626 
aurium, and it occurred to me that since a large number of 
persons have noises in the head—say one-half the entire adult 
population—it is probable that, when listening intently, a con- 
siderable number of observers heard the sounds of their own 
ears only. This is especially true of ‘‘ sizzling,” ‘‘ hissing,’ and 
‘buzzing ” sounds. 
If physicians affected with tinnitus are not careful to exclude 
the noises propagated in their own heads, they may discover 
many curious physical signs in the chests of their patients in 
making auscultatory examinations. SAMUEL SEXTON 
12, West Thirty-fifth Street, New York, October 12 
The Red Spot on Jupiter 
On October 24, at 17h. 32m., this object was estimated 
exactly central on the planet. As seen with my 10-inch re- 
flector, power 252, the spot was very plain, though the low 
altitude of Jupiter rendered the telescopic image far from good. 
My impression is that this red spot is now decidedly more 
conspicuous than it was when I last saw it on July 8, and that 
during the ensuing opposition it will again attract general 
observation as one of the most prominent features of Jovian 
detail. This well-known marking has now been watched for 
more than seven years, and its present aspect leads to the 
inference that its existence will be indefinitely prolonged. We 
may therefore justly regard it as a lineament of singular per- 
manency. Though its motion and appearance (¢.e. tint) have 
been subject to considerable variation, there has been little, if 
any change in either the shape or size of the spot. The mystery 
regarding its origin and real nature may perhaps ultimately be 
revealed on the basis of renewed and more exact observation in 
future years. W. F. DENNING 
Bristol, October 25 
A Remarkable Sunset 
WHILE out for a walk this afternoon I was struck by a pecu- 
liarity in the sunset which I do not remember to have seen 
noticed before. The sun set about 4.43 p.m., and there was 
the usual ‘‘after-glow.” I began to notice this first about five 
o'clock ; there was then in the west a large bank of cumulus 
cloud rather low down, above this was a brilliant lemon-yellow, 
very bright, and this was bounded by a broad arc of a pale pink, 
the latter fading away into the light blue of the sky. Verysoon | 
afterwards I noticed that the pink arc, instead of being con- 
tinuous, was really made up of a series of beams of bright light, 
which pointed to the position of the sun. I counted these, and 
made out five bright rays at unequal distances apart ; behind 
this (as it seemed) there were a few yellow cirrus clouds. A 
sunset like this I have often noticed before, but what followed 
is, I think, novel. The bright rays were slowly turning round 
like the spokes of a huge wheel moving in a direction contrary 
to the hands of a watch. I noticed also that the breadth be- 
coalesce. In about ten miinutes’ time one ray turned approxi- 
mately through 90”, and a new ray brighter than the other ap- | 
peared on the right. ‘The altitude of a ray when vertical was 
from 30° to 40°, I should say. 
faint and soon vanished, though above the dark bank of cloud I 
could detect a faint crimson-lake glow. 
The day had been fine on the whole, except that there had 
been a little rain early in the morning, and a very heavy rain 
shower between 12.30 and 1 o'clock. ‘The air was extremely 
clear, and the wind was blowing freshly from the west, or per- 
haps it was a bit north of west. It was blowing slightly from 
right to left across the line joining me to the sun 
This phenomenon of the pink rays revolving seems to be ex- 
plained by the dark spaces being due to clouds which were being 
hurried along by the strong west wind. I should like to know 
if any one living in a line W.S.W. of Cambridge noticed 
broken masses of cumulus clouds this afternoon ove? head between 
5.0 and 5.15 p.m. Greenwich time. PAUL A. COBBOLD 
Caius College, Cambridge, October 26 
A Tertiary Rainbow 
THE supposed tertiary rainbow about which I sent a note a 
month ago must have been a halo formed by ice crystals, as 
readers of NATURE will perhaps have inferred merely from the 
recorded distinctness of the colours. It did not occur to me 
By 5.15 the rays became very | 
NATURE 
[Oct. 29, 1885 
that ice crystals would be found in a horizontal direction from 
here, over the hot plains of the Punjab on the evening of an 
August day. But I have since calculated the size of the tertiary 
rainbow and the order of colours in it, and the calculation leaves 
no doubt that the phenomenon must have been a solar halo, 
caused perhaps by a hailstorm over the plains, 
Thaudiani, Punjab, Sept. 25 T. C. LEwis 
The Sense of Colour 
IN the early English ‘‘ Lay of Havelok the Dane” the follow- 
ing words occur :— 
* Also he wolde with hem leyke 
That weren for hunger gvexe and bleike.” 
