47° 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



[Nov. 2, I J 



pressing questions in the money-making arts. Has chemistry 

 served its purpose when it analyses our soils and our minerals, 

 when it makes a mixture to take gold from quartz and 

 money out of every slag ? Is it not to go into our schools, and 

 colleges, and universities, and teach those who will never use its 

 solvents those wonderful affinities in nature, those laws of combi- 

 nation and dissolution, of solution and crystallisation, the laws 

 which formed the water, built up the solid rock, the earth, the 

 flowers ? Is the study of pure mathematics to be banished because 

 it cannot find an equation for the locality of a big nugget, when it 

 has found and is finding thousands of equations which are mines of 

 untold wealth in the material advancement of humanity ? No, cer- 

 tainly not ; for it is fitting that man, dwelling in that infinitely compli- 

 cated organism his body, which responds on its ten thousand strings 

 to every breath of nature, should study not one or two, but all the 

 laws which govern it for weal or wo;, and learn to place himself in 

 harmony with all, 



■ ■*-&*g\'^M£-t ' 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed 

 by his correspondents, nor can he take notice of anonymous com- 

 munications. All letters must be accompanied by the name and 

 address of the writer, not necessarily for publication, but as a 

 guarantee of good faith. 



TOTEM CLANS AND STAR WORSHIP. 



I read with much interest the paper of Mr. George St. Clair 

 on the origin of Totemism, which you published in Nos. 1 5 

 and 16. It contains many views new and ingenious, and is 

 full of interesting facts. I think, however, that the author 

 has been led to exaggerate the part astronomy can have played 

 in the formation of Totem clans. This desire to explain 

 everything by astronomy is natural to the school of which 

 Dupuis was the most brilliant representative, and was ex- 

 cusable when a high astronomical knowledge was attributed 

 to the ancients. As I have already noticed somewhere else, 

 the study of the Babylonian documents shows that real astro- 

 nomy was unknown before the Greeks. The Babylonians 

 did not know even astrology, a science which was devised by 

 the Greeks of Alexandria, and which required a certain 

 knowledge of the course of the planets. The Babylonians 

 only took omens, and in these the sun played but a little 

 part. The group of stars which presided over one month 

 was not that in which the sun was rising, but that which occu- 

 pied the most prominent place in the sky during the month. 

 Another error was to believe that the year was always divided 

 into twelve months ; the Egyptians and the Semites divided 

 primitively the year into ten parts. A remembrance of this 

 division was retained by the Romans. 



Another point. Knowledge of the stars, even empirical 

 like that of the Babylonians, requires a long period of 

 observation. If such knowledge be possessed by any organised 

 society, it must have been constituted for a long time. I con- 

 clude, therefore, that totemism is anterior to star worship, 

 and certainly anterior to a knowledge of the star groups. I 

 go further ; stars have received names of animals, like bull, 

 goat, etc., because of their being assimilated to a great flock. 

 They were named from those animals men saw round them- 

 selves ; and if they had, as is pretty certain, special rever- 

 ence for 1 certain animals, they naturally gave to the stars 

 these names in preference. 



As to animal worship (which might in certain cases have 

 been the origin of the totem clan system), its origin has been 

 very well demonstrated by Dr. Oberziner ("II Culto del 

 Sole ")and Professor Sayce ( " Introduction to the Study of 

 Language " ). It proceeded on one way from a kind of uni- 

 versal sentiment of sympathy for all that lives, and on the 

 other it was accelerated by the phonetic resemblance of 

 names and also by symbolism. Astronomy certainly played 

 no part in it. I, however, entirely agree with the lecturer as 

 to the fact that every worshipper of an animal-god considered 

 this animal as his ancestor. This never had been stated so 

 clearly before. 



There are many other points I should like to touch, as, for 

 instance, the origin of exogamy, but I must put an end to 

 this letter. G. Bertin. 



RECENT INVENTIONS. 



The following list has been compiled especially for the Scientific 

 News by Messrs. W. P. Thompson and Boult, Patent Agents, of 

 2 34> High Holborn, London, W.C- ; Newcastle Chambers, Angel 

 Row, Nottingham ; Ducie Buildings, Bank Street, Manchester ; 

 and 6, Lord Street, Liverpool. 



Paper. — Mr. J. Jameson has patented a safety paper 

 to afford means of protection against erasure. It is 

 coated with a very fine spray of a dense solution of a 

 highly-soluble colour, and is thus rendered very sensitive, 

 and will readily show whether it has been tampered with 

 by erasure or any other alteration. 



Explosive. — Messrs. E. Kubin and A. Siersch, both of 

 Vienna, Austria, have invented a new explosive which 

 on ignition prevents danger of explosion of fire damp or 

 other gases in mines. The mixture used for this pur- 

 pose is sulphate or chloride of ammonia intimately mixed 

 (in the proportion of from 20 to 50° of the entire com- 

 pound) with dynamite blasting gelatine or other explo- 

 sives. On the explosion of this compound it will be 

 decomposed into gases which are non-inflammable. 



Electric Motors. — Mr. W. H. Mordley has patented 

 an electric motor. This invention has reference to im- 

 provements in the construction of alternate current electric 

 motors and to their application in connection with secon- 

 dary batteries or accumulators for charging the same. 

 The main object is to so construct alternate current 

 motors that they shall possess the power of starting from 

 a state of rest the speed regulating properties attaching 

 to synchronous action and a high efficiency ; this has 

 hitherto been very difficult to do. 



Electric Measuring Instrument. — Messrs. R. E. B. 

 Crompton and J. Swinburne, of Chelmsford, have in- 

 vented an improved apparatus for measuring the electric 

 current. A needle is magnetised, and is suspended within 

 a coil as in an ordinary vertical detector, but the needle 

 is balanced so as not to stand at right angles to the axis 

 of the coil ; so that in deflecting the current has to over- 

 come the gravity of the needle (or a spring may be used 

 for a like purpose), and the angle of deflection is recorded 

 on the scale in the usual manner. 



Impure Liquids. — Messrs. E. Hermite, E. J. Patersonr 

 and C. F. Cooper have patented means for disinfecting 

 impure liquids, such as sewage, by mixing with the 

 liquid to be disinfected certain chlorides, and then 

 passing the mixture in thin sheets between electrodes 

 connected to the terminals of a dynamo electric machine, 

 and thus causing an electrical current to traverse the 

 liquid as it passes the electrodes. The effect of this is 

 a partial decomposition of the chloride, which causes an 

 oxidation of the impurities rendering them innocuous. 



Syphon Bottle. — Mr. H. Goffe, of the firm of Goffe 

 and Sons, Birmingham, Warwickshire, is the inventor of 

 improvements in syphon-aerated water bottles for fire 

 extinguishing. The inventor takes an ordinary 

 syphon bottle, and near the lower end of the spout he 

 drills a hole, so that when it is desired to use the bottle 

 as a fire extinguisher, all that it is necessary to do is to 

 place the finger over the open end of the spout, when 

 the liquid, being under considerable pressure, issues front 

 the hole in a jet according to the size of the same. 



