Dec. 25, 1879] 



NATURE 



187 



which is greatly increased by an excellent catalogue, called 

 "Thesaurus Craniorum," in which each is fully described, and 

 all known particulars of its history recorded. We believe that, 

 at one time, Dr. Davis contemplated leaving the collection to 

 the College of Surgeons ; but considerations for the interests of 

 his family do not appear to have justified this arrangement, and 

 he has now offered it for the sum of 1,000/. — which, considering 

 its extent, and the labour and time taken in its formation, must 

 be considered very moderate. Upon this becoming known to 

 the Council at their meeting on December II, through a com- 

 munication of Prof. Flower, we learn from the British Medica 

 Journal, it was the unanimous feeling of all present that the 

 opportunity of acquiring it upon the terms offered by Dr. Barnard 

 Davis should not be lost. It was referred to the Museum Com- 

 mittee to consider and report whether the necessary sum could 

 be provided out of the College funds, or whether it was desirable 

 to seek for aid from other sources ; for the latter alternative 

 several liberal offers were at once made by individual members 

 of the Council. We feel sure that all who are interested in the 

 scientific progress of the country will have great satisfaction in 

 knowing that the Council of the College have thus promptly 

 stepped forward to save this noble collection from dispersion or 

 expatriation ; and that, if it should be thought that the College 

 funds cannot judiciously be taxed at the present time, the country 

 will as promptly respond to an appeal for such a truly national 

 purpose. The Hunterian Museum, thus enriched, would more 

 than ever become the great centre of osteological and anthropo- 

 logical research and instruction, and in the hands of Mr. Flower 

 we may be sure that this collection would be so arranged, deve- 

 loped, and studied as to be rendered in the highest degree 

 available for the advancement of knowledge. It is an opportunity 

 which must not be let pass. 



The following translation of a Chinese placard regarding the 

 highly immoral practice of consuming cow's milk is sent to the 

 Foocham Herald for publication : — " Strictly refrain from eating 

 cow's milk ! Man should not rob the beasts of their food. More- 

 over of all beasts the cow is the most useful and meritorious. 

 Men who do not discriminate between mankind and beasts are 

 worse than senseless. Those who sell milk darken their con- 

 sciences for gain, and those who eat cow's milk foolishly think 

 they are benefiting their bodies. Men who take medicine should 

 first carefully investigate and find out its nature. Why do not 

 those who eat cow's milk consider and inquire into its origin? 

 For instance, men beget children, and while the children are 

 small they depend upon milk for their nourishment ; so it is 

 also with beasts. But when men buy milk to eat, do they 

 not do injury to the life of the calf? And is there not 

 bitter hatred and distress in the minds of both cow and calf ? 

 Beasts cannot speak : how then are they able to tell the man 

 that, in eating the milk of beasts, his body becomes like that of 

 birds and beasts? But if men wish to take strengthening medi- 

 cine, there are numberless other articles in the world that are 

 beneficial ; and what necessity then is there for taking cow's 

 milk ? Be-ides this, the death and life of men have their fixed 

 number and limit, and this cow's milk cannot lengthen out and 



continue the life of man. Since, then, all know the truth 



that it cannot do this, all ought to act w ith loving and benevolent 

 spirit. Especially all who receive this exhortation should keep 

 from eating milk. The children of those who cause their families 

 to refrain from eating milk will be preserved to grow up ; they 

 also will thus lengthen out their own lives, and will escape from 

 evil in time of fatal epidemics. If such persons be able also to 

 exhort others, who are ignorant of first principles, to leave off 

 the eating of milk, their descendants shall surely prosper. Pub- 

 lished by the Hall of Good Exhortations. The Xylographic 

 blocks are deposited in the Ung Ling Koh." 



An important discovery has just been made in the neighbour- 

 hood of Elbreuf, SeineTnferieure, by M. Noury. He has found 

 a multitude of pre-historic implements in the siliceous sands which 

 form the sub-soil of the Seine valley, between Elboeuf and 

 Rouen. In a single locality he collected more than 400 among 

 bones of large quaternary mammals. These implements are 

 said to belong to the paleolithic age ; they consist of cut flints 

 forming axes, cores, punches, and hammers of various dimen- 

 sions. 



With reference to the discovery of a jade scraper at Geneva, 

 referred to in Nature, vol. xxi. p. 163, Prof. Max Miiller writes 

 to the Times : — "Scrapers or cutting instruments made of real 

 jade are very rare, in Switzerland and elsewhere, but I have my- 

 self seen several beautiful specimens — among the rest, one found 

 by Dr. Uhlmann, of Miinchen-buchsee, whose collection of 

 lacustrine antiquities, all taken out by his own hand from one 

 and the same small lake, the Moossee-dorfsee, is perhaps the 

 most authentic and most instructive collection in the whole of 

 Switzerland." Prof. Miiller does not see any difficulty in believing 

 that the early " Aryan " immigrants into Europe brought with 

 them and preserved, " from generation to generation, so handy 

 and so valuable an instrument as a scraper or knife, made of a 

 substance which is are perennius." On the same subject Mr. B. 

 M. Westropp sends the opinion of M. Desors, as follows :— 

 " We cannot share the opinion which attributes extensive com- 

 mercial relations to the tribes of the age of stone. In support 

 of this opinion are cited the hatchets of nephrite (jade), of which 

 numbers are found at Concise and other stations of that epoch ; 

 and as this stone now comes to us from the East, it has been 

 inferred that the tribes of the remote period in question trafficked 

 with Asia. But it should be remembered that the greater part 

 of the hatchets which are assumed to be nephrite may very well 

 be only varieties of indigenous rocks, proceeding from siliceous 

 veins in the serpentine, and whose depository might be found, 

 according to M. de Mortellet, in the higher Maurienne. It seems 

 to us very difficult to admit that so distant a commerce should 

 have been restricted to the exchange •<& certain stones, which, 

 after all, are not very superior to common silex, while the East 

 might have furnished objects of far greater utility, particularly 

 metals." 



Onxe more the New York correspondent of the Daily News tele- 

 graphs of Mr. Edison's success in electric lighting. "Mr. Edison," 

 we are told, "has perfected an electric lamp of extraordinary sim- 

 plicity, costing only 25 cents, with which he proposes a general 

 illumination of the village of Menlo Park on New Year's Eve. 

 He has discovered that a steady brilliant light is obtained by the 

 incandescence of mere carbonised paper better than from any 

 other known substance. Strips of drawing paper in horse-shoe 

 form are placed in a mould and baked at a very high tempera- 

 ture. The charred residuum is then attached to the platinum 

 wires and hermetically sealed in a glass globe from which the 

 air has been exhausted. This attached to a wooden stand, or 

 ordinary gas fixtures, is the whole lamp. No regulating 

 apparatus is required, the flow of electricity being automatically 

 increased and diminished at the central generating station. A 

 single generating machine of simple construction, and applicable 

 for domestic use, supplies about fifty lamps. The cost of the 

 power is not stated. Tne quantity of electricity supplied to each 

 householder is measured by the deposit of copper particles in an 

 electrolytic cell." 



M. A. Guyard claims to have discovered another new metaL 

 of the platinum group which he names uralium, from the Ural 

 Mountains, whence the ore is procured. There have been quite 

 a flood of similar announcements lately. We have now gallium, 

 davyum, mosandrum, neptunium, decipium, phillipium, nor- 



