1852.] 



SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE. 



animal possesses a kind of crest, increasiug iu height from before hack- 

 wards, and ibniied principally of a thickness in the scalp. This crest 

 the animal diaws forward when enraged, increasing his naturally 

 hideous appcnrance, wliich is rendered still more liorrible by tlie lower 

 lip consisting of a liu'^e mnscular flap, very distensible and dropt over 

 the chiu iu moments of auger. 



The mnscles of the neck, arms, thighs and trunk are enormously 

 develojxid ; the wrist was one foot in circumference. The specimen 

 examined, tlie skeleton of which was presented to the Academy, had 

 been eviscerated before it was brought to Dr. Ford, but even thus it 

 T/eighcd one hundred and eighty pounds, from which some idea may 

 be formed of the enormous size of the animal. The arms are propor- 

 tionately longer than in the Chimpanzie. 



Tlie Ngena is represented as the most terrible monster of his native 

 forests, an idea which his hideous appearance and implacable enmity 

 to man sufficiently justifies. The moment that he scents a man he 

 prepares for the attack, and acts on the offensive. With crest erect and 

 projecting forward, nostrils dilated and under lip thrown down, utter- 

 ing his peculiar cry, which is more of a grunt than a growl, he rushes 

 ou his antagonist, and unless disabled by a well directed .shot, generally 

 succeeds in dashing him to the ground and tearing him to pieces with 

 his tuslcs. 



He is said to seize a musket and instantly crush the barrel between 

 his teeth. 



His natural eneniy seems to be the leopard, with whom he wages a 

 not always successful warfare. Young specimens have exhibited such 

 an implacable disposition as to resist the most persevering efforts at 

 taming them. 



The flesh is by some tribes considered as delicate eating ; he feeds 

 on roots and fruits, but is evidently to some extent carnivorous. 



The height of the mounted skeleton is four feet nine inches. 

 Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences of Philadelphia, Feb. 1852. 



Human footprints in Solid Limestone. — At a meeting of the Academy 

 of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia on 1st June, Mr. Lea called atten- 

 tion to the stone slabs containing supposed imprints of human feet, 

 deposited by him in the museum that evening. This slab is from the 

 limestone formation immediately under-lying the coal near Alton, 

 Illinois. The impressions have evidently been sculptured, and bear the 

 marks of some blunt instrument with which they have been executed, 

 Mr. Lea observed that those are not the first instances of this kind 

 which have been noticed, and referred to a description of a similar 

 slab published in SiUiman's Journal several years since. 



Dr. Owen stated that the slab of limestone alluded to by Mr. Lea, as 

 found on tlie Mississippi near St. Louis, is the same which is now 

 preserved in his (Dr. Owen's) collection, and on which two articles 

 have appeared in SiUiman's Journal ; one by Mr. Schoolcraft and one 

 by himself. Dr. Owen in that paper gave it as his opinion that these 

 feet marks were carved on the rock by the aborigines. 



Since that article appeared. Dr. Owen had obtained the most satis- 

 factory corroboration of this inference in two large slabs of magnesian 

 limestone of lower Silurian date, obtained at Moccasin-track Prairie in 

 Missouri, which slabs contained a gi'eat many carvings of human feet, 

 as well as those of animals, and rude imitations of the human form, 

 something like figures made in gingerbread. The foot marks bear 

 indubitable tool marks, and some are deficient in the true number of 

 toes, while in others the foot is distorted, with the little toe standing 

 out almost at right angles. 



These specimens, as well as that of Mr. Lea's, show clearly that the 

 aborigines of Missouri had the same propensity for carving the imprint 

 of feet as the Southern and Western aborigines of this continent had 

 for representing the hand on the walls of the ancient edifices, and other 

 situation.s. 



Any one acquainted with Indians knows that there is no subject 

 which they study more closely than all kinds of tracks ; in fact their 

 life, tlioir maintenance and their whole security depend upon an inti- 

 mate and cunning knowlege of podology. 



Proceedings of the Academy, June, 1852. 



Mxtrac ts from the Proceedings of the British Association at Belfast, 

 September, 1852. 



1st. — ' Anastatic Printing,' by S. Bateson, Esquii-e. — " The term 

 'Anastatic' means raising up, or a reproducing as it were, and very 

 significantly does the name exjjress the result ; for by it any number 

 — thousands upon thousands — of reproductions of any printed docu- 

 ment may be obtained, each of which is a perfect fac simile of the 

 original, no matter how elaborate the engi'avuig may be, or how intri- 

 cate the design. I will now endeavour to describe the actual operation 

 of Anastatic printing. The print of which an Anastatic copy is required 

 is first moistened with very dilute nitric acid (one part of acid to seven 

 of water,) and then being placed between bibulous paper, all super- 



abundance of moisture is removed. The acid being an aqueous solution, 

 will not have atlached ilsiUto Ihc ink on the paper, printers' ink being 

 of an oily nature ; and if llic |Ki)iii' Ihus prepared be placed on a pol- 

 ished sheet of zinc and siilijiTiiMl (u iiressure, two results follow : — In 

 the first place, the printed ]X.n1iou ^^-ill leave a set-off or impression on 

 the zinc ; and secondly, tlie nitric acid attached to the non-printed 

 parts of the paper will eat away and corrode the zinc, converting the 

 whole, in fact, into a very shallow stereotype. The original being 

 removed (perfectly nninjured,) the whole zinc plate should next be 

 smeared with gunj water, which will not stick to the printed or oily 

 part, but win attach itself to every other portion of the plate. A charge 

 of printers' ink being now apphed, tliis in its turn only attaches itself 

 to the set-off obtained from the print. The final process consists in ' 

