vanced towards the fjord; but probably no single individual of those who began the exodus lives to share its fate-only the inherited impulse survives in the offspring. These animals may live in captivity for two years; mine, at least, did so ; but, so far as I know, no one else has succeeded in keeping them nearly so long; and the reasons are curious. In the first place, they fight with each other incessantly, and irrespective of sex; and secondly, they invariably defile their supply of water, so that unless this can be made running, they are sure to perish.

The

I turned out my little colony on Richmond Green, at an hour when the almost ubiquitous boy was still abed, and I watched their behaviour with a box-compass and a butterfly net. former article proved unnecessary, as they boxed the compass for themselves, and the latter inadequate, as they ate their way through the gauze with remarkable rapidity. I should add, however, that they were all eventually recaptured, and that I derived no information as to their sense of direction from the experiment. Dr. Wilson states that naturalists generally believe that the lemmings seek a "land of promise,' or rather of past fulfilment. I was under the impression that the credit (or is it the reverse?) of the idea belonged to me, but under a sun which sees so little that is new, I may well be mistaken; yet, singly or jointly, rightly or erroneously, I still believe that these migrations were formerly of benefit to the species. That they are not so now, is obvious; but the chief interest seems to lie in their periodicity, the marvellous fecundity which supports them, and the remarkable faculty which directs them.

Asgard, Richmond, January 14.

W. DUPPA-CROTCH.

P.S.-Absence from home prevented me from noticing the letter of Prof. Romanes. To the former of his two queries I reply that all the migrations which I have noticed during twenty years have crossed my lake, which lies nearly north and south, whereas had they followed the valley and watershed they would have been spared this labour and risk. The same argument applies to Lake Mjosen and others. As regards the second query, whether I believe in a sub-tropical Atlantis or not seems to me to have as little bearing on a possible landconnection between Norway and Iceland as on the Goodwin Sands. It has been suggested to me that at the close of the latest glacial epoch the lemmings may have found it necessary to migrate to the warmer western shores of the peninsula: this, however, leaves the presence of the animals in Iceland unexplained, save by the rather vague action of flotsam and jetsam. In any case, I only wish to adopt the most convenient hypothesis, until it is disproved or supplemented by a better one.- -W. D-C., January 18.

IN discussing the much-debated subject of the westward migration of the Norwegian lemming, the primary cause-as it | appears to me-has been altogether overlooked.

This is, that the whole of Norway north of the Jotunhjem region—that is, the whole of the country of the Norwegian lemmings-is simply the steep and narrow westward slope of a long ridge of mountains.

When Mr. Collett says that "the wanderings take place in the direction of the valleys," he simply repeats in other words the usual description of their general westerly course.

They breed in the uplands, and when very prolific the increase must descend or perish, as they consume all the vegetation of their birth-region and no further supplies of food are obtainable either northward, southward, or eastward; but downwards, i.e. westward, the vegetation increases steadily as they proceed, and the descending autumn snow-line pushes onward behind them. Their devastation of meadows and oat-fields proves the urgency of their downward or westward course.

There are lemmings also on the eastern slopes of the Kjölen range, ie. in Sweden. We are told that the Swedish lemmings proceed to the Gulf of Bothnia and are there drowned. To do this they must travel in the eastward and southward directions of a much longer slope than the steep westward course of the Norwegian lemming. A glance at a good map of Sweden and Norway will show all this. W. MATTIEU WILLIAMS.

The Grange, Neasden.

The New Forest Bill, 1892.

IN connection with the petitions in favour of this Bill, to which the signatures of persons interested in the New Forest |

