeus which was recently unveiled with so 
much ceremony in Stockholm, stands in the well-known park 
Humlegarden. It represents the ‘‘flower-king”—as he is 
called in Sweden—at the age of sixty in a meditating attitude, 
holding the ‘‘ Systema Nature” and a bunch of flowers in his 
left hand. It is surrounded by allegorical female figures repre- 
senting botany, zoology, medicine, and mineralogy, and is 
executed by Prof. Kjelberg, the work having occupied five 
years. 
A ZOOLOGICAL garden is being formed in Stockholm, at the 
well-known pleasure resort of Djurgarden, which will be the 
first of its kind in Scandinavia. Most of the animals are being 
purchased in Germany. 
THE Rede Lecture was delivered on Tuesday in the Senate 
House at Cambridge by Mr. G. J. Romanes, F.R.S., the 
subject being ‘‘ Mind and Motion.” 
THE Central News has received a telegram from Bombay 
announcing that a fearful earthquake has devastated a portion 
of Cashmere. The first shocks were experienced on Sunday, 
and created intense consternation. The oscillation was repeated 
at intervals of about ten minutes, and the shocks still continued 
up to the time the despatch was sent off. A wild panic is stated 
to have seized upon the people, who ran to the rivers and lakes, 
and sought to escape by embarking upon floating craft of any 
description. The town of Srinagar seems to haye suffered 
severely. A great portion of the city is stated to have been 
demolished by the most severe shocks. Later accounts state 
that although some severe shocks have occurred in Cashmere, 
the loss has been trifling. 
A sMarv shock of earthquake was felt in Cape Town and the 
surrounding districts shortly before midnight on May 10, but no 
damage was reported. 
THE results of a series of observations “carried out by the 
Hydrographical Bureau at Washington, in order to determine 
the length, depth, and duration of ocean waves, have been pub- 
lished. The largest wave observed is said to have had a length 
of half a mile, and to have spent itself in 23 seconds. During 
storms in the North Atlantic waves sometimes extend to a length 
of 500 and 600 feet, and last from 10 to 11 seconds. The most 
careful measurements of the heights of waves give from 44 to 48 
feet as an extreme limit; the average height of great waves is 
about 30 feet. These measurements refer to ordinary marine 
action, and do not relate to earthquake action or other excep- 
tional agencies. 
A CORRESPONDENT to Ausland makes a communication re- 
garding the present condition of the artesian wells in Sahara. It 
is well known that such wells have been in operation there from 
avery remote period, and in the Algerian Sahara additional 
wells have been opened with considerable success by the 
French. Between Biskra and Tuggurt the 434 old wells yielded 
in 1879 64,000 litres of water per minute, the 68 French ones 
113,000 litres. The number of palms had increased from 359,000 
to 517,000, that of other fruit-trees from 40,000 to 90,000, the 
population from 6672 to 12,827. In December, 1881, the yield 
of water from the wells had risen to 209,000 litres per minute+ 
But this success is confined to a narrow zone within which water 
can be reached within a depth of 100 metres, and even here the 
borings that have been made since 1881 indicate a diminution 
in the yield of water, making it appear as if the limit of produe- 
tion of the underground reservoirs had almost been reached. 
Many of the French borings, too, are getting stopped up by 
sand, and are of too small calibre to be cleaned out and restored 
ike the wider Arabic ones. It is believed that it will be abso- 
utely necessary to set about the sinking of new wells with a 
wider bore. 
Dr. ANDREE, of Leipzig, discussed before a recent meeting 
of the Anthropological Society of Vienna the question whether 
iron was known in America in pre-Columbian times. Meteoric 
iron was certainly in use amongst certain Indian tribes and the 
Esquimaux, but Dr. Andrée thinks that they were wholly unac- 
quainted with the art of forging iron. This conclusion is based 
on the fact, among others, that while there is ample proof that 
the Indians -knew« how to obtain and employ gold, silver, tin, 
copper, quicksilver, &c., we hear nothing of iron mines in the 
history of the civilisation of ancient America. The language 
itself proves this, for there is no expression for iron. Some 
writers, it is true, speak of the word panztleue as that for iron, 
but it really means metal in general. Moreover, in pre-historic, 
or rather pre-Columbian, graves, especially in the rainless regions 
of Peru and Northern Chili, ornaments of all kinds, weapons 
and implements are found, but no objects in iron haye been dis- 
covered, although the Indians placed their most valued articles 
in their tombs. There is no reason, he thinks, to believe that 
the tools employed in the great masonry works of Peru, such as 
that at Tiahuanaco, were other than those in use in the rest of 
Peru, which were of chami, a species of bronze. The chisels 
found in Peruvian grayes soon become blunted when used on 
the hard strut ; but it is suggested that there was some method 
of sharpening them easily. Indians certainly have worked a 
hard stone like nephrite without iron; and there is no improba- 
bility, says the writer, in the theory that these chisels were 
employed, when we recollect the patient temperament of the 
Indians, who for generations were accustomed to the repetition 
of the same work, to indolently pursuing an uniform task, and 
also that guia cavat lapidem. 
Before the last meeting of the Asiatic Society of Japan 
(reported in the Fapan Weekly Mail) Mr. H. Pryer read a paper 
entitled ‘‘ Notes on the AZwstela itats? and on the Corvus japon- 
ensis, Bonaparte.” The paper was largely a criticism of views 
advanced by Dr. Brauns regarding the generic affinities of these 
animals, and published in the Society’s Zransactions. A series 
of comparative measurements of the beak, metatarsus and wing 
of the Corvus corax and Corvus japonensis were given, with 
comparisons of the tail, eggs, and larynx, which proved that 
they were not identical. It was suggested that Dr. Brauns’ 
specimen of the Corvus japonensis was really a specimen of the 
Corvus corone. 
THE Fohns Hopkins University Circular for May contains 
the abstract ofa paper by Mr. Donaldson, entitled ‘* Observations 
on Temperature-Sense.” Blix, of Upsala, and Eulenberg, of 
Berlin, have observed that there are definite points on the skin at 
which sensations of cold only are aroused ; others, distinct from the 
first and equally definite, for the sensation of heat, while between 
these two sets of spots sensations of pressure only are aroused. 
These reactions were obtained by electrical and thermal stimula- 
tion of the skin. Mr. Donaldson, whose attention had previ- 
