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without the aid of numerous plans and drawings, to give an adequate account of the ruins as they can now be seen, but the following short summary gives the characteristics of the principal groups found to the south of Yucatan :

Quirigua.-Thirteen monoliths covered with elaborate carved decoration and inscriptions. These are of two classes, upright stele, of which six still stand erect, the tallest measuring 25 feet high from the ground, 5 feet across back and front, and 4 feet across the sides, and large rounded blocks of stone cut into the form of some grotesque animal, the largest of them weighing about 20 tons. No buildings remain standing, but there are numerous mounds, only one of which has been dug into, and was found to contain on its summit the ground-work of a stone-built temple.

Copan. Sixteen stele averaging 12 feet in height, of which eight are now standing, and numerous other sculptured monuments. Both figures and inscriptions are carved in higher relief than at Quirigua. Numerous stone-faced mounds, which can be ascended by well-laid stone stairways. There is no sign of a wall either of house or temple above ground, but the lower parts of both temples and houses can be found by digging into the masses of broken masonry on the tops of the mounds and terraces. Broken stone ornaments, which once decorated these buildings, are found lying in profusion at the foot of the mounds.

Menché. A town built on stone-faced terraces rising one above the other from the banks of the River Usumacinta. There are many mounds of stone, and there are a few stone-roofed houses and temples still standing with carved stone lintels over the doorways. No separate carved monolithic monuments of importance.

Tikal.-Five cell-like temples with enormously thick walls, raised on pyramidal foundations of great height. The measurement of the largest, from the ground to the top of the temple, is about 160 ft., the base of the foundation measuring about 280 ft. square. These temples had beautifully carved wooden lintels over the doorways. Some of this carved wood is now preserved in the Museum at Basie, and some (a few smaller pieces) in the British Museum. There are several other smaller temples and numerous houses with stone roofs still standing. All these buildings had wooden lintels over the doorways, and some of the wooden beams are in a perfect state of preservation. There are seven or eight small stele, usually flat slabs of stone with carving on the front and sides only, all unfortunately much damaged and weather-worn.

Palenque.-One group of stone-roofed houses, commonly known as the palace, raised on a high stone-faced foundation. Four separate temples on similar foundations, and numerous other temples, houses, and tombs, some half-ruined, and others mere heaps of stone and rubbish. Only one carved monolith has been found which stood apart, but several large stone slabs beautifully carved with figures and inscriptions in low relief were let into the interior walls of the temples, and almost all the buildings have been lavishly ornamented with figures and inscriptions moulded in a hard and durable stucco.

The principal fact ascertained from the examination of the remains throughout this district (including Yucatan) is that the art as exemplified both by monuments and buildings is one and the same, and that the inscriptions are all carved in the same characters.

The chief difference to be noted is that whereas in the ruins which I assume to be of earlier date the art and workmanship is lavished on the decoration of large monoliths, whilst the temples and other buildings are comparatively insignificant, as time went on the elaborate carving of separate stone monuments was neglected, and the whole efforts of the artists were devoted to the erection and adornment of larger and more imposing buildings, and the carved stone glyphs of the monoliths gradually gave way to stucco and painted inscriptions on the walls of the temples and to manuscript books.

The age to be ascribed to these remains is purely a matter of conjecture; but there are some historical facts which bear on the subject which I have already called attention to in another publication, but which may with advantage be here repeated.

Hernando Cortes, after the conquest of Mexico, started from that city in the year 1525, accompanied by some hundreds of Spaniards and a large number of Indians, with the intention of marching direct to Honduras. When Señor Don Pascual de Gayangos, in the year 1867, translated for publication by the Hakluyt Society the letter written by Cortes to Philip II. of

Spain, giving an account of this expedition, he states in the preface that :-"To determine the spots visited by him in this extraordinary march through almost impenetrable forests, swampy plains, or lofty mountains, has by some writers been pronounced a hopeless task; and though we possess the narrative of the stout-hearted and sturdy soldier, Bernal Diaz, who formed part of the expedition and carefully noted down its principal events; though the various provinces traversed by the devoted army have since been more or less explored by travellers of all nations, few are the indications-and those very slight-of the route they followed. He must have passed near the ruins of Palenque, since the small village of Las Tres Cruzes is said to derive its name from three wooden crosses left in that locality."

A comparison of the recent and more accurate maps of Tabasco published by the Mexican Government, and of my own surveys in the region of the head waters of the Sarstoon and Mopan Rivers, with certain old maps and documents which have recently been brought to light from the Archives of the Indies at Seville, now enables us to trace Cortes's line of march with some degree of accuracy.

After passing the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, he found himself involved in the intricate waterways of the delta of the Tabasco and Grijalra Rivers. He and his followers suffered the greatest hardships, but after cutting their way through the tangled vegetation of the swamps, and with infinite patience and labour building bridges over the almost innumerable streams and lagoons, he crossed the River Usumacinta, somewhere in the neighbourhood of Tenosique.