Mr. Allan Cunningham in his interesting paper (p. 604) does 
not allude to this old use of the word green. Is it a solitary 
case ? MARGARET HEATON 
Belvedere, October 24 
Stone Axes, Perak 
A curious Malay superstition has come to my knowledge 
concerning these implements. They appear to be very rare out 
here, and those found are treasured by Malays as lucky things 
to have about the house. I have as yet only been able to procure 
two specimens. One of these I have described in a paper on 
the Sakaies read before the Anthropological Society in June Jast. 
This nearly resembles Fig. 55 in Dr. Evans’ ‘‘ ancient Stone 
Implements of Great Britain,” and is made of a soft description 
of slate which can be scratched with the thumb-nail. The other 
is of a much harder description of slate almost like greenstone ; 
it much resembles Fig. 76 of the same work. It is 7} inches 
long, 1% inches wide at the widest end, which is sharpened, and 
14 inches wide at the other end, which is not sharpened. The 
| faces are flatter than those figured by Dr. Evans and the sides 
perfectly squared. It is beautifully polished, but several de- 
pressions are left all uver it, showirg that it had originally been 
chipped out. The Malays call them Batu-lintarh—z.e. thunder- 
stones—and account for their presence by saying that they are 
the missiles used by angels and demons in their continual war- 
fare. 
But the peculiarity of the superstition is this : the Malays aver 
that the soft implement which I have described has been made 
by an angel or a demon and buried in the earth to become hard 
and fit for use, and support their argument by saying that these 
| objects have been found freshly made of clay and quite soft, 
buried in the earth, where they have lately been deposited by 
some angel or demon for a future time of battle. The Malays 
say that the batu-lintarh is hard to procure in this state, as it 
almost invariably drops to pieces. For this reason they do not 
value it much, and more particularly because it has never 
inflicted a wound. The hard polished celt which I have just 
u : | described, however, they value very highly, because they say it 
tween the bright rays altered, two of them seeming to almost | 
has been used in the aérial warfare and has inflicted a wound on 
one or more of the combatants. They adduce this supposition 
from the fact of the several depressions left by the chipping out 
of the implement, and say that these marks were caused by its 
contact with the body of one of the demon combatants. ‘This 
la-t idea is very closely connected with another Malay belief, 
and most probably took its rise from it. This belief is that if 
| the blade of a kriss or spear is bent or in any way damaged, it 
has most certainly wounded if not killed a man or some wild 
animal, and is therefore proportionately of much greater value. 
A Malay who professes to be a good judge of a kriss will, if 
asked to appraise the weapon, invariably first glance along the 
blade to see if it is bent ever so slightly, and if it is he will most 
certainly add two or three dollars to its value because it has 
“‘m/nikam orang” (struck a man). I have very little doubt 
that if some of the fine limestone caves of this district were 
thoroughly examined, they would yield a rich harvest of anthro- 
pological material. A, HALL 
Batu Gaja, Kiuta, Perak, September 6 
Photographic Action on Ebonite 
At the back of one of the cases of lecture apparatus facing a 
north window in this laboratory, there happens to have been 
standing for six months or more an ebonite plate with a 
framed glass plate in front of it, the glass having a star-pattern 
done in little spots of tinfoil all over it. The thickness of the 
