CORRESPONDENCE. THE HITTITE TITLE OF DAMASCUS. Queen's College, Oxford: Aug. 22, 1881. "the who follow not the Buddha's advice will come Valaha (though not registered by Childers) is This jâtaka contains one or two contributions itthi kuttena, ibid., 1. 19. 66 The country of which Damascus was the capital in the time of Benhadad, Hazael, and their successors, is called in the Assyrian inscriptions (e.g., W. A. I., 9, 50) by a name which has hitherto been a great puzzle. This is Gar-imiri-su. Now the name of Carchemish, the Hittite capital, is written Gar-gamis in the Assyrian texts, the same character expressing the first syllable in both instances. Gar-imirisu is Gar-imiris, with the Assyrian case-ending -u, and it will therefore be seen at once that 2. Murumurûpetvâ, p. 127, 1. 22. At first Gar-imiris (in Hebrew letters ) is exactly parallel to Gar-gamis. It has long root mri (cf. the Vedic form mumurat = mûsight this word looks like a causative of the been assumed that Gar in Gar-gamis sig- rayatu), but a closer examination of the passage nified "town" or "district;" and the assumption in which it occurs leads me to consider it as a is now confirmed by our finding it twice rekind of denominative verb of onomatopoetic placed by the Assyrian ideograph of "country in the name of Gar-imiris (Lay., 92, 98, origin, like our words munch, chump, crunch, &c. In Marathi muramura = muttering, grumb103). Gar-gamis, accordingly, will be " country of Gamis;" Gar-imiris, "the country ling, and this seems to be a prâkritised form of the Sanskrit murmura, which in Pâli would of Imiris;" and we are justified in conbecome muramura or mummura. The Sanskrit cluding that Gar was the Hittite word for word means a fire made of chaff;" curiously "country." I have already compared Gamis in Gar-gamis with the name of the Gam- enough, in the second volume of Fausboll's gumians, a tribe related to the Hittites, andataka, ii., p. 134, 11. 2, 8, the form mummura (not a little to the north of them, and explained the in Childers) actually occurs in the sense of the hot ashes or final s as the mark of the genitive (Transactions embers of burning chaff or straw (cf. Marathi of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, vii. 2). mumbara, mumara, mumura, embers). Gar-imiris will then be the "country of the Hindi muramura signifies rice pressed flat and In Imirians," in Hebrew, or "Amorites." eaten raw; in Marathî it means parched rice, Now, the Egyptian monuments tell us that Kadesh, the southern capital of the Hittites in imitative of the sound made in crunching such the age of Ramses II., was on the Orontes, While on the subject of Jatakas, it may not the lake of the land of the Amorites." I conclude, therefore, that the title given by the be out of place to note that Mr. Beal's Romantic History of Buddha contains several birth-stories. Assyrians to the kingdom of Damascus was derived by them from the Hittites of Car-Fausboll's Jataka, vol. i., pp. 158, 278. The The Foolish Dragon, p. 231, will be found in chemish, and came down from a time when Merchant who struck his Mother, p. 342,* is, Hittite supremacy extended as far south as the country afterwards ruled by Damascus. The perhaps to be identified with Jataka No. 82. overthrow of Kadesh and the retreat of the Hittite power from "the land of the Amorities" was followed by the rise of Damascus. An interesting historical fact is thus brought out by the name sometimes given in the Assyrian texts to the kingdom of Damascus; to say nothing of the interpretation it affords us of a Hittite word, as well as the form of the Hittite genitive plural. A. H. SAYCE. "at kukkula Sanskrit kukkuta food. There are two obvious reasons for preferring the former. One, that, as the Professor points out, "it is the word 'Spirit' and not Ghost that now really represents to the English mind the significance that still pertains to the German Geist."" The other, that the word ghost commonly signifies an apparition from the dead. Neither of these reasons is unimportant, but neither, perhaps, is so important as some other considerations involved in this question. The first of these to which I wish to call attention is the desirableness of preserving, wherever possible, and as far as possible, every indication of sameness of thought and belief between the Israelites under the old dispensation and Christians under the new. How can we ever hope to persuade the Jews if, instead of cordially recognising the points in which we might be at one, we positively widen unnecessarily the breach between ourselves and them? Now, we ought to be agreed in our ideas respecting the Spirit of God-so far, at least, as the meaning of that and other cognate expressions is concerned. We accept their scriptures. Whether we read those scriptures in the original Hebrew or the Septuagint Greek, or even in any modern version, we can scarcely fail to perceive that their forefathers were perfectly familiar with the idea, whatever it was, of that Spirit. No doubt when we read the New Testament we find very much more frequent mention of it, as it is but natural that we should, considering that it was manifested, sure and more various ways, and to far greater poured forth, or given, in more copious