There can be no doubt that towards the end of this part of this march, at a time when Cortes and his followers, lost in the forests of the delta, were suffering the last extremities of hunger, and were eagerly searching for a track which might lead them to an Indian settlement-they were traversing a plain actually overlooked by the temples of Palenque, and not more, and probably much less, than twenty miles distant from them. If Palenque had then been the great centre which it at one time must have been, and if the foot-hills of the Sierra on which it stands had then been as thickly peopled as the numerous remains indicate, it would have been impossible for a body of men as numerous and as much on the alert as were the followers of Cortes, to have missed the discovery of the many tracks which must have led thither.

Moreover, Cortes had been furnished with a map of the country, prepared by the Indian chiefs at Guacacualco; and although it has been suggested that the chiefs systematically deceived him so as to prevent his visiting their richest and most sacred towns, such deception was not likely to have been successful with him, and it is still less likely to have imposed upon the large number of Mexican Indians who accompanied him. Yet, it Palenque was then inhabited, we are compelled either to believe that Cortes and his followers were indeed successfully imposed upon, or to give credit to the still more unlikely alternative that the Indian auxiliaries preferred to suffer such extremities of hunger that they were driven to eat the bodies of their companions who had died by the way, rather than give any information which would have been of service to their foreign leaders.

It hardly appears possible, therefore, to resist the conclusion that, in the year 1525, Palenque was already abandoned, and lost in the forest.

But if the information afforded to Cortes is to be relied on, then the same fate must also have overtaken the town of Menché on the Usumacinta, for Cortes was strongly advised by the natives not to continue his march along the banks of the river (and if he had done so he must have passed near the site of the ruins of Menché), as the country in that direction was uninhabited.

Accepting this advice, Cortes took the road by Acalá and Peten, and thence through part of what is now British Honduras, to the mouth of the Rio Dulce.

The inhabitants of Acalá appear to have been more civilized than any others whom Cortes met with during his lorg march. He states that the country was thickly peopled, and that the towns were large and full of mosques or idol-houses, yet no important ruins have ever been found ir that district, and neither Cortes nor Bernal Diaz gives us any description which would lead us to suppose that they ever met with such imposing buildings as those still standing at Palenque or Menché.

From Acalá the expedition marched through a very thinlypeopled country until they arrived at the Lake of Peten.

Cortes visited the town of Tayasal, built on a small island in the lake, which, we are told, was the chief town of the district, and which was doubtless then, as it was later, the stronghold of the warlike Itzaes. Now, fortunately, we know something of the subsequent history of this town, for Tayasal was visited by missionaries from Yucatan in 1618, 1619, and 1623. This last missionary expedition ended disastrously, as the missionary and his followers were murdered by the natives; and we then have but scanty information about the Itzaes until the country was invaded by the Spaniards from Yucatan, and Tayasal captured in 1697. A curious story shows us that Tayasal is not likely to have suffered any serious disturbance between Cortes's visit and the year 1618.

In his letter to the King he states that, "At this village, or, rather, at the plantations that were close to the lake, I was obliged to leave one of my horses, owing to his having got a splinter in his foot. The Chief promised to take care of the animal and cure him, but I do not know if he will succeed, or what he will do with him."

On the day after the arrival of the missionary fathers Fuensalida and Orbita, in 1618, the Chief of the Itzaes showed them round the town, "in the middle of which, on the rising ground, were numerous and large buildings, 'cues' or oratories of their devilish and false gods. Entering into one of them, they saw in the centre of it a large idol in the form of a horse, well modelled in stone and plaster. It was seated on the ground, on its haunches.

"These barbarians reverenced it as the God of Thunder, and called it Tzimindiac, which means the horse of thunder and lightning.'

This sight was too much for the religious zeal of Padre Orbita, who, seizing a great stone, jumped on to the idol and hammered it to pieces. It is hardly necessary to add that the Chief had the greatest difficulty in saving the lives of the missionaries from his infuriated people, and that they were compelled to leave the island at once.

It was afterwards learnt from the natives that they had thought the horse to be the god of thunder and lightning because they had seen the Spaniards firing their guns from horseback, and that when they found the horse to be ill, "they gave it to eat fowls and other meat, and presented it with garlands of flowers, as it was their custom to do when their own chiefs were ailing," and that, on its death, a council of chieftains was called, and it resolved to make an image of the horse in stone.

