August 4, 1893.] 



SCIENCE. 



65 



tents were strongly alkaline, which would favor the development 

 of bacteria, is it not exceedingly probable that this fowl had 

 clogged her craw and set a great culture of bacteria developing 

 there, till at length bacteria had gained admission to the oviduct 

 through the blood and thus developed infected eggs? 



This rather brief description in no wise pretends to explain 

 this phenomenon. It has been given with a dual hope: First, 

 that some bacteriologist whose experience has familiarized him 

 with similar cases may give the desired explanation of how these 

 bacteria, if they were bacteria, gained admission to these fresh 

 eggs; second, that the attention of physicians and officers of 

 boards of health may be attracted to this subject. 



There is evidently as much necessity for caution in feeding 

 bens as in feeding milk cows or in fattening beeves and swine. 

 Chickens should not be fed all Sorts of refuse matter and then be 

 expected to return therefor good healthy eggs and meat. Yet we 

 all know the universal practice in small cities and villages, where 

 many of the market fowls and eggs are obtained, is to give over 

 the office of scavenger to the feathered inhabitants. If the sub- 

 ject were properly regarded by physicians and the people were 

 rightly educated, we might look for better things; till then the 

 occurrence of such peculiar phenomena as the one related and 

 even more unique, should not surprise scientific students. 



A MALAY FIRE-SYRINGE. 



BY F. W. RUDLER, MTJSEUM OF GEOLOGY, LONDON, ENGLAND. 



By the kindness of ray friend Mr. Henry Louis, the well- 

 known mining engineer, who has recently I'eturned to England 

 from Singapore, I have received a fire-syringe which he obtained 

 towards the end of 1890 from a part of the Malay Peninsula 

 never previously visited by a white man. So far as I can ascer- 

 tain, the use of the fire-syringe has not been hitherto recorded 

 from this locality. Mr. Walter Hough, in his admirable descrip- 

 tion of the (ire-producing appliances in the United States Na- 

 tional Museum, published in the Smithsonian Reports for 1888 

 and 1890, refers to the syringes of Borneo and Burma, but 

 makes no reference to those of the Malay Peninsula. No syringe 

 from this locality is to be found in the very extensive ethno- 

 graphical collections in the British Museum. Moreover, Mr. A. 

 R. Wallace does not know of its use by the Malays, nor is it 

 known to Professor Terrien de Lacouperie, who has lately written 

 on the production of fire by the Chinese in his Babylonian and 

 Oriental Record. 



Mr. Louis obtained the specimen in question from a Malay 

 who stopped with a party of otheis at his camp on a small stream 

 known as Ayer Katiah, one of the tributaries of the River Telu- 

 ban, on the southeast coast of the Malay Peninsula, and about 

 100 miles from the mouth of the river. The district is sparsely 

 inhabited by Malays, and the party from whom the syringe was 

 obtained had come from some of the neighboring Kampongs. 

 They squatted down and began smoking, one of the men lighting 

 his cigarette in the most matter-of-fact way by means of his fire- 

 syringe. There is no reason to suppose that he was singular or 

 had imported his apparatus from a distance. If the rest of the 

 party elicited sparks by means of quartz and iron it was, they ad- 

 mitted, simply because they preferred this method as being less 

 troublesome and more trustworthy than that of compressing air. 



The Malay syringe consists of a tube of hard wood 21 inches 

 long, closed at one end, towards which the tube slightly tapers. 

 It is surrounded with neatly plaited strips of thin rattan which, 

 while they ornament the object, serve also to strengthen it and 

 prevent the wood from splitting longitudinally in the direction of 

 the fibre. The piston is made of similar wood and is packed 

 with string. The tiuder was carried in the hollowed-out skin of 

 a large bean, like the seed of Entada. 



In order to use the instrument a small piece of dry tinder is 

 placed in the slightly hollow end of the piston and pressed down 

 to keep it well in place; the piston is then inserted in the cylin- 

 der, smitten sharply with the palm of the hand and very rapidly 

 withdrawn, when the tinder becomes sufficiently heated to 

 slightly smoulder, and by then gently blowing it a bright glow 

 may be obtained. According to Mr. Louis, the native never 



seemed to fail in his use of the syringe, but the knack is not easy 

 to acquire, and those who have employed a similar apparatus for 

 demonstration at physical lectures know that it is far from easy, 

 even wiih a well-made instrument, to ensure success. 



