XX Transactions of the Boyal Society of South Africa. 
paper is to throw fresh hght on Sylvester's work by bringing it into the 
same field of view with certain recent investigations of a more general 
character about to appear in the Quarterly Journal of Mathematics. 
" Upon the Fom-th Order Perturbations in the Motions of Satellites 
III. and IV. of Jupiter," by E. T. A. Innes. 
The author recomputes and practically confirms the values of certain 
long-period inequalities in the longitude of the third great satellite of 
Jupiter originally discovered by the late M. de Haerdtl. These inequali- 
ties are due to the near approach of commensurability of the mean 
motions of the III. and IV. satellites ; seven times the mean motion of 
IV. being nearly equal to three times that of III., so that although these 
inequalities depend on the fourth powers of the eccentricities they exceed 
the limit of II. adopted in Professor Sampson's New Tables of the 
Great Satellites of Jupiter, 1910." The inequalities in the motion of IV. 
are now computed for the first time. In the sum these inequalities will 
at times amount to about 8" in the longitude of III. and 10" in that 
of IV. 
" The Funeral Ceremonies of the Hottentots," by C. L. Biden and 
G. Kling. 
The Hottentots have their medical-men who treat patients during 
illness. Like most South African tribes, witchcraft is practised by these 
medicine-men, and the sick are told that their enemies, bad relatives, 
and bad neighbours are the cause of illness. In the event of death 
following, the medicine-man attributes the disaster to the bad influence 
of certain parties, actually naming the persons he thinks concerned. 
Formerly these responsible persons were put to death ; now it leads to 
much hatred and personal feeling among the Hottentots. Immediately 
after death they prepare for the funeral. A grave is dug by means of a 
Gemsbok horn and a roughly made wooden shovel. The ceremonial is 
then described. After the funeral a dance is held, and festivities are 
indulged in, all through the night. For a few weeks the male relatives of 
the deceased go to the grave every morning before sunrise, quite naked, 
and pray to the "taas" (ghost). After that time they suppose that the 
ghost has left the grave and has entered an animal called by them 
'*taas" jackal. This animal they assert has never been caught, and it 
can only be killed by a silver bullet. 
" The Meteorites in the Bloemfontein Museum," by W. A. D. Eudge. 
The paper contains an account of the meteorites in the Bloem- 
fontein Museum. There are two fragments of the Kroonstadt fall of 1877. 
These apparently consist of a tough fibrous mass of iron-nickel alloy, 
with an aggregation round it of fine particles of silica (asmanite ?), troilite 
pyrites, and apparently felspar. The larger meteorite which fell at 
Winburg, 1881, contains 94 per cent, of iron and 2 per cent, of nickel. 
