May 5, 1893.] 



SCIENCE. 



243 



basin during the daytime through the lowest levels on to the 

 equatorial land-girdle, the ebb taking place at night. 



Persistently in operation from the very earliest periods, these 

 two causes might well establish and maintain well-marked tidal 

 channels, the so-called "canals," in fact, and in this way solve 

 these enigmatical features. Their being open to the seas at 

 each extremity is a powerful argument in favor of the above 

 view. 



With such an effectual and continuous circulation of the 

 water from the polar basins, over the tropical areas, we may 

 perhaps see the solution for the remarkable mildness of the cli- 

 mate on Mars and smallness of the polar caps. The thermal ef- 

 fects of our Gulf Stream would be produced not only at one spot, 

 or even one pole, but all round; each polar basin would have 

 currents of warmer water poured in daily. 



The occasional duplicity of the canals may perhaps be due to a 

 series of large islands, as seen so frequently in terrestrial rivers 

 flowing through alluvial tracts. Viewed from a great elevation, 

 our Brahmaputra would undoubtedly appear double for hundreds 

 of miles, especially in the dry season when the large sand 

 " churs " or islands fill the bed of the river, though even in the 

 rains there are many, more or less permanent, of large size, such 

 as our " Majule,'" or middle ground, 130 miles in length by 10 or 

 30 wide, giving the appearance of a series of vast loops. The 

 rule indeed is that this large river is seldom seen confined to one 

 channel. 



The remarkable feature of the whole case seems to be that so 

 far there has been little or no reference to terrestrial experience 

 when discussing the problem of the distribution of land and 

 water on Mars. The great recent geological discoveries bearing 

 on the subject appear to have been overlooked, but if the law of 

 the permanent subsidence of ocean floors, now an axiom among 

 geologists, and so clearly seen on our moon, applies to Mars, we 

 can see more or less clearly that the coldest and densest portions 

 of the Martian crust will be the floors of the two polar ocean 

 basins, the slow, steady subsidence of which causes the emerg- 

 ence of the equatorial land-girdle; the comparative complete- 

 ness of this, again, being due to the absence of a large satellite, 

 to cause tidal rupture during formation. 



Last, we seem to see an intelligible solution for the so-called 

 "canals," as modified tide-channels, and even for their occa- 

 sionally appearing double; the exceptionally effectual circula- 

 tion of the water on the planet being the solution for the mild- 

 ness of the climate. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



The expedition, equipped by the de Laincel fund for linguistic 

 and paleographic research among the Maya remains of Mexico, 

 under the charge of Dr. Hilborne T. Cresson of the Bureau of 

 Ethnology, Washington, D. C, reached Mexico in January and 

 proceeded to the Partedo de la Frontera near the Guatemalian 

 border and from thence to the little-known region around the 

 iake of Petin. While in this part of the country the guide died 

 of malarial fever, and Dr. Cresson, accompanied by his Maya 

 servant, continued the explorations until the season was too far 

 advanced for further research. The expedition has been very 

 successful in the collection of material which will aid in deciph- 

 ering the Maya hieroglyphs and demonstrates a rich field for fu- 

 ture study both paleographic and linguistic. It has been found 

 that exact drawings made by the pencil the size of the original 

 glyph or half-size, will be most serviceable for giving details 

 which repeated trials of the camera failed to satisfactorily pro- 

 duce, as many of the minor components, which recent study has 

 shown to be very important in the interpretation of the glyphs, 

 are so delicate in execution and so worn by time that the impres- 

 sion is calculated to deceive the student. Moreover, the forests 

 which surround the ruined Maya structures are very dense and a 

 proper light for photography is impossible to be obtained, and 

 even if enough space was cleared for light the cast shadows of 

 the tablets themselves lead to en'oneous lines, when the negative 

 is printed. A comparison of photographs of paper squeezes, 

 made by previous expeditions, shows that much of this work has 



been hurriedly done and the minor components more or less dis- 

 torted by being carelessly removed, so making them almost use- 

 less for exact study. 



