Mar. 9, 1888.] 



SCIENTIFIC NEVSTS. 



235 



coal measures of Radstock, Somersetshire. He main- 

 tained that the Eurypteria must be a land animal, as it 

 was found along with, and was connected with, the 

 scorpion. 



ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE. 

 At the last meeting of this society Professor Flower, 

 C.B., director of the Natural History Museum, read a 

 paper upon the Akkas, the smallest people in the world, 

 who inhabit the Monbuttu country. Central Africa. 

 Since they were discovered by Schweinfurth in 1870, 

 they have received considerable attention from various 

 travellers and anthropologists, and general descriptions of 

 them have been published, but until now no account of 

 their osteological characters has been given, and no speci- 

 mens have been submitted to careful anatomical exam- 

 ination. The two skeletons dealt with by Professor 

 Flower were lately sent home by Emin Pasha. They 

 are those of fully grown-up people, a male and female, 

 and are both smaller than any other normal skeleton 

 known, smaller certainly than the smallest Bushman's 

 skeleton in any museum in this country, and smaller 

 than any out of the 29 skeletons of the diminutive in- 

 habitants of the Andaman islands. The height of neither 

 of them exceeds 1,219 metres, or four feet, while a 

 living female Akka, of whom Emin Pasha has sent care- 

 ful measurements is only 1,164 metres, or barely 3ft. 

 join. The results previously obtained from the measure- 

 ments of about half a dozen living Akkas are not quite 

 so low as these, varying from 1,216 to 1,420 metres, 

 and give an average for both sexes of 1,356, or 4ft. Sgin. 

 It is to the " Negrillo " race of the great Negroid branch 

 that the Akkas belong, and they are not by any means 

 closely allied, either to the Bushmen or the Negritor of 

 the Indian Ocean, except in so far as they are members 

 of the same great branch, distinguished among the 

 general character by their closely curled hair. It is pos- 

 sible that the Negrillo people gave origin to the stories of 

 pigmies, so common in the writings of the Greek poets 

 and historians, and whose habitations were often placed 

 near the sources of the Nile. The name Akka, by 

 which Schweinfurth says the tribe now call themselves, 

 has singularly enough been read by Mariette Pacha by 

 the side of the portrait of a dwarf in a monument of the 

 ancient Egyptian Empire. 



EDINBURGH GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 

 At the meeting on February i6th, Mr. James Melvin 

 gave an account of the " Parallel Roads or ' Seter ' of 

 Central Norway." In general, he said, they were far 

 more distinct and easily traced than those of Lochaber, 

 but in several respects they were alike. From the con- 

 sideration of the nature and origin of those " seters " or 

 roads, the past history of the changes of climatic con- 

 ditions might be traced. Of all natural phenomena, 

 they supplied the most striking and convincing proof 

 that not many thousand years ago other conditions than 

 the present prevailed over the northern hemisphere, and 

 also in that of the south, akin to those of Greenland at 

 the present day. 



Mr. George Craig contributed a paper on " The Culbin 

 Sandhills," which he said were about four miles in 

 length, from one to two miles in breadth, and lay 

 along the southern shore of the Moray Firth. This vast 

 mass of sand was continually moving eastwards. 



Mr. H. M. Cadell of Grange, read a notice of two 



stumps of trees recently exposed in the oil workings at 

 Oakbank. Each was surrounded by a cylinder of coal a 

 quarter of an inch in thickness, he said, such as is 

 commonly found round fossil tree stems. The main 

 point of interest was the evidence they supplied as to 

 the existence of an old land surface there during the Oil 

 Shale or Upper Calciferous Sandstone period. Similar 

 fossil stumps were known to occur in the shales just 

 below the Burdiehouse limestone and in the Wardie 

 shales, situated several hundreds of feet below this lime- 

 stone. The occurrence of stumps in situ was only one 

 of the numerous proofs that the calciferous sandstone 

 series was a shallow water deposit. 



THE INSTITUTION OF CIVIL ENGINEERS. 

 At the meeting held on Tuesday, the 14th of February, 

 the President, Mr. Bruce, being in the chair, the paper 

 read was on " The Economic Use of the Plane-table in 

 Topographical Surveying," by Mr. Josiah Pierce, jun., 

 M.A. The author stated that the plane-table, being one 

 of the most ancient of surveying instruments, needed 

 no introduction. However, he desired to direct attention 

 to its wide and economical use on nearly all Government 

 surveys, and to the fact that experience had proved that, 

 within certain practical limits, plane-tabling was the 

 most rapid, accurate, and economical method of executing 

 topographical work. The modern plane-table, when 

 properly constructed, was an altazimuth instrument of 

 precision ; with it the horizontal projections of existing 

 angles were recorded graphically, free from errors of 

 record, adjustment, and plotting. 



LIVERPOOL GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 

 At the meeting held on the 14th of February, Mr. C. 

 Potter exhibited a case of worked flints obtained from 

 the Wirral peninsula, and especially from the surface 

 soil immediately underlying the sandhills on the shore, 

 together with some interesting specimens of very ancient 

 pottery from the same locality. Mr. E. Dickson read a 

 paper on " Preston Docks Excavations," describing in de- 

 tail the nature and thickness of the old river deposits 

 which have been cut through in the course of the works 

 at Preston. He also described the fine series of human 

 skulls, heads, and horns of animals, etc., and the very in- 

 teresting old canoe recently found in the deposits. This 

 latter was stated to be formed (probably by burning) out 

 of a single log of oak, eight feet nine inches long, with 

 no keel, and with a curious insertion of a board to form 

 the stern end. The boat was found embedded in the 

 gravel at a depth of fourteen feet below the surface, and 

 is placed, together with the other objects of interest found, 

 in the Preston Museum. 



LIVERPOOL ENGINEERING SOCIETY. 

 Mr. J. A. Saner read a paper upon " Floodgates and 

 Weirs on the River Weaver," at the meeting on the 22nd 

 February. Mr. Saner described the physical features of 

 the Weaver, its floods and currents, and explained the 

 system of floodgates in force at the various locks. 



SOCIETY OF ARTS. 

 At themeeting of the Foreign and Colonial Section, on 

 February 7th, Mr, H. C. Beeton read a paper on " British 