meanumbers, after the day of Pentecost than before. On that day, and for many a day after, it might almost be said that the unselfish wish of Moses was realised, and "all the Lord's people were prophets." But this was only a more signal manifestation of the same Spirit 81 which moved the prophets and psalmists and holy men of old. The same word,, a word, be it noticed, which is sometimes masculine and sometimes feminine, expresses it throughout the Hebrew scriptures; the same word, veûμа, throughout the Septuagint and the New Testament. Nay, I might go further, and say I believe, with truth, that in all the chief modern versions the same word, whatever it may be, is adhered to consistently in each of them throughout. In French it is "Esprit," in German "Geist," in Italian "Spirito," in Spanish "Espíritu," and so on. Only in English are there two words, one of which, the word "Ghost," predominates, where it is admissible at all, in the New Testament, while we may search for it in vain in the Old, except in the sense of giving up the "ghost.' As the Index to Mr. Beal's interesting work is very imperfect, I here append a list of what seem to be "birth-stories " 1. The story of Yasodhara 2. The story of the Nobleman who 4. The story of the Resolute Merchant 6. The story of the Cunning Tortoise 8. The Previous History of Yasada JATAKA STORIES-THE MYTH OF THE SIRENS. In the Jataka story Buddha is represented as admonishing one of his disciples who was desirous of returning again to the lay state, having fallen a captive to the charms of a certain woman he had seen. The naughty" brother" is told that women who, by their arts, cause men to lose their virtue or their wealth are yukkhinis, that by their blandishments get men Into their power and eat them. In the Chinese version five hundred men escape by means of the horse Kesi, but in the Pâli story only half this number are rescued by the Bodhisat under the form of a "white horse." PAGE 93 99 227 229, 351 R. MORRIS. THE REVISED VERSION OF THE NEW St. Lawrence, Ventnor, I.W.: Aug. 15, 1881. See Tawney's Katha sarit-sagara, p. 555, and The moral of the Pâli story is this, that those the Antiquary for September 1880. Now, there is no necessity whatever for this difference. The word " Spirit" would have sufficed just as well in the New Testament as in the Old; and by uniform adherence to it English readers would have been aided to perceive, and would have been frequently reminded of, the unity of faith which, in this respect, pervades them both. Nor could the Revisers have objected to it on the ground either of sense or sound or good taste, for they themselves repeatedly employ it. Again, it is desirable to preserve and exhibit whatever unity of idea pervades the writers of the New Testament when compared with each other or with themselves. One, and that the most obvious, way of doing this would be to render the word Tveûua when it refers to the same idea always by the same English equivalent. At present we read, "Why hath Satan filled thy heart to lie to the Holy Ghost?" and then, a few verses farther on, "How is it that notwithstanding, its nearest counterpart in another. All that I contend for is that " Spirit" would everywhere have been better than "Ghost," which is so often impossible. But there is another objection to the word "Ghost." It has, practically, certain theological or dogmatic associations which do not Etymologically, no doubt, "Ghost" and attach themselves to "Spirit" in anything like "Spirit" both mean the same thing, but they the same degree. The latter word is less formal, are not convertible terms. We have a beauti-wider, larger, more free. What most English ful prayer which runs thus: "O Lord, send people first think of when they read or hear of thy Holy Ghost and pour into our hearts that "the Holy Ghost" will, probably, be the third most excellent gift of charity," &c., and another person of the Trinity. Now, without at which runs thus: "O God, the King of Glory, present entering into the general question we beseech thee, leave us not comfortless; whether the yov veûμa does really ever mean but send to us thine Holy Ghost to comfort us,' such a person, it is enough to ask whether it &c., &c., but it is only the accompaniment of can possibly have that meaning here. Was the epithet "holy" which makes either of them either the Baptist who used the words or the tolerable to an English ear. In countless in- evangelist who records them thinking of, or stances we should be shocked by the use of the intending, any such idea? If even the Revisers word. Possibly, it is a consciousness of its themselves would hardly venture to maintain ordinary meaning as an apparition which con- that they were, I submit that they are hardly fines within very narrow limits its use in refer- justified in rendering those words by a phrase ence to God, while there is no such limitation which, to nine readers out of ten, will seem to in the use of the word "Spirit." But by the imply that they did so think and intend. Perusage of our language the Revisers are com- haps this was one reason which influenced the pelled, as were the translators of our Author- American committee in their judgment, and ised Version, to drop it immediately after