August 15, 1890.] 



SCIENCE. 



91 



coUegemen to a scholastic career. As in Denmark and Norway, 

 no teacher can be appointed in primary schools, or to the lower 

 classes of intermediate schools, who has not studied at a training 

 college. In the higher classes of intermediate schools and in the 

 secondary schools nobody can be appointed who has not passed 

 the so called teacher's examination at the University. To pass 

 this examination necessitates, in all the Scandinavian countries, a 

 course of studies of five to six years at the University. All the 

 teachers appointed have, accordingly, all the scientific require- 

 ments for a good teacher. Another salutary result of the system 

 is that the school education is not expensive, being almost gratui- 

 tous, which has the effect of opening a career for all in the civil 

 and clerical service. On the other hand, this nearly free educa- 

 tion has, as a matter of course, given rise to a large conflux of 

 office-seekers and place-hunters, and has, on the whole, made the 

 struggle for life not any easier among the professional classes. 



— It is stated by the Engineering and Mining Journal that the 

 project for making Paris into a port is now completed, and noth- 

 ing remains but the sanction of the Government to put the works 

 into the hands of the contractors. Hitherto the Government has 

 kept aloof from the proposals until its promoters were in a posi- 

 tion to carry out the undertaking to a successful issue, a caution 

 engendered by the recent failures of French engineering under- 

 takings. The promoters have now raised the necessai-y capital, 

 amounting to £5,400,000, and it is probable that the sanction of 

 the government will be given to the project, and the work of ca- 

 nalizing the Seine with a view to allowing the passage of sea-go- 

 ing vessels froQi Havre to Paris will be proceeded with, and ex- 

 tensive docks wiU be constructed at Pantin, on the north-east of 

 the city. Another proposal is for the construction of a canal to 

 connect the Mediterranean with the Bay of Biscay, with the in- 

 tention of intercepting a great part of the shipping which at pres- 

 ent passes through the Straits of Gibraltar. If these two projects 

 be carried out, they will have an immense effect on the trade of 

 France. 



— An East India newspaper, quoted by Nature, reports the re- 

 sult of a recent expedition to investigate the upper course of the 

 Irawadi, the source of which, as is well known, is one of the still 

 unsolved problems of geography. It has long been known from 

 native report that two rivers, the Mali Kha and the Meh Kha, the 

 former from the north, the latter from the east, unite a little be- 

 low 26° north latitude to form the Irawadi. The sources of the 

 Mali Kha are known to be in the mountains to the east of the 

 Brahmakund, which form the south-eastern water-parting of the 

 Lohit Brahmaputra; but the Meh Kha, vi-hich is stated to be the 

 larger stream, and which Colonel Walker supposes to be identical 

 with the Lu River of Tibet, has never before been seen by any 

 European. The junction of these two rivers has now for the first 

 time been reached by an expeditionary party ascending from 

 Bhamo. On May 27, Captain Barwick, of the Indian marine, 

 accompanied by Mr. Shaw, the Deputy Commissioner of Bhamo, 

 and Major Fenton, of the Intelligence Department, left Bhamo in 

 the " Pathfinder," a paddle-steamer of about thirty-fire tons, with 

 a view to reaching the point of confluence. From Bhamo as far 

 as Maingna the stream is well known. Above Maingna the river 

 runs between mountains from one thousand two hundred to two 

 thousand feet high, and a succession of rapids has to be passed 

 through, which by dint of hard struggling and after many attempts 

 the '-Pathfinder" successfully ascended, not, however, without 

 several hairbreadth escapes from foundering, the whirlpools simply 

 taking charge of the vessel. After six days' steaming, the party 

 reached the confluence of the streams, distant about one hundred 

 and fifty miles from Bhamo. Here the river was found to be five 

 hundred yards wide, one branch, the Mali Kha, trending to the 

 north-eastward, the other, the Nmaika (Meh Kha of the map), to 

 the eastward. Up the former the explorers proceeded some six 

 miles, and then came upon a series of rapids. It was decided not 

 to go further, as the small quantity of fuel remaining was reserved 

 for steaming up the other branch. A halt of a day was made, 

 and the position fixed in 25° 56' north latitude, and 97° 38' east 

 longitude. Returning to the confluence. Captain Barwick pro- 

 ceeded three miles up the Nmaika, when a rapid prevented fur- 



ther progress. The Kachins are said to have been very friendly, 

 though they had never seen or been in communication with Euro- 

 peans before. 