are being obtained, I am frequently asked, "What is the necessity for the Bill, and what is its object?" The facts of the case may be shortly stated as follows. The "Woods and Wastes" of the Forest comprise about 63,000 acres of land, the whole of which were, prior to 1698, open and uninclosed; but under the authority of the Acts 9 and 10 William III. c. 36 (1698) and 48 George III. c. 72 (1808), the Crown was empowered to inclose, and keep inclosed, freed and discharged from all rights of common, such quantity of land in the Forest as would amount to 6000 acres, for the growth of timber. By the Act of 14 and 15 Vict. c. 76 (the Deer Removal Act of 1851), the Crown was authorized to inclose and plant with trees any quantity of land, not exceeding 10,000 acres, in addition to the 6000 acres already in inclosure under the authority of the Acts before mentioned. The powers conferred by these Acts are not repealed by 40 and 41 Vict. c. 121 (the "New Forest Act, 1877"), but the rights of inclosure are by sec. 5 of the last cited Act limited to "such lands as are at the date of the passing of this Act inclosed, or as have, previously to such date, been inclosed by virtue of commissions issued in pursuance of the said Acts or some of them." The New Forest Act of 1877 practically secured the New Forest to the public, but the Act is virtually repealed by the 10th section of the Ranges Act, 1891 (and other Acts therein referred to), under the authority of which the War Department, with the consent of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, can take possession of any part of the Forest for military purposes, and exclude the public from the enjoyment of any tract so taken. Already it is proposed to take 800 acres for a rifle range and the site of a camp, and there is nothing to prevent the exercise of such rights throughout the district, and the conversion of the Forest into a second Aldershot. Wherever a portion of the Forest is taken, the rights of the commoners, if they complain, will be bought up and extinguished; and thus, by taking different areas at different times, the Commissioners may before very long extinguish the common rights, and reduce the Forest into private ownership. It is clear that the proposed inclosure of 800 acres, and the user of the Forest generally in the way described, is in direct violation of the spirit and intention, as well as of the express provisions, of the New Forest Act of 1877.

The object, therefore, of the New Forest Bill is to make it clear that the Forest shall not be deemed to be within the provisions of the 10th section of the Ranges Act, 1891, and that the provisions of the New Forest Act, 1877, shall remain in force.

The rights secured by the Act of 1877 and the preservation of the Forest as an open space are of the greatest importance to naturalist, artists, and the general public, and every possible effort should be made to secure the passing of the Bill by signing petitions in support of it. H. Goss.

Entomological Society, 11 Chandos Street,
Cavendish Square, W., January 26.

A Brilliant Meteor.

LAST night, at 10h. 55m. G. M. T., I had the good fortune to witness the flight of a magnificently brilliant meteor. I was standing outside in the south-east re entering corner of this building, and happened to be looking up at the constellation Leo, when the meteor suddenly flashed into sight from over the roof of the Observatory, a little east of the zenith, and not far from the stars and Ursa Majoris, passed east of Procyon, and did not disappear till it had reached a position about 5° east of Sirius. An immediate reference to the map showed the positions of its appearance and disappearance to be about 9h. +48 and 7h. 15.

For the greater part of its course it presented the appearance of a broad band of deep yellow light, but after it had passed about two-thirds of its path, it widened out into an elongated mass, distinctly rounded on the front, and of a full violet colour. From the middle of this round front the yellow band again emerged, and was finally lost to view about 15 or 20° further on. The violet mass would be about 5° in length. The whole apparition occupied 4 or 5 seconds, and the band of light was seen for an instant complete on the sky, stretching over some 65°.

About 10 minutes later a small meteor shot out from a point near the stars μ and x Ursa Majoris, and disappeared in the direction of Procyon. THOMAS HEATH.

Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, January 25.

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the document describing the building of the temple of On (Heliopolis). We read :-"Arose the king, attired in his necklace and the feather crown; all the world followed him, and the majesty of Amenemha [first king of the XIIth dynasty]. The Kolchyt read the sacred text during the stretching of the measuring-cord and the laying of the foundation stone on the piece of ground selected for this temple. Then withdrew His Majesty Amenemha; and King Usertesen [son and co-regent] wrote it down before the people."

:

Nissen, from whom (loc. cit.) I quote the above, adds :"On account of the stretching of the measuring cord, the Egyptian engineers were called by the Greeks ἁρπεδονὰπται, whose art Democritus boasts of having acquired."

We next turn to Abydos, possibly one of the oldest temple-fields in Egypt. There is an inscription relating to the rebuilding of one of them in the time of Seti I. (about 1445 B.C.). In this the goddess Sesheta addresses the king as follows:-"The hammer in my hand was of gold, as I struck the peg with it, and thou wast with

the constellation of the Thigh-the old name of the constellation which we now recognize as the Great Bear, and on this line was built the new teinple, "as had been done there before."

