Oct. 15, 1885] 
NATURE 
579 
By invitation of the Lieutenant-Governor of the Isle of Man 
Prof. Boyd Dawkins recently visited that island in order to 
report on its antiquities and the best means of preserving them. 
The result is given in a short communication to the Lieutenant- 
Governor, in which Prof. Dawkins indicates the present con- 
dition of the various classes of remains. He points out what 
should be done for their preservation, and advises that the island 
Legislature should pass an Act similar to the ‘‘ Ancient Monu- 
ments Act” of the ‘‘ neighbouring islands” of Great Britain 
and Ireland. The advice given by Prof. Dawkins is sound, and 
“it is creditable to the Lieutenant-Governor that he has shown so 
much intelligent zeal in the matter. We are glad to note that 
he intends to follow up his action by introducing a bill into the 
Council with a view to carrying out Prof. Dawkins’s recom- 
mendations. 
THE last publication of the Japanese Meteorological Obser- 
vatory which has reached us contains the monthly summaries 
and monthly means for 1884, and is accompanied by forty-one 
maps, showing the isobars, isotherms, and prevailing winds. 
These volumes must demand unusual care on the part of the 
compiler, for they are printed in Japanese as well as English, 
and contain a mass of meteorological data of all sorts. We 
observe that three new stations have been added during the 
year, one in the north of Yezo, and the other, which should 
prove a valuable station, is at Fusan, the port of Corea recently 
opened to Japanese trade. This constant annexation of new 
territory by the Tokio Meteorological Bureau is to be highly 
commended. 
A RECENT issue of Coszos contains an account of the Jesuit 
establishments at Zikawei near Shanghai, the meteorological 
publications of which have frequently been noticed in NATURE. 
The central establishment of the Jesuits in China is at Funkadoo 
in Shanghai, but about six miles away at Zikawei (Siccawei) 
they have a large adjunct, containing their schools, an orphanage, 
and a college. In the course of its existence the place has been 
twice sacked, but it was again rebuilt. In 1870 the fathers 
began with the rudiments of a meteorological observatory, of 
which Father Dechevrens was the founder, and has been to the 
present moment the director, Gradually, by purchase and by 
presentations from various Governments, the observatory became 
tolerably well equipped, and it is now a magnetic and meteoro- 
logical station of the first order, making with excellent instru- 
ments observations on atmospheric pressure, temperature, 
humidity, evaporation, rain, winds, solar radiation, terrestrial 
magnetism in its various manifestations, &c. It issues a monthly 
Bulletin containing the observations, and a 7észmé and discussion 
of the meteorological events of the month. Thanks of the 
numerous missionaries scattered over the neighbouring provinces, 
who correspond with the director, the peculiar atmospheric 
movements in the China seas are beginning to be understood. 
Quite recently (as mentioned at the time in NaTuRE) he has 
taken advantage, with the assistance of Sir Robert Hart, of the 
Telegraphs, to establish a regular daily weather service, for the 
benefit of mariners. The observatory is situated in a vast plain, 
where the horizon alone stops the view, and where atmospheric 
movements are not complicated by ranges of hills. A tower 
33 metres in height has been erected, and the Beckley anemo- 
meter, constructed in 1884 by Munro, of London, is placed on 
a platform 7 metres higher. The observatory has gone on 
developing year by year, and there is little doubt that it will 
soon include in its field astronomical observations. The Buddetins 
are printed at the mission printing-press, which is included in 
the establishments at Zikawei, the printers being young Chinese. 
The monthly Bulletins form a considerable yolume at the end of 
the year, and that for 1884, which has lately been issued, is the 
tenth in the series. 
WITH regard to-the new star in Andromeda Dr. Sophus 
Tromholt relates the following curious story in a Norwegian 
journal :—‘‘ When the interesting discovery had been mate in 
1877 that Mars was accompanied by two moons, it was shortly 
afterwards pointed out that Swift, in ‘Gulliver’s Travels,’ 
relates that the Liliputian astronomers had discovered the two 
satellites (Voltaire, too, in a work in which he describes the 
experiences of two terrestrial beings on Mars, says that they 
saw the two moons unknown to mundane astronomers, but he 
has probably: borrowed the idea from Swift), A similar 
remarkable proof that poets may also be prophets in astro- 
nomy has just come to light with regard to the new star in 
Andromeda. In the Hungarian periodical Losoncat Phintx for 
1851 is a story by Maurus Jokai, the celebrated author, in which 
he refers to this star. Jokai makes an o!d Malay (?) relate that 
the Evil Spirit, Asafiel, revealed to King Saul and his sons the 
star in the nebula, and predicted that those who could not see it 
should perish in the impending battle. The Malay also reveals 
the star to his li-teners and describes its position so accurately 
that there cannot be any doubt of the Andromeda nebula being 
the one referred to, although it is not named. The story, 
according to Jokai, rests on a biblical or Jewish legend. On the 
writer of these lines asking one of the greatest living authorities 
on biblical research whether the bible contains any reference to 
the point, he is informed that there is absolutely no such refer- 
ence in that book, and that it is hardly possible that the nebula 
is mentioned in any Jewish legend. It is first mentioned by a 
Persian astronomer of the tenth century, and was first discovered 
in Europe in 1612. It would be exceedingly interesting to 
ascertain whether any Jewish tradition has preserved the men- 
tion of a star in the Andromeda nebula, as from this might be 
concluded that the new star is a variable one with a long period. 
I intend to inquire of Jokai whether his story is founded on any 
tradition or only an outcome of the author’s imagination, but 
even should the latter be the case the story is a very curious 
one.” 
ALGOLOGY is becoming a favourite science with some Russian 
botanists. After the valuable researches of Dr. Gobi on the 
algee of the Gulf of Finland, several memoirs have been pub- 
lished by MM. Reinhardt and Rishavi on those of the Black 
Sea, and we find now in the last issue of the JZemozrs of the 
Novorossian Society of Naturalists (ix. 2) an elaborate paper, by 
M. Reinhardt, being contributions to the morphology and classi- 
fication of the Black Sea alge. The paper is the first of a series. 
Following Bornet and Thuret’s example given in their ‘‘ Notes 
Algologiques,” the author publishes his observations on separate 
species, without awaiting the time when he will be enabled to 
publish a more complete work. In the morphological part of 
his paper, M. Reinhardt discusses the development of a few Chloro- 
phyllez, and enters into more details with regard to some of the 
Cyanophycez, and especially the Phzeosporew (the conjugation 
of Ectocarpus siliculosus and the growth of Sphicelaria). As to 
the Rhodophycez, only short remarks, especially as to pores in 
their external covering, ae given. The chief attention has 
been devoted, however, to the Bacillariacez, and the paper 
contains a good deal of new observations on the structure of 
gelatinous colonies, the structure of the cell and its proto- 
plasmatic parts, and the auxospores. The systematical 
part will appear in a next issue. The paper is accompanied by 
eleven tables engraved in Germany. 
THE same volume contains a very interesting paper on the 
development of Rotifers, by the Director of the Sebastopol 
Zoological Station, Miss Pereyaslavtseff. This subject has been 
rather neglected until now, and M. Zaleski’s paper on the 
history of the development of the Brachionus urceolaris could not 
be considered as a complete solution of the question. Miss 