using led them to place on record their preference of it in more instances than need be enumerated. the word "Spirit" throughout. I will take leave to mention only one, which may serve as an illustration also of some other inconveniences accompanying the preference of the word "Ghost." After translating Matt. iii. 11 by "He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire," the Revisers are compelled to drop the word Ghost, and write, he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove." Here, as in the two verses already quoted from the Acts, if they had used the word Spirit in the first verse, there would have been no necessity for any such variation at all. But the course they adopted seems to have had a positively injurious effect on their version in other ways. Thus it entailed the necessity of also inserting the definite article here, although its absence in the original is not without significance, but indicates a certain largeness, traceable also in many other passages, such as we are sensible of when we read let there be light"-not the light. They might, perhaps, have rendered the words by "He shall baptize you with Holy Spirit and fire," but they could not say, "He shall baptize you with Holy Ghost and fire." Possibly, also, it may have had some influence in determining them to render ev by "with," although the preposition "in" would seem perfectly allowable here, and more truly express the contrast between immersion in water and immersion in Holy Spirit and fire. Not that even the word "Spirit" is a perfect equivalent for or veûua. It has practically lost for us that physical sense of breath or wind which still clings to them, and enabled the hearers of the Baptist to feel that there was a metaphor in Tveiμa as well as in rup, and that each alike was contrasted in a metaphorical sense with dwp in its literal sense. To them he seemed to say, "I indeed baptize you in water, but he shall baptize you in holy wind (or breath) and fire." The consciousness of a metaphor would not impair their sense of some great reality behind it, but it would probably have the effect of lifting their imaginations up from any material baptism at all to one which was wholly spiritual. But I quite admit that it was not in the power of the Revisers to convey to English readers by any one word the full effect of the language of the Baptist on his hearers. They could not well employ here either "breath" or 66 wind." It is simply one of those innumerable cases in which the usages of speech differ so widely in different languages that no one word will adequately convey in one the sense of what is, However that may be, there are reasons enough without that, as it seems to me, why we may well concur with them in their opinion, and view with deep regret the resistance of our Revisers to their wishes. CLEMENT B. HUE. THE GEOGRAPHY OF EARLY ENGLAND. London: Aug. 25, 1881. The remarks in a letter addressed to the ACADEMY of the 13th inst. by Mr. Henry Bradley, respecting the shortcomings of the Map of the British Isles before the Norman Conquest" in Spruner's Historical Atlas, will be heartily responded to by a wide circle of readers. The mixture of languages and jumble of centureies, perhaps, more conspicuous on the border-land of Devon and Cornwall than elsewhere; while the name for the county of Devon which has been evolved out of the map-maker's consciousness, is a marvel of perverted ingenuity. A method of improving the state of the case that suggests itself is the following. Let a date be taken, say the year 1000; and let a blank map of each county, or small group of counties, having only hills and rivers marked, and drawn on the same scale, be committed to someone specially acquainted with the history of that locality to be filled in. A set of instructions should accompany as that all names of places are to be inserted that are to be found in any English or Saxon chronicles, histories, charters, wills, or manumissions of any age from 450 to 1000; the spelling to be that of the year 1000, or Nennius, and fabulous and spurious histories as near to it as possible; pre-Saxon writers like and instruments, to be excluded; Latin names to be kept out; Norman and Domesday spellings to be avoided; questionable sites not to be marked, but to be adverted to in a written appendix accompanying the returned map; the whole to be edited by a single person, or by a have to exercise judgment as to the insertion of committee of three qualified persons, who will important, and the omission of insignificant, names. Then, and perhaps not until then, will a map of Anglo-Saxon England be constructed worthy of the name. For all present needs, there seems no reason why the whole of the Anglo-Saxon period should not be comprised in one map. Double-named places, like Whitby and Christchurch, Hants, might have both their names inserted, one above the other. J. B. DAVIDSON. THE LATE DATE OF OUR HOMER. Combe Vicarage, near Woodstock: Aug. 22, 1881. In the ACADEMY of August 20 Prof. Sayce (in his review of Paley's Bibliographia Graeca) says that he has been driven at last, by what seems to him an overwhelming weight of philological evidence, to adopt Prof. Paley's opinion as to the late date of our