In the year 1700, the historian Villagutieres published a detailed account of the conquest of Itza by the Spaniards, and a description of the town of Tayasal, stating that it was full of houses, some with stone walls more than a yard high, and, above these, wooden beams and roofs of thatch, and others of wood and thatch only"; and "of the twenty-one oratories which General Ursua found in the island, the principal and largest was that of the high priest Quincanek, cousin of the king Canek; this was rectangular (cuadrada), with a beautiful breastwork (pretil) and nine handsome steps, and each front was about twenty yards long and very high.'

Speaking from memory, I should say that the island is not more than 500 yards across, and there are no s gns whatever at the present time of any ancient foundations. It is now covered with poorly-built adobe houses, and in the centre is a church, which probably occupies the site of the ancient cues.' Now, within a day's walk from the north shore of the lake are the very remarkable ruins of Tikal, of which a short description has already been given; yet nothing whatever is told us either by Cortes, by the missionaries, or by Villagutieres, of the existence of a town on this site, and the ruins were unknown to the Spaniards until the year 1848.

The missionaries, on their journeys from the Spanish outpost at Tipu to Tayasal must have passed within a few miles of the site of the ruins; and it is impossible to believe that, so long as Tikal was inhabited, Tayasal could have been the chief town of the district, or, indeed, that Tikal could have been inhabited at all without the fact coming to the knowledge of the Spaniards.

If any further evidence were needed to show that the great structures raised during the epoch of higher civilization had already been deserted at the time of the Spanish conquest, it can be found in what Cortes himself states with regard to the town in Guatemala which he calls Chacujal.

When, after having crossed the base of the peninsula of Yucatan, the starving army arrived at the mouth of the Rio

Dulce, it was only to find the Spanish colony it had come in search of reduced to a similar extremity of famine.

The scanty Indian population in the neighbourhood had been rendered hostile by the exactions of the settlers, and it was immediately necessary to scour the country for long distances in search of food. The most important of these raids, and, indeed, the only successful one, was led by Cortes himself, who landed on the south side of the Golfo Dulce, and marched about two leagues inland (when he must have been within about twelve to fifteen miles of the site of the ruins of Quirigua), and then turned along the mountain-range to the south of the Rio Polochic, and finally succeeded in reaching Chacujal, which is situated between two small streams which run into the Polochic. The inhabitants had all fled, but Cortes was fortunate in finding a large store of Indian corn, and other food.

Cortes writes of the town as follows :-" Marching through the place we arrived at the great square, where they had their mosques and houses of worship, and as we saw the mosques and buildings round them just in the manner and form of those at Culua " (on the coast of Mexico), "we were more overawed and astonished than we had been hitherto, since nowhere since we had left Acalá had we seen such signs of policy and power... On the following morning I sent out several parties of men to explore the village, which was well designed, the houses well built, and close to each other." I can find no record whatever of Chacujal subsequent to the date of Cortes's visit; but in 1884 I myself visited the ruins of the town, guided by Cortes's own description of the site. The ruins are now completely buried in the forest, but there was little difficulty in tracing the general plan of the town, and making out the foundations of the principal buildings.

It is easy to understand how Cortes may have been favourably impressed with the flourishing appearance of the place after his terrible and tedious journey through the forest, yet it is quite clear from the ruins that the structures themselves could never have been of any considerable importance. The walls of the principal buildings had only been built of stone to half their height, and the superstructure and roof must have been made of some perishable material-a great contrast to the thick stone walls and heavy stone roofs at Palenque, Tikal, Menché, and Copan. Another point of importance is that the plan and method of construction of the buildings at Chacujal is similar to that of the ruins on the hill-tops a little further inland near San Jeronimo, Rabinal, and Cubulco, some of which I have visited. These were undoubtedly the strongholds of those Indians of the Tierra de Guerra to whom no high culture has ever been attributed, and who were induced by the Padre Las Casas to leave their fastnesses and settle in the plain of Rabinal in the year 1537.

It can therefore now be stated without doubt that, although Cortes and his followers on his march from Mexico to Honduras passed within a short distance of several of the sites of the most important ruins in Central America, they heard nothing of their existence as living cities.

Let us now consider the case of the often-described ruins of Copan on the northern frontier of Honduras.

The earliest information dates back to the year 1576, when the ruins were visited by Palacio del Rio, who described them in a letter written to King Philip II. of Spain. After giving an account of the sculptured monoliths, he mentions the numerous mounds which could be ascended by stone stairways, but he says nothing whatever about houses or temples, which such a careful observer as Palacio could not have omitted to mention had they then been in existence. He further states in his letter that it was impossible to believe that the scanty Indian population of the districts could have raised such monuments as he found at Copan, and that his efforts to elicit information from the leaders of the Indians dwelling in the neighbourhood only showed that all knowledge of the people who had raised these monuments was lost in the mists of tradition.

