66 



NATURE 



[Nov. 20, 1879 



to the present occasion not more than two or three 

 natives had ever attended, but, attracted, no doubt, more 

 by curiosity than by any religious feeling, no less than 

 three hundred, including men, women, and children, were 

 now present, three-fourths of whom were compelled from 

 want of space to remain outside. They appeared to 

 know they ought to be quiet, and some of the eldest 

 seemed to be listening, but the greater part were looking 

 around them and evidently inattentive, apparently taking 

 no interest in the proceedings. The small boys amused 

 themselves by flinging pebbles at one another, making 

 grimaces, or pulling a stray dog's tail, and sometimes 

 the word koi-koi, meaning ' lie,' would be heard in 

 reference to something the missionary was saying." 



The Motu people express surprise in a curious and 

 interesting way, namely, by drawing in their lower jaw 

 and clicking their upper teeth with the thumb-nail of the 

 right hand, very much the same gesture as the old European 

 '■ biting of the thumb.'' They also express surprise bv 

 smacking their lips. The women are expert makers of 

 pottery. The clay is worked into shape by hand over an 

 earthenware mould, of course without any wheel appliance. 

 The upper and lower halves of a vessel are made sepa- 

 rately and afterwards joined. The pots are baked in an 

 open fire on the sea-beach. They are of a brick-red colour 

 when baked, and are made of three forms — the " ura," or 

 cooking-pot, the " hordu," or water-pitcher, and the 

 "nao," or bowl. 



The natives start in every November with large cargoes 

 of this pottery on a trading expedition a distance of two 

 hundred miles up the coast ; three or four of the largest 

 canoes are lashed firmly side by side with rattans, and the 

 compound craft thus produced is termed a Iakatoi ; some 

 of these lakatois are propelled by a dozen square sails 

 and others by a single huge elliptic-shaped sail, which is 

 extremely picturesque in appearance, but the cause of the 

 peculiar form of which seems very uncertain. 



In return for the pottery the natives receive sago, yams, 

 taro, sweet potatoes, betel-nuts, and sugar-cane. The re- 

 cord of the undertaking of systematic long voyages, such 

 as these by savages, rs a very valuable fact, and helps to 

 account for a rapid spread of cultivated plants, such as 

 tobacco, for example, which doubtless originally reached 

 New Guinea from America through Europeans. Whilst 

 waiting for a start at Anuapata, the crews of the six 

 lakatois from the neighbouring villages, composing the 

 trading fleet, held regattas almost every day to while 

 away the time and get into training. A terrible wailing 

 was made by the womenkind on the day of actual depar- 

 ture, and many embraces between husbands and wives 

 took place upon the beach, and there was much rubbing 

 of noses ; the women escorted the lakatois some distance 

 in single canoes. 



The mothers rock their babies by swinging them in a 

 net bag suspended from a beam beneath the verandah, 

 and the babies are often carried in these bags. 



We cannot follow the author further in his account of 

 the Motus, nor cite any of his interesting experiences 

 amongst the Koiaris. The book is well illustrated through- 

 out, and at the end is a short Motu dictionary, and shorter 

 tables of eight other Papuan languages. The Motu people 

 have a name for every different plant and bird, and for 

 ail the conspicuous stars. Numerals are given up to a 

 million. We should almost be inclined to doubt the 

 Motu conception of so high a number ; possibly there 

 may be some mistake in the matter. In the Koitapu 

 language the numerals for eight and nine appear to be 

 formed by subtraction from ten, and to mean (ten) less 

 two and (ten) less one, as in the Admiralty Island lan- 

 guage. The personal names for women are amusing 

 indeed, the first two are probably intended as compli- 

 mentary, but the remaining three can hardly have such 

 a meaning ; those cited by the author, when translated, 

 mean "pig," "thief," "hungry," "frightened," and "bad." 



A list of birds drawn up from the author's important 

 collection by Mr. Bowdler Sharpe closes the book. The 

 author seems to have little or no knowledge of natural 

 history, since he repeatedly speaks of a Dugong as "a 

 large fish" and further describes it as a " finny monster," 

 and he imagines that the pig was introduced into New 

 Guinea by Capt. Cook. His descriptions of birds, insects, 

 and other animals seen are, however, interesting through- 

 out the book. He gives some valuable information 

 about the pigs. Some are kept tame by the natives, and 

 some of them are very fine and fat ; when young they are 

 striped longitudinally, yellow, brown, and black, every 

 other stripe being black ; the stripes blend to a general 

 dark brown tint as the animals get older. It is interest- 

 ing to find that the Papuan pig exhibits the same mark- 

 ings as the European young wild boar so plainly. The 

 natives have an ingenious way of catching the wild boar. 

 When the boar charges, after being slightly wounded with 

 a spear, a net with a very wide mesh set on a hoop-like 

 frame is pushed over his head as he rushes forward. 

 He gets his neck into one of the meshes, and with the 

 large hoop about his throat, is helpless, and then easily 

 killed. 



We commend Mr. Octavius Stone's book to all classes 

 of readers : there is not a dull page in it. 



VERTICAL SHAFTS IN THE CHALK IN KENT 



THE deep caves in the chalk in Kent while preserving 

 a general form in a limited area, present certain 

 differences amongst themselves, which enable us to trace 

 something of their history as to time and object. 



Those now most easily examined are the latest and 

 best constructed. Though they arc not dug at the present 

 day here, there are many old ones that have been worked 

 for chalk. These are distinguished by their irregular 

 shapes and very wide shafts. 



But there are fine examples now open of which North 

 Kent has many having these general characters — a deep 

 shaft, penetrating the soils (Woolwich pebble beds, 

 Thanet sands and gravels) above the chalk, then the 

 chalk itself from 2 to 5 feet, and widening out into a cave 

 in the latter, mostly without effort at burrowing laterally, 

 and when doing so keeping the shaft in the middle and 

 the general shape of the cave as it were one area, with a 

 due regard for the permanence of the roof. Some had 

 pillars for this purpose left in the chalk, and there is one 

 with four of them which are elegant in form and rounded. 

 This cave being an excellent example of the kind, may 

 be more particularly described. The shaft is 3 feet 

 3 inches in diameter (a common average), and passing 

 through sand reaches the chalk at 5 1 feet ; then pene- 

 trating it 2 feet widens out into an area of 49 X 38 feet, 

 the sides cut into bays. Two pillars are left, one on each 

 side of the shaft, and in continuation of it, still 3 feel 

 apart, and there are two other pillars in the eastern part. 

 The western part having no pillars has fallen in, and 

 there is a large mound of sand and rubbish in the centre — 

 but the height of the cave is 20 feet, perhaps 22 feet. 



In this case the access to the chamber is perfect : the 

 shaft is provided w-ith foot-holes from 6 inches to 20 

 inches (occasionally) in lateral depth ; these pass from 

 the surface to the bottom of the central pillars at about 

 18 inches apart and opposite to ea:h other, and it was 

 easy a few years ago to descend and ascend without 

 assistance, unless perhaps with that of a stick across the 

 mouth of the shaft. Some of the shafts have foot-holes 

 only to the point where they widen out below, when 

 recourse was had to a pole or rope, of course. 



Most of the caves are simpler than this, and the com- 

 monest form is a mere beehive sort of widening. 



All these open caves appear to have been dug with iron 

 picks. 



At Greenhithe one has been lately found containing a 



