232 MATHEMATICS AND NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 



the Zambesi River, in Africa, (Livingstone's Travels, pp. 660-669.) Herodotus 

 found the same thing among the Lycians of Asia Minor, — (Herod., Lib. 1, e. 173.) 



"Of the universality of the Iroquois system of relationship upon this continent 

 we have more evidence. In addition to the Iroquois, it obtains among the Creeks 

 and Chippev/as. The system of the Dakotas, as far as it is given in Riggs' Lexi- 

 coi!, is precisely that of the Iroquois. Without looking beyond these, it is suffi- 

 cient, for the present, that it prevails in the principal branches of four of the 

 great Indian families ; the Hodenosaunian, the Appalachian, the Algonquin, and 

 the Dakotan." 



Following out his idea, accordingly, Mr. Morgan has printed a very elaborate 

 and minute series of queries relative to degrees of relationships, and the names 

 by which such are designated. These he has distributed, with a view to obtain, 

 in the first place, a full knowledge of the systems pertaining among all the Indian 

 tribes of the continent. Some of these placed in our hands for the purpose of co- 

 operating in this interesting inquiry, we have recently had the satisfaction of 

 entrusting to the efficient hands of Sir George Simpson, who has kindly under- 

 taken to distribute them among the most experienced officers of the Hudson's Bay 

 Company, and others most fitted to aid in such investigations; especially with a 

 view to ascertain if any traces of a similar social system survive among the 

 Esquimaux. Should such prove to be the case, they must next be sought among 

 their Kamschatkadale congeners on the further side of the Straights, and so 

 westward into the Asiatic, or " Eastern " continent, as Europeans regard it. 



D.W. 



A CURIOUS COMPUTATION — NUMBERING THE HAIKS OF THE HEAD. 



The Medical Times says : — A German savant has taken the trouble to count the 

 number of hairs existing in four heads of hair of different colours. He found in a 

 blond, 140,409 distinct hairs ; in a brown, 109,440 ; in a black, 102,960 ; and in a 

 red, 88,740. 



MATHEMATICS AND NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 



MAGNETIC ACTION OF THE SUN. 



Mr. Brayley gave a lecture last month, at the London Institution, " On the 

 Magnetic Action of the Sun, and its connexion with the Spots, the Earth's Mag- 

 netism, and the Polar Lights." The principal object of this lecture was to give an 

 illustrated outline of one great result of the discussion (by Major-General Sabine) 

 of the observations made at the British Colonial Magnetic Observatories ; by which 

 as it has been said, we are " landed in a system of cosmical relations, in which 

 both the sun and the earth, and probably the whole planetary system, are impli- 

 cated." In the opinion of the Joint Magnetic Committee of the British Associa- 

 tion for the Advancement of Science and the Royal Society, expressed in their 

 Report just published by the latter body, that discussion has not merely brought 

 into view, but fully established, the existence of a very extraordinary periodicity 

 in the extent of fluctuation of all the magnetic elements, which connects them 