The actual inscription has been translated as follows: "The living God, the magnificent son of Asti [a name of Thoth], nourished by the sublime goddess in the temple, the sovereign of the country, stretches the rope in joy. With his glance towards the ak [the middle?] of the Bull's Thigh constellation, he establishes the templehouse of the mistress of Denderah, as took place there before." At another place the king says: "Looking to the sky at the course of the rising stars, [and] recognizing the ak of the Bull's Thigh constellation, I establish the corners of the temple of Her Majesty."

Here, then, we have more than evidence of the stretching of a cord towards a star; an actual constellation is named, and it may be easily imagined in connection with this that many interesting questions arise of the utmost importance to the subject we are considering.

Dümichen, in his references to this passage, discusses

me in thy capacity of Harpedonapt. Thy hand held the spade during the fixing of its [the temple's] four corners with accuracy by the four supports of heaven." On the pictures the king appears with the Osiris crown opposite the goddess. Both hold in their right hand a club, and with it they each hammer a long peg into the ground. Round the two pegs runs a rope, tied together at the ends, which is stretched tight.

In two cases the star used for the alignment is actually named. Of these I will take, first, the record of the ceremony used in the building of the temple of Hathor at Denderah.

3. The Alignment of the Temples of Denderah and Edfu.

Denderah.-The inscriptions state that the king while stretching the cord had his glance directed to the ak of

FIG. 2.-The constellations of the Hippopotamus and Thigh, from the centre of the Zodiac of Denderah.

the meaning of the word ak in relation to some Theban grave inscriptions, in which it is suggested that ak is used to represent the middle course of a star, or, astronomically speaking, its culminating point as it passes the meridian. But such a meaning as this will never do in this connection; for if a cord was stretched towards a star on the meridian it would lie north and south, and therefore the temple would be built north and south. But this is by no means the orientation of the temple-a point to which I shall return presently.

But it may be suggested that the word ak, used in relation to the king's observation, more probably referred to the "middle point" of the constellation which would be about represented by the star a, which lies nearly in the centre of the modern constellation of the Great Bear, supposing, indeed, that the same stars were included in the old constellation; but on this point we certainly have

no definite knowledge, as the Thigh is so variously represented; sometimes there is a hind-quarter, represented evidently by the well-known seven stars; at others, the body of a cow (with horns and disk) is attached.

However this may be, without such a reference to some particular part of the constellation it is obvious that the stretched cord must have had a most indeterminate direction.

In order to leave no stone unturned in attempting to explain this description-supposing it to represent an undoubted fact of observation, there is another possible interpretation of the word ak which we may consider. The amplitude of the temple being 73° N. of E., shows conclusively that we cannot be dealing with the meridian, but may we be dealing with the most eastern elongation of the star in its journey round the Pole?

I have inquired into this matter for the time of the last building of the temple in the time of the Ptolemies, and find that the amplitude of the temple, instead of being 73°, would have been about 70°. It seems probable, then, that this interpretation will not hold, and it may be further stated that, in the case of a star at a considerable distance above the horizon, the stretching of a cord in the building ceremonial - the "ausspannung der strickes," as the words put-ser are translated by Dümichen-would really have been no stretching of the cord at all, for the star being many degrees above the horizon, another

the wooden peg and the handle of the club; I hold the rope with Sesheta; my glance follows the course of the stars; my eye is on Masyet [that is, the Bull's Thigh constellation,' or Great Bear]; (mine is the part of time of the number of the hour-clock); I establish the corners of thy house of God." And in another place: "I have grasped the wooden peg; I hold the handle of the club; I grasp the cord with Sesheta; I cast my face towards the course of the rising constellations; I let my glance enter the constellation of the Great Bear (the part of my time stands in the place of his hour-clock); I establish the four corners of thy temple." The translation is Brugsch's. The phrases in brackets are interpreted differently by Dümichen, who translates them: "Standing as divider of time by his measuring instrument," or "representing the divider of time (.e. the god Thot) at his measuring instrument." The word merech or merchet, in which Brugsch suspects hour- or water-clock, does not occur elsewhere.

