T40 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XII. No. 294 



the subject of garbage-cremation we note that the crematory at 

 Milwaukee has been complained of as a nuisance, the odors from 

 ■it being a cause of great annoyance. 



Color-Audition. — Mr. J. A. Maloney, otacoustician, of 

 Washington, D.C., communicates to the New York Medical Jour- 

 nal the results of some experiments which he has recently made 

 with reference to the conductivity of sound-vibration by the bones 

 ■of the skull. For this purpose the bone was clamped in a standard 

 which was rigidly affixed to a base of iron weighing sixteen pounds. 

 At one end of the bone was placed in light contact a button sus- 

 ■pended upon a rod having a curved projection at its top to allow 

 the button to swing clear of its support. The other end of the 

 bone was gently struck with a small hard-rubber mallet, and the 

 space through which the button was projected noted. The results 

 upon different bones were as follows : frontal, very hard blow, 

 slight disturbance of ball, without projection ; occipital, the same ; 

 parietal, the same; ethmoid, less than the former; sphenoid, a 

 very slight tap on one great wing gave great projection from the 

 other wing, and scratching with or rolling of the mallet over the sur- 

 face of one wing caused the button impinging upon the other to be 

 ■agitated. The sphenoid was then made to communicate its vibra- 

 tions to the diaphragm of a microphone in electric circuit with a 

 telephone-receiver. In this test a very fine thread of silk, held at 

 •one end, was drawn lightly over the free wing, and the same could 

 be heard distinctly in the receiving-telephone. Breathing gently 

 ■through a tube against the wing would be heard in the receiver. 

 The temporal bone was then substituted for the sphenoid ; and the 

 only point which gave results similar to that of the sphenoid was 

 when the two tests were made upon that portion of the petrous or 

 pyramidal process known as the jugular fossa. Mr. Maloney asks. 

 May not color-audition, in view of the readiness with which the 

 sphenoid bone takes up and delivers vibrations, be due to mechan- 

 ical stimulation of the optic nerve by impingement of the same 

 upon the sphenoid bone in its passage through the optic foramen } 

 The phenomenon of color-audition was first brought to the atten- 

 tion of the scientific world by Dr. Nussbaumer of Vienna, who, 

 when a child, was engaged with his brother one day in striking a 

 fork against a glass to hear the ring, when he discovered that he 

 saw colors at the same time that he perceived the sound ; and so 

 well did he perceive the color, that, when he stopped his ears, he 

 could divine by it how loud a sound the fork had produced. Dr. 

 Nussbaumer was afterward able to add to his own observations 

 nearly identical ones made by a medical student in Ziirich. Later 

 on, M. Pedrono, an ophthalmologist of Nantes, observed the same 

 peculiarities in a friend. In these cases musical sounds gave sen- 

 sations varying the color according to the instrument played upon, 

 thus showing the dependence of the phenomenon upon the timbre. 

 For instance, the saxophone gave yellow sensations ; the clarionet, 

 red ; the piano, blue. When numbers and words were used, the 

 following results were obtained in cases mentioned in an article, 

 ' Color of Words,' by E. A. Newell (Popular Science Monthly for 

 December, 1887): i, black; 2, light cream; 3, dark cream; 4, 

 brownish red ; 5, black ; 6, tan-color or cream ; 7, greenish black ; 

 8, dark straw; 9, mud-color; 10, black; 11, black and straw; 12, 

 light cream; 13, dark straw-color; 14, light brown. Following 

 are some familiar names, and the color of each, and also the letters 

 of the alphabet : Mary, dark red ; Abbie, tan ; Lucy, dark blue ; 

 Richard, light gray ; Atlanta, steel-gray ; Charlotte, light red ; 

 Claire, light blue ; Newcomb, dark red ; Lincoln, black ; Morse, 

 brown ; A, light straw ; B, gray ; C, tan ; D, blue ; E, black ; F, 

 black ; G, light straw ; H, red ; I and J, black ; K, blue ; L, black ; 

 M, brown ; N, dark blue ; O, light red ; P, light green ; O, blue ; 

 R and S, light straw. Henri de Parville, in the Popular "Science 

 Monthly for August, 1883, and previously in Le Monde de la Science 

 et de rindustrie, says, " Popular expressions are often significant. 