Contrary to what might have been expected, it was rather a 

 young man who preferred this strange mode of producing fire to 

 the more convenient flint-and -steel method. There can be no doubt 

 that the use of the fire-syringe, never widely spread, is rapidly 

 dying out, and hence every fact bearing on the geographical dis- 

 tribution of so curious a custom deserves to be put on record. 



L'ORIGINE DES ARYENS. 



PAR LE PROF. G. DE LAPOUGE, TJNIVBRSIT^ DE MONTPELLIBB, FRANCE. 



Les revues scientifiques et Science en particulier ont publie cette 

 annee une quantite d'articles qui avaient la pretention d'eclaircir 

 la question aryenne, mais qui me paraissent avoir surtout produit 

 le resultat inverse. II me semble que Fobscurite vient surtout de 

 ce qu'on ne s'entend pas sur la valeur de mots qui, detournfis de 

 leur signification primitive, sont maintenant bien pres de n'en 

 avoir aucune, tant elle devient vague. Partisan tres actif de 

 I'origine europfienne et occidentale de la race blonde et de son 

 identification avec les premiers auteurs de la culture aryenne, j'ai 

 contribue sans le vouloir a creer cette equivoque. Je voudrais 

 arriver a la dissiper. 



Le titre d'Aryens est historiquement applicable aux Indo- 

 Iraniens seuls. Ceux-ci etaient loin de former la partie la plus 

 pure, au double point de vue morphologique et sociologique, de 

 la race que nous appelons aryenne. C'est pourquoi je crois prefera- 

 ble de laisser le terroe d'Aryen a I'histoire et a I'ethnographie, et 

 de lui conserver son sens strict, plutot que de continuer a I'etendre 

 comme on I'a fait, d'abord en philologie d'un sous-groupe a un 

 groupe entier de populations parlant des langues apparentees et 

 pratiquant des coutumes analogues, et ensuite en anthropologie a 

 la race qui parait avoir joue chez ces peuples le role de ferment. 

 En regardant comme demontre ce qui est encore discute, a savoir 

 que les langues et les idees aryennes sont nees dans une tribu ou 

 dominait la race blonde et sous I'influence de son genie propre, 

 faire remonter d'une partie des peuples conquis au premier noyau 

 des conquerants un nom ethnique plus recent d'un nombre con- 

 siderable de si^cles, c'est a pen pres comme si Ton voulait dans 

 dix mille ans appeler les Francais d'aujourdhui Dahomeens, par- 

 ceque I'Afrique serait en grande partie devenue, c'est une pure 

 hypothese, francaise de moeurs et d' institutions. 



II conviendrait de s'entendre pour adopter desormais dans le 

 langage precis la terminologie suivante : Aryens, les Indo-Iraniens 

 primitifs ; langues aryennes, institutions aryennes, les langues et 

 les institutions de ces peuples et de leurs descendants immediats; 

 Indo-Europeens, les peuples, d'origine quelconque, qui ont fait 

 usage de ces langues, et de ces institutions, mais a partir seule- 

 ment du moment ou cet usage a commence chez eux. La ter- 

 minologie ainsl retablie, on arrive a s'apercevoir que le probleme 

 aryen n'existe pas et qu'il y avait simplement logomachie. On se 

 trouve en face des questions suivantes, aux quelles il est plus facile 

 de repondre des que I'esprit n'est plus tiraille par les acceptions 

 multiples et discordantes des termes. 



Quel a ete le berceau des langues et des institutions indo-euro- 

 peennes ? Question d'histoire et de philologie, a laquelle on est 

 actuellement porte a repondre: I'Europe. 



Ces langues et ces institutions paraissent elles avoir ete parti- 

 culierement propres a certains peuples caracterises par la predom- 

 inance d'une race, et laquelle? Autre question d'histoire et de 

 philologie a laquelle on est oblige de repondre : oui, la race 

 dolichocephale blonde. En efi'et il n'y a pas de peuple ou cette 

 race domine qui fasse usage de langues ou d'institutions non- 

 aryennes, tandis que les peuples ou cette race ne domine pas font 

 en partie usage de langues ou d'institutions d'un autre groupe, en 

 ont fait usage a une epoque historique rapprochee (partie de la 

 Russie et de I'AUemagne), ou paraissent en avoir fait usage dans 

 I'antiquite (Gaule, Espagne). 



L'evolution qui a produit ces langues et ces institutions a t'elle 

 eu pour point de depart un peuple ou la race blonde avait la 



