MISCELLANEA. 
129 
educes all the colours of the rainbow. Nor does he rest here, for by his 
exquisite tests he is enabled to pursue them to their sources, millions of miles 
distant, and from the composition of the emitted rays he traces that of the 
bodies whence they emanate. Soon we shall be fully acquainted with the 
constitution of the heavenly bodies ; shall know of what materials sun and 
moon and stars are formed ! 
The history of the recent discoveries connected with the solar and other 
spectra was ably narrated at the meeting to which we have just referred 
by Professor W. A. Miller, of King’s College, London ; but the subject is de- 
serving of more than a passing notice, and we hope in our next number 
to be able to present it to our readers in a popular guise. 
Let us not, however, quit the photographic art too hastily, for it leads us 
into other realms of nature. Passing from the inanimate to the animated 
world, we still find it busily at work. 
The “Natural History Review” of last July contained an excellent 
photograph of the brain of a chimpanzee, in illustration of Mr. Marshall’s 
paper on that subject ; and it has been very properly suggested that all works 
which will admit of it, more especially books of travel, and such as treat of 
new forms of life, should be thus illustrated as a guarantee for their accuracy. 
This is no new idea. Who does not recollect the interest that characterized 
Mr. Piazzi Smyth’s charming work on “ Teneriffe,” which was not only illus- 
trated by photographs, but was accompanied by a folding stereoscope to aid 
in their inspection ? And now adieu to nature’s artist. 
The “ brain of a chimpanzee ” naturally reminds us of the animated 
discussion which has recently taken place between Professors Owen and 
Huxley concerning the cerebral development in man and the higher apes, 
in which the latter gentleman has sought to show that the difference 
between the two is not so great as physiologists have hitherto been led to 
believe. From the chimpanzee we naturally pass to the gorilla and M. du 
Chaillu. 
In the absence of any communication having been published (at least so 
far as we are aware), from the Rev. Messrs. Wilson and Mackay, mission- 
aries at the Gaboon, to whom, if our memory serves us aright, M. du 
Chaillu stated he should write for a verification of his narrative, we may 
say that we have it from an authentic source, that the traveller is well 
known to those gentlemen. Our informant has often heard him named by 
them as an adventurous explorer, who had penetrated far into the interior, 
but never as a naturalist or scientific man. Beyond this we have no desire to 
comment upon a dispute which has already occupied quite enough of the 
public attention.'"" 
In regard to the great antiquity of man, it will doubtless have been 
observed by many of our readers, that the evidences in its favour are daily 
'"" Since the above was written there has appeared in the Advertiser, 
Athenaeum, &c., a letter from a Mr. R. B. Walker, to whom M. du Chaillu 
was well known. To a great extent he confirms the accounts we have 
received concerning him, but also accuses him of gross exaggeration, menda- 
city, and ignorance. The Critic, however, publishes two letters from the 
same gentleman, dated 1858 and 1859, in which he speaks of M. du Chaillu 
in very different terms, 
NO. I. 
K 