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Enough has now been said to show that the most important ruins in the whole of this Maya district (outside of Yucatan) were never known to the Spaniards as the sites of inhabited towns, and it now remains to say only a few more words about those towns in which the conquerors actually found the people dwelling. descriptions already quoted from early writers, or given from my own observations of the ruins in the cases of Tayasal and Chacujal, give some idea of what these towns were like; and the correctness of these descriptions is strengthened by the results of a careful examination which I have made of the sites

of the towns of Utatlan and Iximché, the capitals of the Quichés and Cachiquels, who were the most powerful tribes in Guatemala when Alvarado conquered the country. Although the remains of these towns, which were known for certain to have been inhabited at the time of the Spanish conquest, bear some similarity in plan and arrangement to the older ruins, there is the great distinction to be observed that in no instance is there any indication of the former existence of stone-roofed buildings, that there are only a few stones which show any trace of ornamental carving, and that of the roughest description, and that there are no remains of any carved inscriptions.

It may be as well to say a word of warning against the exaggerated accounts of the magnificence of the Indian towns of Guatemala at the time of the conquest which have found their way into the histories of the country by Fuentes, Juarros, and others, and are still alluded to and sometimes accepted as facts by modern travellers. To give only one instance. In describing the palace of the Quiché kings at Utatlan, dimensions are given for this palace which exceed the whole extent of the land on which any building is possible, for the site of the town is most clearly defined, and limited by the great "barranca" or rift, some hundreds of feet deep, which almost encircles it. It was no doubt this peculiar situation, that of an almost inaccessible peninsula in the middle of an undulating plain, which gave the site so much value in the eyes of the Quichés.

There is, then, a clearly marked difference between the remains of the towns of which we have some historical knowledge and the more ancient ruins.

But when one considers the fair state of preservation of some of the buildings at Palenque and Menché, and the presence of sound wooden beams in the temples and houses at Tikal, it is hardly possible to ascribe even to these ruins any very great antiquity.

From my own observation of the state of the ruins themselves, and the style of art displayed in the carved ornaments and inscriptions, I should feel inclined to give to Quirigua the earliest date, Copan the next, then Menché, Palenque, and Tikal, in the order named.

We must now turn our attention to the province of Yucatan. The central portion of the peninsula has always been more or less a terra incognita. The Spaniards never really brought its inhabitants into complete subjection, and to this day it is peopled by hostile Indians, and no Spaniard dares to enter it.

If this country contains traces of the old civilization, nothing definite is known of them. The northern portion of the peninsula was brought completely under Spanish control, and is known to be studded with the remains of groups of ancient stone buildings.

It was on the north-east coast of Yucatan that the Spaniards first came into contact with Indians who used stone as a building material, and there can be but little doubt that some of the many ruined structures now to be seen were inhabited by the natives at the time of the conquest.

I am myself inclined to the opinion that the north of Yucatan was the last stronghold of the more cultivated branch of the Maya race after that race had either been driven out of, or under the stress of unknown adverse circumstances had retrograded in, the country to the south. But it does not follow that the Indians of Yucatan were at the height of their power and prosperity when the Spaniards came amongst them. In fact, their conquerors learnt from them that for some time previously the country had been troubled with civil wars and dissensions, and that Mayapan, once the chief town, had been destroyed and abandoned." It seems quite probable that this statement may be enlarged on to a considerable extent, and that we may consider the country to have been in a state of decadence, and that not one but many of the chief centres of population had been more or less abandoned. However, the temples and sacred edifices appear still to have been held in reverence after the population had moved away, and were visited during festivals, and may have been kept in some sort of repair by the priests; much in the same way as I believe the ruined dagobas and temples at Pollonarua and Anuradhapura are reverenced and visited by the people of Ceylon.

This appears to me to have been most probably the case with regard to the important buildings which still mark the site of what must have once been the large town of Chichén Itzá.

It has, I know, been stated that Chichén was inhabited at the time of Francisco de Montejo's first abortive effort to conquer Yucatan, and that the Spaniards were for some ome considerable time encamped in the town; but this statement does not appear

to me to be supported by any sufficient evidence. Nevertheless, religious ceremonies had been so recently observed in Chichén Itza, that, in answer to a despatch from Spain, a committee of the settlers in the neighbouring town of Valladolid were able to give some account of them in the year 1579.

My personal experience of the ruins in Yucatan is limited to a hasty visit to Labna and Uxmal, and a residence of five months in one of the ruined temples of Chichén Itzá. At Chichén my clearings and surveys extended over an area of nearly a mile square, and although this appeared to include all the principal edifices, it was impossible to walk into the bush in any direction from the edge of this area without coming on the traces of stone buildings.

The surface of the ground, even in the centre of the town, although generally level, was in some places composed of cavernous and broken limestone rock, and these portions had apparently been walled off as unfit for buildings. But, wherever the ground was suitable, there were numerous traces of slightly constructed buildings in addition to the more solid structures.