— An important meeting of the Victoria Institute took place on 

 April 17, at Adelphi Terrace, London, the president. Sir Gabriel 

 Stokes, Bart., in the chair; after the election of several new 

 members and associates, Major C. R. Conder, R.E., D.C L., read 

 a paper on "The Comparison of Asiatic Languages," in which he 

 dealt with the ultimate relationship of the great divisions of 

 Asiatic speech, forming the separate families called Aryan, Sem- 

 itic, and Mongolic, and the afiinities of the oldest monumental 

 languages in the Akkadian and the Egyptian. After describing 

 the accepted principles of internal comparison of languages in 

 each group. Major Conder urged that the roots, to which philolo- 

 gists have referred all words in each family, run — in a large 

 number of cases — through all these families, probably indicating 

 a common source of language. He proceeded to draw results as 

 to the primitive condition, and original home, of the Asiatics, and 

 pointed out that Egyptian was grammatically to be classed with 

 Semitic languages, and Akkadian with Mongolic speech. A com- 

 parative list of some 4,000 ancient words, from the languages in 

 question, accompanied the paper, which was listened to through- 

 out by a large and appreciative audience. The discussion was 

 commenced by Professor Legge of Oxford University, who, re- 

 ferring to the work of his life as a student of Chinese for upwards 

 of half a century, urged the value of such work as that done by 

 Major Conder. In all his comparisons, he was possibly not pre- 

 pared to agree, but that did not prevent him from recognizing 

 the great value of what he had done, and the evidence afforded by 

 such researches as to the primitive unity of the human race. Prof. 

 Legge's remarks were followed by those of Mr. T. G. Pincher, the 

 Akkadian scholar. Professor Koelle, Dr. Kenneth Macdonald, 

 Professor Postgate, Principal R. Collins, and others. Captain F. 

 Petrie, the honorary secretary, during the evening read an impor- 

 tant communication from one of the members exploring in Egypt, 

 in which some newly-discovered sculptures were described, these 

 threw quite a new light on the mode of transporting immense 

 masses of stone by water, which was in use among the Egyptians 

 in the days of the Pharaohs. 



— Professors. S. Laurie's work on "John Amos Comenius" 

 has been republished in this country by C. W. Bardeen of Syra- 

 cuse, with a preface and a bibliographical appendix. Professor 

 Laurie begins with a brief study of the Renascence and the Refor- 

 mation in their relation to education, and then proceeds to an 

 account of the checkered and roving life of the great Moravian 

 bishop and educator. Then, taking up the leading works of 

 Comenius,heendeavors to show what were the real contributions 

 made by him to educational theory and practice. His principal 

 merit, as Professor Laurie justly says, was in the method of 

 teaching which he advocated, a method greatly in advance of that 

 practised in his own time and similar in many respects to that 

 followed by the best teachers of to day. What the method was 

 may be learned in detail from this book, where it is set forth at 

 considerable length. He held that we ought to copy the methods 

 of nature, and his works are filled with fanciful analogies between 

 her operations and the labors and processes of the teacher. His 

 own text-books, however, especially those for the study of lan- 

 guages, are often as unfit for their purpose as they could well be, 

 and his whole method is of too formal a character, and is vitiated, 

 as Professor Laurie remarks, by the belief that a man can be 

 manufactured. Moreover, his idea of knowledge was too utili- 

 tarian, and be had no appreciation of philosophy or of art 

 and the esthetic side of literature and life. Nevertheless, his 

 method was a great improvement on that of his contemporaries, 

 and his advocacy of milder discipline was equally commenda- 

 ble. He also advocated the Baconian study of nature; and in 

 these days, when natural science and utilitarian studies have 

 become prominent, and so much stress is laid upon right 

 methods of teaching, it is not strange that his life and work have 

 become objects of interest. Few persons, however, will care to 

 study his own writings, and hence this book, which gives so full 

 an account of them, will serve a useful purpose. 