— In the second part of the first volume of the Transactions of 

 the Royal Society of Victoria Mr. A. W. Howitt, in a well-arranged 

 and instructive paper, deals with the organization of Australian 

 tribes. The following are among Mr. Howitt's conclusions, as 

 given in Nature: — (1) The group is the sole unit. The individual 

 is subordinate in the more primitive form of society, but becomes 

 more and more predominant in the advancing social stages. Thus 

 group marriage becomes at length completely subordinate to indi- 

 vidual marriage, or even practically extinct and forgotten where 

 descent has been changed from the female to the uiale line. (2) 

 An Australian tribe is not a number of individual-^ associated 

 together by reason of relationship and propinquity m-.'iel.5- It is 

 an organized society governed by strict customary laws, vrhic. -,? 

 administered by the elder men, who in very many, if not in ali, 

 tribes exercise their inherited authority after'secret consultation. 



(3) There are probably in all tribes men who are recognized as the 

 headmen of class divisions, totems, or of local divisions, and to 

 whom more or less of obedience is freely given. There are more 

 than traces of the inheritance by sons (own or tribal) of the 

 authority of these headmen, and there is thus more than a mere 

 foreshadowing of a chieftainship of the tribe in a hereditary form. 



(4) Relationship is of group to group, and the individual takes the 

 relationship of his group, and shares with it the collective and 

 individual rights and liabilities. The general result arrived at is 

 that the Australian savages have a social organization which has 

 been developed from a state when two groups of people were living 

 together with almost all things in common, and when within the 

 group there was a regulated sexual promiscuity. The existence 

 of two exogamous intermarrying groups seems to Mr. Howitt to 

 almost require the previous existence of an undivided commtine 

 from the segmentation of which they arose. 



— In his monthly report for July, Arthur Winslow, State Geol- 

 ogist of Missouri, states that the work of detailed mapping in the 

 coal fields has progressed without interruption, one hundred and 

 ten square miles being covered in the field during the month. A 

 portion of the results of this work has been reduced and trans- 

 ferred to the final sheets, two of which will soon be in a condition 

 for engraving. Detailed work has been started in Randolph 

 County, and Professor C. H. Gordon, of Keokuk, Iowa, a volun- 

 teer assistant for the summer, has been assigned to this work. 

 On July 7 detailed work was started in Greene County under Pro- 

 fessor E. M. Shepard of Springfield, local assistant on the Survey; 

 with him is Maj. E. W. Newton of Bolivar, also a local assistant. 

 Over fifty square miles have been covered in that county. The 

 detailed mapping of the crystalline rocks in south-east Missouri 

 has also progressed uninterruptedly, and about seventy square 

 miles have been covered. Field-work on the clays and building 

 stones of St. Louis "has been completed, and the report on the 

 results is in course of preparation. In the Laboratory the report 

 on the mineral waters of Henry, St. Clair, Benton, and Johnson 

 Counties has been written and is ready for publication. It will be 

 issued in the next Bulletin. Further analyses of thirty limestones 

 have been made, some nine miscellaneous specimens have been 

 determined or analyzed for the Survey, and sixteen lots of speci- 

 mens from outside parties have been examined and reported upon. 

 Preliminary inspections have been made in Clarke. Scotland, 

 Randolph, Monroe, Marion, and Franklin Counties, with the object 

 of determining the character and amount of work which will be 

 necessai-y in the future in the sections which they represent. In 

 the office, a large amount of time has been spent in labelling and 

 filing away for future reference and study the already bulky col- 

 lection of the Survey, which now includes over one thousand three 

 hundred specimens. A large number of valuable illustrative 

 specimens have been collected during the past month, in addition 

 to these, and will soon be shipped to the office. Some progress 

 has been made in the arrangement of specimens in the cabinet,^ 

 for exhibition, a few of which are now classified and labelled. 

 Paleontologic work has been in progress in Henry end St. Clair 

 Counties. 