The hieroglyphic inscriptions at Chichén are few in number, and with one small exception very poorly carved, but there is enough to show that they did not differ in character from those in Guatemala and Chiapas. There is, however, one great distinction between the sculptures in Yucatan and the country to the south which must not be overlooked. In the latter there is an almost entire absence of weapons of war, and the figures of women occupy a prominent position. In Yucatan the change is complete there are no women represented in the sculptures, and every man is a warrior armed with spears and throwingstick.

Whether the Maya civilization extended to Yucatan during the time that it flourished at Copan or Palenque, it is at present impossible to determine; but I strongly incline to the opinion that all the buildings now standing in Yucatan are of a later date. It may be perhaps allowable to state the case somewhat as follows:

That the civilized portion of the Maya race have at some time occupied all the country lying between the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and the western frontiers of Honduras and Salvador (excepting perhaps a strip of country along the Pacific sea-board); that this people spoke the same or nearly allied languages, which they wrote or carved in the same script; that they were followers of the same religion, and built stone-roofed temples and houses decorated with the same class of design and ornament.

That at the time of the Spanish conquest they had entirely abandoned all their towns and religious centres in the country to the south of Yucatan, although the good state of preservation of many of the buildings at the present time precludes the idea that this desertion of their towns could have ante-dated the arrival of the Spaniards by very many years. That the people whom the Spaniards encountered in this part of the country, although they may have been allied in blood to the Mayas, were undoubtedly in a lower state of culture, and that an examination of the sites of their principal towns yields no signs of the artistic culture which is universally found in the older ruins.

That in Yucatan, where the Spaniards found a dense population of Maya Indians, and encountered a fierce and stubborn resistance, there are still to be seen numerous remains of ancient buildings, both larger and in better preservation than those in Guatemala and Chiapas, but built in the same manner, decorated with the same ornaments, and with inscriptions carved in the same hieroglyphic script. That there is evidence, from the early Spanish writings, that some at least of those buildings were still occupied at the time of the conquest; but that both the observations of the Spaniards themselves, as well as the reports subsequently gathered by them from the Indians, point to the conclusion that the country was in a state of decadence, and that many of the larger centres of population had already been abandoned, although the more important religious edifices may still have been reverenced and kept in repair.

The early Spanish writers make frequent allusion to the large number of books written and preserved by the natives of Yucatan. These books were written in hieroglyphic characters in the Maya language, which, it must be remembered, is still spoken by the whole of the Indian population of Yucatan, as well as by nearly all the half-breeds and Spaniards.

Unfortunately, every effort was made by the Spanish priests to destroy this literature, which they looked on as the work of the devil; and it is very doubtful whether a single fragment of hieroglyphic manuscript is now in existence in the w peninsula.

One of the chief of the iconoclasts was Archbishop Diego de Landa; but, luckily, his zeal was tempered by a considerable appreciation of the ingenuity of the Indians, and an interest in their manners and customs, which induced him to make some notes on their method of writing and recording events.

It is to this that we owe what is commonly known as "Landa's alphabet"; but, as this was an attempt to make an alphabet of a language which in all probability was not written alphabetically but syllabically, it was a signal failure, and has proved, to the few scholars who have attempted to employ it, about as puzzling as the hieroglyphics themselves. However, it may ultimately be of some use, and it was accompanied by an explanation of the calendar system, and a list of the signs for the days and months, with their names, which is of the greatest value.

Although no Maya books are known to exist in America, three examples of what are undoubtedly genuine Maya manuscripts have turned up in Europe.

No information whatever is forthcoming as to how they got here, but it is not unlikely that they were sent over as curiosities at the time of the Spanish conquest, and were afterwards lost sight of.

They are the "Codex Troano," now preserved in the Archeological Museum at Madrid, a chromolithographic copy of which was published by the Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg; the "Dresden Codex," preserved in the Royal Library at Dresden, of which a beautiful photolithographic copy has been published under the direction of Prof. Försteman; and the "Codex Peresianus," in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris. Another manuscript at Madrid, which has been called the "Codex Cortesianus," appears to be only a detached portion of the "Codex Troano."

In

An examination which I have made of the two first-mentioned Codices leaves no doubt on my mind about the similarity of the written to the carved inscriptions. Many of the glyphs are identical, and others only vary as much as might be expected by the change from carving on stone to writing on paper. addition to this evidence of the eyes, there is the distinct statement of Cogolludo, the historian of Yucatan, that the Indians had "characters by which they could understand one another in writing, such as those yet seen in great numbers on the ruins of their buildings."

So that we arrive at the important conclusion that the language of the carved inscriptions of Copan, Quirigua, and Palenque is still a living tongue, although it has doubtless been much changed in the course of years.

ALFRED P. MAUDSLAY.

UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL
INTELLIGENCE.

CAMBRIDGE.-Mr. C. E. Ashford, B. A. of Trinity College, has been appointed Assistant Demonstrator of Physics in the Cavendish Laboratory.

Dr. William Ewart and Mr. Frederick Treves have been appointed additional examiners in Medicine and Surgery respectively.

The Cavendish Professor announces a course of lectures on Electrolysis and Solution, to be given by Mr. W. C. D. Whetham on Thursdays and Saturdays during the present term. Seventeen candidates were approved for the diploma in Public Health at the extra examination held at the beginning of

the month.

T. Clifford Allbutt, M.D., F.R.S., the newly appointed Regius Professor of Physic, has been elected to a Fellowship at Gonville and Caius College.

The Shuttleworth Scholarship in Botany has been awarded to I. H. Burkill, B. A., Assistant Curator of the Herbarium.

The memorial in Westminster Abbey to the late Prof. J. C. Adams, will be placed in the sill of the window on the north side, nearest to the monument of Newton. A large and very influential committee has been formed for the purpose of establishing the memorial.

SCIENTIFIC SERIALS.

American Journal of Science, March.-Mount St. Elias and its glaciers, by Israel C. Russell. Account is given of the country explored by two parties sent to Alaska by the National Geographic Survey, in connection with the U.S. Geological

Survey, in 1890 and 1891.-Hudson River "Fiord," by Dr. Arthur M. Edwards.-Contributions to mineralogy, No. 52, by F. A. Genth; with crystallographic notes by Samuel L. Penfield. The minerals described are hübnerite, hessite, bismutite, and natrolite.-Tschermak's theory of the chlorite group and its alternative, by F. W. Clarke.-Recent fossils near Boston, by Warren Upham. Fossil marine shells of the post-Glacial epoch have been lately discovered near Boston, indicating slight recent changes in the relative levels of land and sea, and proving considerable changes in the temperature of the sea there.-The highest old shore line on Mackinac Island, by F. B. Taylor.— On the nature of colloid solutions, by C. E. Linebarger. It is generally believed that solutions of colloid substances, such as albumen or silicic acid, differ in their nature from solutions of crystalloid substances. The author's experiments indicate that colloid solutions are solutions in the ordinary acceptation of the term, and not "suspensions."-Observations upon the structural relations of the Upper Huronian, Lower Huronian, and Basement Complex on the north shore of Lake Huron, by Raphael Pumpelly and C. R. Van Hise.-A phasemeter, by John Trowbridge. The phasemeter is an instrument devised for the investigation of questions of the phase of alternating electric currents in transformers and in branch circuits. Two telephone diaphragms have mirrors fixed upon them. A spot of light reflected from one of the mirrors is given a horizontal movement when the diaphragm is vibrating, while the other mirror, when its diaphragm moves, gives a spot of light a vertical motion. By the combination of the two motions, figures are obtained similar to those of Lissajous in the case of tuning-forks; and from these, the difference in phase of the currents which set the diaphragms in motion can be found.-Preliminary report of observations at the Deep Well, Wheeling, West Virginia, by William Hallock.-Mount Bob, Mount Ida, or Snake Hill, by T. W. Harris.

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April. On the action of vacuum discharge streamers upon each other, by Dr. M. I. Pupin. The experiments described show that two electric current filaments in a rarefied gas may repel each other in cases where electrodynamic action would produce an attraction. The repulsion does not appear to be due to electrostatic action, but rather to "a strain in the vacuum produced by the peculiar distribution of the gas pressure resulting from the peculiar distribution of temperature."-On a melilite-bearing rock (Alnoite) from Ste. Anne de Bellevue, near Montreal, Canada, by Frank D. Adams.-On an azure-blue pyroxenic rock from the Middle Gila, New Mexico, by George P. Merrill and R. L. Packard.-On the correlation of moraines with raised beaches of Lake Erie, by Frank Leverett.— Magnesium as a source of light, by Frederick J. Rogers. The results of this investigation are summed up as follow:-(1) The spectrum of burning magnesium approaches much more nearly that of sunlight than does the spectrum of any other artificial illuminant. (2) The temperature of the magnesium flame, about 1340° C., lies between that of the Bunsen burner and that of the air-blast lamp, although the character of its spectrum is such as would correspond to a temperature of nearly 5000° C. were its light due to ordinary incandescence. (3) The "radiant efficiency is 13 per cent., a value higher than that for any other artificial illuminant, excepting, perhaps, the light of the electric discharge in vacuo for which Dr. Staub, of Zürich, has found an efficiency of about 34 per cent. (4) The radiant energy emitted by burning magnesium is about 4630 calories per gram of the metal burned, or 75 per cent. of the total heat of combustion, as compared with 15 per cent. to 20 per cent. in the case of illuminating gas. (5) The thermal equivalent of one candle-power-minute of magnesium light is about 24 lesser calories, as against 35 to 40 for other artificial illuminants. (6) The total efficiency of the magnesium light is about 10 per cent., as compared with o 25 per cent. for illuminating gas. (7) Taking into consideration the greater average luminosity of the rays of the visible spectrum of the magnesium flame, it is certain that per unit of energy expended, the light-giving power of burning magnesium is from fifty to sixty times greater than that of gas.-A method for the quantitative separation of barium from calcium by the action of amyl alcohol on the nitrates by P. E. Browning.-On plicated cleavage foliation, by T. Nelson Dale.-Geological age of the Saganaga syenite, by A. R. C. Selwyn. A third occurrence of peridotite in Central New York, by C. H. Smith.-A fulgurite from Waterville, Maine, by W. S. Bayley.-Mineralogical notes on brookite, octahedrite, quartz, and ruby, by G. F. Kunz.-Recent polydactyle horses, by O. C. Marsh.

SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES.

LONDON.

Entomological Society, April 13.-Mr. Henry John Elwes, Vice-President, in the chair.-Mr. R. McLachlan, F.R.S., exhibited specimens of a Caddis-fly remarkable for the abbreviated wings of the male, the female having fully developed wings. He alluded to the Perlide as including species in which the males were frequently semi-apterous. Dr. Sharp, F.R.S., inquired if Mr. McLachlan was aware of any order of insects, except the Neuroptera, in which the organs of flight were less developed in the male than in the female. Mr. C. G. Barrett and Mr. H. J. Elwes cited instances amongst the Bombycidæ in which the wings of the male were inferior in size and development to those of the female.-Dr. Sharp exhibited specimens of both sexes of an apparently nondescript Phasmid insect allied to Orobia, obtained by Mr. J. J. Lister in the Seychelles Islands, together with Phyllium gelonus. He also exhibited specimens of both sexes of an insect remarkable for its great general resemblance to the Phasmida, though without resemblance, so far as is known, to any particular species. In reference to the Phyllium, Dr. Sharp called attention to the fact that the similarity of appearance of parts of their organization to portions of the vegetable kingdom was accompanied by a similarity, amounting almost to identity, of minute structure. He said that it had been stated that the colouring-matter is indistinguish able from chlorophyll, and that Mr. Lister had informed him that when in want of food a specimen of the Phyllium would eat portions of the foliaceous expansions of its fellows, although the Phasmida are phytophagous insects. The resemblance to vegetable products reached its maximum of development in the egg; and M. Henneguy had observed that when sections of the external envelope of the egg of Phyllium are placed under the microscope no competent botanist would hesitate to pronounce them to belong to the vegetable kingdom. - Mr. Barrett exhibited, for Major J. N. Still, a specimen of Notodonta bicolora, which had been captured in a wood near Exeter. Major Still had stated that the captor of the specimen was unaware of the great rarity of the species. Mr. Barrett also exhibited, for Mr. Sydney Webb, some remarkable varieties of Argynnis adippe and Canonympha pamphilus; also two specimens of Apatura iris, and two of Limenitis sybilla in which the white bands were entirely absent.-The Hon. Walter Rothschild exhibited, and contributed preliminary notes on, some hundreds of Lepidoptera, representative of a collection of about 5000 specimens recently made by Mr. W. Doherty, in the south-west of Celebes. Many of the species were new, and others very rare. Mr. Elwes, Colonel Swinhoe, and Mr. S. Stevens commented on the interesting nature of this collection. Mr. E. B. Poulton, F.R.S., gave a lecture "On the Denudation of the Scales in certain Species of Lepidoptera,' and illustrated it by a large number of photographs shown by means of the oxy-hydrogen lantern. Mr. G. F. Hampson, Mr. Elwes, and Mr. Poulton took part in the discussion which ensued.

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Royal Meteorological Society, April 20.-Dr. C. Theodore Williams, President, in the chair.-Reference was made to the death of Dr. J. W. Tripe, who had held the office of Council Secretary for the last twenty years, and a resolution of sympathy with the family was passed by the meeting.-The following papers were read :-Anemometer comparisons, by Mr. W. H. Dines. This was a report on a valuable series of experiments which have been carried out at the request of the Council of the Society, with the view of obtaining a direct comparison of the various anemometers in common use, so that some opinion might be formed as to which type of instrument is the most suitable for general purposes. The Meteorological Council have defrayed the cost of the work. The anemometers which were compared were (1) Kew pattern Robinson; (2) selfadjusting helicoid; (3) air meter; (4) circular pressure plate (one foot in diameter); and (5) a special modification of tube anemometer. Most of these instruments are of the author's own invention, as well as the apparatus for obtaining automatic and simultaneous records from all the instruments upon the same sheet of paper. It appears that the factor of the Kew pattern Robinson is practically constant, and must lie between 200 and 2.20. The helicoid anemometer is quite independent of friction for all excepting light winds, and different sizes read alike, but it is not so simple in construction as the cup form. The air meter consists of a single screw