In this case, seeing that the temple lies with its axis very nearly north and south, as I determined by my own (magnetic) observations, the stretching of the cord was certainly in or very near the meridian; and it may be remarked that in the naos there is an opening in the roof, over the side of the second or third door from the sanctuary, and inclined at an angle of 40° (unlike any other opening that I have seen in the roof of any

This suggests that the temple built in the time of Augustus carried forward the account of the old foundation. There is evidence of this. The constellation of the Thigh neither rose nor set in the time of Augustus-it was circumpolar. The same statement may be made regarding the restoration in the time of Thotmes III. So we are driven to the conclusion that if we regard the inscription as true, it must refer to a time preceding the reign of Thotmes.

Edfu -A reference to the same constellation (the Thigh) is also made in the account of the ceremonial used at the laying of the foundation-stone of the temple at Edfu. The king's glance was directed-in the case of the building of that temple-to the Thigh, but no precise reference to any star or to any point ak is given.

As before, I give the full translation of the inscription,1 remarking that the last restoration was made B.C. 237-57. The king is represented as speaking thus: "I have grasped I Quoted from Nissen.

Egyptian temple), which may have been used to observe the transit of some particular star. The angle I was not able to determine with absolute accuracy, as the vertical circle of the theodolite I had with me was out of adjustment.

Taking the latitude of Edfu as 25°, and assuming the angle of 40° to be not far from the truth, the North Polar distance of the star observed would be 15°.

This satisfies within a degree or so-and this is as near as we can get till more accurate observations have been made on the spot-Dubhe, the chief star in the Great Bear in the time of the Ptolemies.

I may here remark that, so far as I know, Edfu is the only temple in Egypt on the meridian. If, therefore, t were used, as on my theory all other temples were, it could only have picked up the light from each of the southerly stars, as by the precessional movements they were brought into visibility very near the southern horizon.

In this respect, then, it is truly a temple of Horus, in relation to the southern stars-the southern eyes of Horus. But it was not a sun-temple in the sense that Karnak was one; and if ceremonies were performed for which light was required, perhaps the apparatus referred to by Dupuis (vol. i. p. 450) was utilized. He mentions that in a temple at Heliopolis, whether a solar temple or not is not stated, the temple was flooded all day long with sunlight by means of a mirror. I do not know the

authorities on which Dupuis founds his statement, but I have no doubt that it is amply justified, for the reason that doubtless all the inscriptions in the deepest tombs were made by means of reflected sunlight, for in all freshly-opened tombs there are no traces whatever of any kind of combustion having taken place even in the innermost recesses. So strikingly evident is this that my friend M. Bouriant, while we were discussing this matter at Thebes, laughingly suggested the possibility that the electric light was known to the ancient Egyptians.

With a system of fixed mirrors inside the galleries, whatever their length, and a movable mirror outside to follow the course of an Egyptian sun and reflect its beams inside, it would be possible to keep up a constant illumination in any part of the galleries, however remote. Dupuis quotes another statement that the greatest precautions were taken that the first rays of sunlight should enter a temple (of course he means a solar temple). J. NORMAN LOCKYER.

(To be continued.)

ON THE NUMBER OF DUST PARTICLES IN THE ATMOSPHERE OF VARIOUS PLACES IN GREAT BRITAIN AND ON THE CONTINENT, WITH REMARKS ON THE RELATION BETWEEN THE AMOUNT OF DUST AND METEOROLOGICAL PHENOMENA.-Part II

TH

HIS paper contains the results of the observations made on the dust of the atmosphere at various places in 1890. These observations were made by the author at the same stations, and about the same dates, as those made in 1889, and given in Part I. of this subject, read before the Society on February 3, 1890.

At Hyères, in 1890, the highest number of dust particles observed was 15,000 per c.c., with a wet bulb depression of 5°, the atmosphere at the time being very thick. The lowest was 725 per c.c., with a wet bulb depression of 9° 5, when the air was very clear.