 ' I saw three dozen lights of all colors,' or some such expression, 

 may frequently be heard from persons who have received violent 

 blows on the head or face. Under the influence of shocks of 

 this kind, the eye seems to see infinite numbers of sparks. Shocks 

 of a certain class impressed upon the nervous system seem to have 

 the faculty of producing phenomena of light. There are persons 

 endowed with such sensibility that they cannot hear a sound with- 



out at the same time perceiving colors. Each sound to them has 

 its peculiar color: this word corresponds with red, and that one 

 with green ; one note is blue, and another is yellow." 



ETHNOLOGY. 

 Tattooing. 



Mlss a. W. BuCKLAND, in the Journal of the Anthropological 

 Institute of Great Britain, publishes a study of the distribution of 

 the custom of tattooing. Although her list of tribes who practise 

 this custom might be considerably increased, some of the results of 

 her study are of great interest. She distinguishes two methods of 

 tattooing. In the one, cuts are made in such a manner as to leave 

 a scar ; in the other, patterns are pricked out, and coloring-matter 

 is rubbed into the wounds. According to Miss Buckland, the for- 

 mer method, which she calls ' gashing,' is confined to Africa (ex- 

 cepting Egypt), some parts of southern Europe, and Australia, in- 

 cluding a few of the neighboring islands. Tattooing, in the proper 

 sense of the word, is practised in Polynesia and all over the Ameri- 

 can continent. The most beautiful patterns are found in New 

 Zealand and among the lower classes of Japan. The author calls 

 attention to the widespread custom of marking the chins of women 

 as denoting marriage. The distribution of the custom of tattooing 

 is more fully illustrated in Gerland's excellent ethnological maps, 

 which are being published in Berghaus's ' Atlas of Physical Geog- 

 raphy.' He distinguishes between tribes tattooing both sexes and 

 those tattooing the women alone, which is most extensively prac- 

 tised by the natives of Arctic America and the east coast of Asia. 

 The student of this problem will find material of the greatest value 

 in W. Joest's work on tattooing, gashing (or, as he calls it, ' draw- 

 ing by means of scars '), and painting the body. The plates, which 

 form the most important part of the work, are beautifully done, and 

 deserve the more praise, as they must be considered absolutely 

 reliable. Joest emphasizes justly that it is necessary to take the 

 most painstaking care in reproducing ornaments of this kind. It is 

 necessary for the artist to understand the intentions of the native 

 tattooer or draughtsman, in order to render his work correctly. As 

 this precaution has frequently not been taken by travellers, many 

 drawings of works of native art are mere caricatures. Fortunately 

 the necessity of the greatest care in making collections of this kind 

 is well understood at present. Joest arrives at the conclusion that 

 tattooing has no connection whatever with the religion of the tribes 

 who practise it, but that it is chiefly ornamental. Miss Buckland 

 is of a similar opinion. She says that tattooing is generally orna- 

 mental, and that it seems to be in the men honorable, denoting 

 bravery in battle. Tattoo-marks are, as a rule, geometric designs. 

 There are only a few tribes known among whom conventionalized 

 animal forms are used, denoting the totem of the bearer. Among 

 these are the Haida of the Queen Charlotte Islands, the tattoo- 

 marks of whom were first described by Swan. Several of their 

 neighbors practise the same custom. Joest's book contains a par- 

 tial bibliography of this subject. The etchings and plates which 

 accompany his book refer principally to Melanesia and Polynesia ; 

 but, besides this, tattooing from Tunis, a beautiful specimen from 

 Japan, and several from Central Africa and Burmah, are given. 



A Recent Discovery in Egypt. — Prof. A. H. Sayce, in the 

 August number of the Contemporaiy Review, describes an archse- 

 ological discovery of great interest, made recently in upper Egypt, 

 where a large collection of clay tablets, inscribed with cuneiform 

 characters of a cursive Babylonian form and in the Babylonian lan- 

 guage, have been found at Tel el-Amarna. They consist, for the 

 most part, of letters and despatches sent by the governors and kings 

 of Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Babylonia, to two Egyptian 

 monarchs, Amenophis III. and Amenophis IV. Five of the letters 

 are from Babylon, the date being about B.C. 1430, which approx- 

 imately fixes the period to which the reign of Khu-en-Aten must 

 be assigned ; but the largest number refer to the mother of the lat- 

 ter, who was the daughter of the King of Naharina. This place is 

 proved by the tablets to be situated on the eastern bank of the 

 Euphrates. The unexpected revelation of active literary intercourse 

 from one end of the civilized East to the other, in the century before 

 the date assigned by Egyptologists to the Exodus, is likely to pro- 

 duce a revolution in our conceptions of ancient Oriental history. It 