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blade formed of thin aluminium, and made as nearly as possible into the exact shape of a portion of a helicoid. A similar instrument with a larger blade, and with the dial protected from the weather, would probably form a useful and correct anemometer. It would be light, and offer a very trifling resist ance to the wind. The oscillations of the pressure plate must have been considerably damped by the action of the floating weight, but as it was, they were sufficiently violent. It seems probable that the remarkably high values sometimes given by the Osler pressure plate may be due to the inertia of the moving parts. The tube anemometer appears to possess numerous advantages. The head is simple in construction, and so strong that it is practically indestructible by the most violent hurricane. The recording apparatus can be placed at any reasonable distance from the head, and the connecting pipes may go round several sharp corners without harm. The power is conveyed from the head without loss by friction, and hence the instrument may be made sensitive to very low velocities without impairing its ability to resist the most severe gale.-The hurricane over the West Indies, August 18-27, 1891, by Mr. F. Watts. The author has collected a number of observations on this violent hurricane, which on August 18 swept from the Atlantic into the Caribbean Sea, and moved in a north-northwesterly direction over San Domingo, and thence northward and eastward. At Martinique the barometer, which at 5.30 p.m. stood at 29.80 inches, fell to 28.38 inches at 8.15 p.m., during the passing of the centre of the cyclone.

Chemical Society, March 30.-Annual General Meeting.Prof. A. Crum Brown, F. R.S., President, in the chair.-The President delivered an address, in the first part of which he referred to the favourable position of the Society. In the remainder of his address he dwelt chiefly on the work which is being done on the border-lines of chemistry proper, referring both to that by which an approach is gradually being made towards understanding the chemistry of Nature's organic laboratory, and to the solution of chemical problems by the application of mathematical and physical methods of inquiry. A vote of thanks to the President was carried by acclamation.After the usual reports by the officers of the Society had been presented, a ballot was taken for the election of officers and Council for the ensuing year. The following were subsequently declared elected :-President: A. Crum Brown, F.R.S. VicePresidents who have filled the office of President: Sir F. Abel, F.R.S.; W. Crookes, F. R. S.; E. Frankland, F.R.S; J. H. Gilbert, F. R.S; J. H. Gladstone, F.R.S.; A. W. Hofmann, F.R.S.; H. Müller, F. R.S.; W. Odling, F.R.S.; W. H. Perkin, F.R.S.; Sir L. Playfair, F.R.S.; Sir H. E. Roscoe, F.R.S.; W. J. Russell, F. R.S.; A. W. Williamson, F. R. S. Vice-Presidents: A. V. Harcourt, F.R.S.; W. N. Hartley, F.R.S.; J. Pattinson; W. Ramsay, F. R.S.; W. A. Tilden, F. R.S.; R. Warington, F. R. S. Secretaries: H. E. Armstrong, F.R.S.; J. M. Thomson. Foreign Secretary : R. Meldola, F.R.S. Treasurer: T. E. Thorpe, F.R.S. Ordinary members of Council: H. Bassett; N. Collie: H. Dixon, F. R.S.; J. Ferguson; R. J. Friswell; J. Heron; M. M. P. Muir; F. J. M. Page; W. H. Perkin, Jun. F.R.S.; S. U. Pickering; J. A. Voelcker; W. P. Wynne.-Correction of a note on a new acid from camphoric acid, by W. H. Perkin, Jun. The author desires to express regret that he had overlooked a previous paper by Damsky, in which an account is given of the acid recently described by him as new.

Mathematical Society, April 14.-Prof. Greenhill, F.R.S., President, in the chair.-The following six foreign mathematicians were elected Honorary Members of the Society, viz. Messrs. Poincaré, Hertz, Schwarz, Mittag-Leffler, Beltrami, and Willard Gibbs.-The following short communications were made :-Second note on a quaternary group of 51,840 linear substitutions, by Dr. Morrice.-Note on the skew surfaces applicable upon a given skew surface, by Prof. Cayley, F.R.S.

Mr. A. B. Kempe, F.R.S., made an impromptu communica tion on regular graphs.-Mr. J. J. Walker, F.R.S., Dr. M. J. M. Hill, Lieut.-Colonel Cunningham, and the President joined in the discussion on the above communications.

EDINBURGH.

Royal Society, April 4.-Sir Arthur Mitchell, VicePresident, in the chair.-Dr. Thonias Muir read a paper on a problem of Sylvester's in elimination, and also a note on Prof. Cayley's proof that triangle and its reciprocal

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