At Cannes very few observations were made on this occasion. The numbers varied from 1275 to 2850 per c.c. The wind during the time was always northerly.

At Mentone the numbers varied from 26,000 per c.c. when the wind was from the town, to about 900 per c.c. when it was from the mountains, with a wet bulb depression on both occasions of 31; the air was clear with the lower number and thick with the higher.

At Bellagio, when the wind was southerly-that is, from the inhabited districts-the number of particles was great, on one occasion as high as 20,000 per c.c. But when the wind blew from the north-that is, from the direction of the Alps-the number fell as low as 600 per c.c. on one occasion. With the low numbers the air was clear, whereas with the high numbers there was always a good deal of haze, though the air was dry.

All the observations made at Baveno were made while the wind blew from the inhabited areas, and the air was never clear, although on some days it was very dry. The highest number observed at this station was 16,000 per c.c., and the lowest 2000 per c.c.

The observations made at the Rigi Kulm from May 15 to 20 are then discussed. There was a marked difference in the appearance of the air on this occasion compared with what was seen on the first visit. During the previous visit the weather was generally fine, and the air had that crisp clearness which gives the hard outline and crude colouring one generally associates with Swiss scenery; whereas on the second visit the air was remarkably thick and heavy.

Abstract of a Paper read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh on January 4, by John Aitken, F. R.S. Communicated by permission of the Council of the Society.

The highest number observed on the first visit to the Rigi was not much over 2000 per c.c., while the number was as high as 10,000 on the second. The same relative condition of impurity existed at the low level also. On the first occasion the number at the level of the lake varied from 600 to 3000 per c.c., whereas on the second visit they varied from 1700 to 13,000 per c.c. Roughly speaking, there was about four times the amount of dust in 1890 there was in 1889, and the air was about four times as thick.

During the first four days of the second visit to the Rigi Kulm the air was very thick and the number of particles great. The much greater thickness of the air on the occasion of the second visit was evidently due to dust, as the humidity on both occasions was about the same. The air on the days when the number of particles was great was very different from anything previously observed at this station. On the first visit the air was clear and bright, with only a thin haze between the observer and the distant mountains; whereas in 1890 a dense haze hung in the atmosphere, so thick that towards sunset the lower slopes of Pilatus could scarcely be distinguished. It looked as if a veil had been hung up between the observer and the distant scenery. Some time before sunset this hazy veil became coloured by the rays of the setting sun. Its upper limit was well defined in the eastern sky, at an elevation considerably At sunset this dusty above the highest of the Alps. impurity became still more apparent as the earth's cloudless, so dull was the setting sun, that it looked more shadow crept up its lower edge. Though the sky was like a harvest moon than the orb of day. So feeble were its rays after penetrating the thick haze, that they could produce no direct red light on the mountains, while much diffused light was reflected by the dust-laden air.

During this second visit there was an opportunity of testing the supposed influence of thunderstorms in depositing the dust in the atmosphere. On one of the days of this visit a violent thunderstorm raged to the east, south, and west during most of the afternoon, and in the evening it came over the Rigi Kulm. So near was the

storm that the flash and crash of the thunder seemed simultaneous. The tests were therefore made in the very air in which the lightning discharges were taking place. During the day, and before the storm approached, there were nearly 4000 particles per c.c. in the air. At 6 p.m., when the storm was near, the number fell to 3000; and at 7.10 p.m., when the storm was nearly over, the number was as low as 725 per c.c. These figures seem to support the supposition that thunderstorms purify the air; and of these storms had been on the top of the mountain anyone who was a believer in the purifying influence next day, his opinion would have been confirmed by the greatly improved appearance of the atmosphere after the storm. The thick veil which had hung in the atmosphere for at least four days was gone, and the distant mountains looked clear and distinct. Even

if

Hochgerrach, which is about 70 miles distant, was quite distinctly seen during the whole day; and the number of particles fell to 400 per c.c.

The question-Was the decrease in the dust, and the improved appearance of the atmosphere on this occasion due to the thunderstorm?-is then discussed. It is shown that this conclusion is extremely doubtful. It is