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SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



[Nov. 9, 1888. 



Mondes for August 1st, 1886, by M. de la Barriere, 

 entitled, " Batiment de combat et de la guerre/' in which 

 the author described how the refuse of cocoa nut, after 

 the process of retting, might be used for backing the 

 iron plates of ships of war. The method of proceeding 

 was to take a quantity of the powdered refuse before it 

 was quite dry, and subject it to pressure, when the natural 

 viscidity of the macerated cellular substance of the nut 

 caused the whole to cohere and to form a plate which in 

 general appearance was like a mill board, only much 

 more brittle. Owing to the hygroscopicity of this sub- 

 stance, if a hole be made through it, the parts adjacent to 

 the puncture absorb water, swell up, and immediately 

 close the orifice. Dr. Lawson got a sack of this refuse 

 and made a plate i8in. square, by about fin. in thickness, 

 which he placed between two boards, and then fastened 

 it to one side of a box, which contained a head of one 

 foot of water. A bullet half an inch in diameter was 

 fired through it, but not a drop oozed out. This experi- 

 ment was repeated three times with the same result. 

 Then a fin. bullet was fired through the plate, when a 

 few drops only made their way through. Lastly, a 

 bullet nearly iin. in diameter was fired through the 

 plate, when a large jet of water shot through, but in the 

 course of a few seconds the stream decreased in volume, 

 and in less than a minute had ceased to flow altogether. 

 " Whether or not this material could be advantageously 

 used for the purpose which M. de la Barriere suggested, 

 or for any other purpose, is a matter worth considering, 

 for, as he truly says in his article, millions of tons float 

 away annually down the rivers in India." 



Men of the Stone Age in Central Brazil. — Dr. 

 Karl von den Steinen, the explorer of Brazil, in a recent 

 lecture before the German Scientific Association on the 

 state of culture of the people of the Stone Age in Brazil 

 at the present day, described the Indian tribes on the 

 Xingu, a Brazilian tributary of the Amazon. These 

 people, he said, still belong to the Stone Age; they 

 know nothing of metals, and use only stone, teeth, 

 bones, and shells for their weapons, implements and 

 ornaments, which they know hew to carve with great 

 artistic skill. They are now as they were in the time of 

 Columbus, and have not changed in any degree since 

 they were first discovered. They are, however, by no 

 means savages ; their customs are decent, they are 

 monogamists, although there are no marriage cere- 

 monies, and have the most affectionate relations with 

 their children. Their mode of life is simple, but not 

 barbarous, and there is not the least immodesty in their 

 lack of clothing. The different tribes live in villages 

 containing at the most 250 persons, near to the rivers, 

 and usually some days' journey from each other. There 

 is little communication between them. They are ac- 

 quainted with the notion of private property, but it plays 

 no great part among them, as the difference between 

 the capacity for production of individuals is of the 

 smallest. Thefts are sometimes committed from other 

 tribes, but not in the same village. A great hindrance 

 to development is the absence of all domestic animals, 

 even dogs. The people hunt and fish, and, in a certain 

 degree, carry on agriculture, but this latter is most 

 primitive. They regard themselves as in close con- 

 sanguinity with animals ; the Bakari trace their descent 

 to the jaguar, and the Trumai people, whom they hate, 

 and who are expert swimmers, are believed to be a 

 species of alligator, and to sleep at night at the bottom 

 of the stream. The sun is to them a ball of the feathers 



of the red ara enclosed in a pot, the cover of which is 

 raised in the morning and closed in the evening, and the 

 other celestial phenomena are all connected in a similar 

 way with the animal world. The sorcerer among them 

 is a physician rather than a priest, he has no divine 

 position, and indeed they have no notion of a Supreme 

 Being. Soul and body are regarded as separate, for 

 during sleep the latter is at rest, while the former 

 wanders about at will. Hence a sleeper must not be 

 awakened suddenly lest the soul should not have time 

 to return. The language is not poor in expressions, and 

 is scarcely narrower, says Dr. von den Steinen, than the 

 speech of a German peasant in a remote place, but 

 structure or system does not exist. 



The Public Health. — The Registrar-General's return 

 of births and deaths for the week ending Saturday, Octo- 

 ber 27th, states that the deaths registered in 28 great 

 towns of England and Wales corresponded to an annual 

 rate of 21 8 per 1,000 of their aggregate population, 

 which is estimated at 9,398,273 persons in the middle 

 of this year. The six healthiest towns were Birken- 

 head, Brighton, Bristol, Derby, Leicester, and Norwich. 

 The highest annual death-rates, measured by last week's 

 mortality, were, from measles, 1*4 in Leicester, 1/5 

 in Liverpool and in Leeds, 17 in Huddersfield, 2 - 2 in 

 Portsmouth, and 3-8 in Cardiff; from scarlet fever, ro in 

 Leeds; from whooping-cough, ri in Norwich; from 

 "fever" ri in Derby, 1:2 in Salford and in Sunderland, 

 1-3 in Halifax, and 1-9 in Cardiff; and from diarrhoea, 

 1-3 in Brighton, 1-5 in Portsmouth, and 2-0 in Preston. 

 The 47 deaths from diphtheria in the 28 towns included 

 31 in London, 5 in Manchester, 2 in Nottingham, and 

 2 in Halifax. Small-pox caused one death in London 

 and one in Preston, but not one in any of the 26 other 

 great towns. In London 2,665 births and 1,737 deaths 

 were registered. Allowing for increase of population, 

 the births were 184 below, while the deaths exceeded 

 by 104, the average numbers in the corresponding 

 weeks of the last ten years. The annual death-rate per 

 1,000 from all causes, which had increased in the five 

 preceding weeks from 15-8 to 20-0, further rose last 

 week to 2i'2, and exceeded the rate recorded in an> 

 week since the middle of March last. During the 

 first four weeks of the current quarter the death-rate 

 averaged 19-1, and was identical with the mean rate in 

 the corresponding periods of the ten years 1878-87. The 

 1,737 deaths included 1 from small-pox, 100 _ from 

 measles, 25 from scarlet fever, 31 from diphtheria, 18 

 from whooping-cough, 17 from enteric fever, 2 from ill- 

 defined forms of continued fever, 30 from diarrhoea and 

 dysentery, 1 from infantile cholera, and not one from 

 typhus ; thus, 225 deaths were referred to these diseases, 

 being 26 above the corrected average weekly number. 

 Different forms of violence caused 57 deaths; 53 were 

 the result of negligence or accident, among which were 

 24 from fractures and contusions, 8 from burns and 

 scalds, 4 from drowning, and 12 of infants under one 

 year of age from suffocation. In Greater London 3,480 

 births and 2,102 deaths were registered, corresponding 

 to annual rates of 3 2' 9 and i 9 '8 per 1,000 of the 

 estimated population. In the outer ring 11 deaths 

 from diarrhoea, 9 from measles, 7 from whooping-cough, 

 and 4 from " fever " were registered. Three fatal cases 

 of measles and two deaths from " fever " occurred in 

 Tottenham sub-district. 