 pouring over the plate a solution of phosphorous acid, which etches or 

 coiTodes more deeply the non-printed portion of the zinc, and produces 

 a surface to which printers' ink will not attach. The process is now 

 complete, and from such a jirepared zinc plate any number of impres- 

 sions may be struck off. — Tlie uses to which this invention may be 

 applied are various — copies of rare prints may be obtained without the 

 aid of an engraver. Reproductions of books, or of works out of print, 

 may be had without setting up the type, authors may illustrate their 

 own works, and amateur artists may have fac-similes of pen-and-ink 

 sketches at a very inconsiderable expense. 



2nd. — ' On the Koh-i-noor Diamond,' by Prof. Tennant. — At the last 

 meeting of the British Association, Dr. Beke read a paper ' On the 

 Diamond Slab supposed to have been cut from the Koh-i-noor.' He 

 stated : — " At the capture of Coochan there was foimd among the jew- 

 els of the harem of lieeza KooU Khan, the chief of that place, a large 

 diamond slab, supposed to have been cut from one side of the Koh-i- 

 noor, the great Indian diamond now in the possession of Her Majesty. 

 It weighed about 130 carats, showed the marks of cutting on the flat 

 and largest side, and appeared to correspond in size with the Koh-i- 

 noor." Prof Tennant was induced to record his opinion of the proba- 

 bility of this beuig correct. He had made models in flour spar, and 

 afterwards broken them, and obtained specimens which would con'es- 

 pond in cleavage, weight, and size with the Koh-i-noor. By this 

 means he was enabled to include the piece described by Dr. Beke, and 

 probably the large Russian diamond, as forming altogether but portions 

 of one large diamond. The diamond belongs to the tesselar crystalline 

 system : it yields readily to cleavage in four directions, parallel to the 

 planes of the regular octahedron. Two of the largest planes of the 

 Koh-i-noor, when exhibited in the Crystal Palace, were cleavage planes, 

 — one of them had not been polished. This proved the specimen to be 

 not a third of the weight of the original crystal, which he beUeved to 

 have been a rhombic dodecahedron ; and if slightly elongated, which 

 is a common form of the diamond, would agree with Taveruier's des- 

 cription of it bearing some resemblance to an egg. — Sir D. Brewster 

 made some observations, and stated that the English translatjon of 

 Tavernier's work left out the minute details which were fully given in 

 the original Sir David expressed his satisfaction with Mr. Tennant's 

 iUusti-ation, — which clearly proved the diamond to be only a small 

 pai't of a very large and fine stone. 



3rd. — ' Notice of a Tree struck by Lightning in Clandeboye Park,' 

 by Sir David Brewster. — The tree stood in a thick mass of wood, and 

 was not the tallest of the group. The hghtning bolt sbaick it laterally 

 about 15 feet above the ground, exactly at the cleft where the two 

 principal branches of the tree rose from the ti'unk. A large part of the 

 bark and a piece of the solid wood were driven, to some distance, and 

 the electilc fluid passed down the ti'unk into the ground, sphttiug the 

 ti'ee in two by a rent thi'ough the whole of its tliickness. The fact 

 contained in this notice, that an object may be sti-uck by lightning iu 

 a locality where there are numerous conducting points more elevated 

 than itself, shows that a hghtning bolt cannot be diverted from its 

 course by conductors, and that the protection of buildings from this 

 species of meteor can only be effected by conductors stretching out in 

 all directions. 



4th. — ' On the Aurora Borealis,' by Admiral Sir John Ross. — This 

 was the theory of auroras originally explained by Sir John Ro.ss at the 

 Dublin Meeting iu 1835. He gives the opinion of Schumacher in 

 favom' of his theory, and of Arago against it ; and asserts that Messrs. 

 Gaineaud, Martins and another were sent to Hammerfest in 1 842 to test 

 its accuracy, and returned impressed with the con-ectness of his views. 



5th.-' On the Aiu-ora,' by Lieut. W.H.H.Hooper.-This is a theory pretty 

 nearly the same as that of Admiral Sir John Ross. The author says : 

 " I believe the aurora boreahs to be nor more nor less than moisture in 

 some shape (whether dew or vapour, liquid or frozen,) illumined by 

 the heavenly bodies, either directly or reflecting then' rays fi-om the 

 frozen masses around the pole, or even from the immediate proximate 

 snow-clad earth." This opinion he supports by facts and argument. 



6th. ' On the Re-concentration of the Mechanical or Energy of the 

 Universe,' ty W. J. M. Rankine. — Ml'. Rankine observed that — It has 

 long been conjectured, and is now being established by experiment, 