existing Homer. language of the poems, and to his speaking of By way of supplement to his remarks on the the care taken not to allude to writing being tiquity which they offer," I would mention an "one of the many illustrations of affected anobservation of Coleridge, given in his Table-talk (January 4, 1823): I confess I doubt the Homeric genuineness of Sanpudev yeλáσaσa [Il. vi. 484]. It sounds to me much more like a prettiness of Bion or Moschus." Perhaps this observation, in a book I read as a boy, drew my attention to the questionableness of the commonly received antiquity of our Homer. Be this as it may, I was struck with it long ago, and my subsequent studies have strengthened the impression. As to the very outset of the Iliad, the address there to the Muse does not seem to me to smack of very high antiquity. I would add that there is, I think, an un-antique artificialness, as well as an un-Homeric subjectivity (if there is in actual existence such a thing as "the Homeric "), in the lines invoking and lauding the Muses which usher in the Achaean muster-roll (Il. ii. 484-93). I scarce need say that the mention of the Muses in the last book of the Odyssey (Od. xxiv. 60-62) is well-nigh admitted to be an interpolation. But the subject is too large for a little appendage to an article. JOHN HOSKYNS-ABRAHALL. SCIENCE. A Handbook of the Vertebrate Fauna of Ir was a happy thought of Messrs. Clarke and Roebuck to put out this Handbook in time to aid the many naturalists who will make incursions into the queen of all the shires on this side Trent," as Drayton calls Yorkshire, during the visit of the British Association to its capital. Much has been done of late years to illustrate the flora and fauna of the county; and the compilers of the useful lists before us have largely benefited by the writings of their predecessors in this subject, as well as by the assistance of many living zoologists. They have adopted the best modern classifications of vertebrates, and paid every attention to avoid mistakes in printing. a volume which cannot fail to be serviceable The result is a very creditable piece of work; to science, by showing concisely what has already been effected in studying the fauna of Yorkshire, and to what points future observers should direct their attention. Without any verbiage or attempts at fine writing, lists of the Yorkshire mammals, birds, reptiles, the compilers go direct to their mark, to give and fishes; and to point out what species are now found in the county, with occasional notes on their more important members. A few words are also appended, mostly borrowed from Mr. Harting's book, on those species which have become extinct within the historical period. It is now a simple matter for the naturalist who uses this book to obtain a conspectus of the fauna of Yorkshire, AUG. 27, 1881.-No. 486.] Would that some other important tracts of fresh-water fish are found, the barbel being the kingdom were surveyed by equally capable writers! A glance at a geological map of Yorkshire shows that this great county of 6,150 square miles, "a kingdom that doth seem a province at the least," is in truth an epitome of English strata and a natural division of the island, rivers, sea, and mountains combining to enclose it. Between the drift and postTertiary land of Holderness to the Palaeozoic formations of the north-west corner of the shire, chalk, oolite, new red sandstone, the coal measures, and mill-stone grits are successively represented, each, with its peculiar physical character, offering an appropriate home to distinct floras and classes of animals and birds. It is not surprising, therefore, to find a large proportion of the whole fauna of the British Isles domiciled in this province. The tables of this Handbook enable us to express it more exactly. Thus, 46 of the 72 British species of mammals occur in Yorkshire, 307 of 380 birds, 10 of 16 reptiles, and 148 of 249 fishes; or 513 out of the total of 717 species contained in the British fauna. Devon and Cornwall is probably the only other British natural-history province which could be compared for richness with Yorkshire. Norfolk, indeed, may vie with it as regards birds, but the bold headland of Flamborough probably invites not only more birds on migration but also more distinguished strangers than the sandy flats of the Southern shire. Some of our rarest birds have been obtained in the district surrounding Yorkshire's great chalk promontory. The county at large can boast four birds which were procured in it and are unique in Great Britainthe lesser kestrel, the mottled owl, Bulwer's petrel, and the cuneate-tailed gull. After an excellent Introduction on the physical characteristics of Yorkshire, Messrs. Clarke and Roebuck begin with the mammals. Among much of extreme interest to naturalists we shall only pick out a plum here and there. Thus, the wild cat was trapped for the last time in the county at Murton about 1840. The Hambleton Hills were its latest haunt; but, to omit antiquarian notices, the celebrated legend of the Cresacre family at Barnborough may fairly be accepted as a sign of its wider dissemination. The last of the so-called wild white cattle of the shire was killed in 1859 in consequence of the degeneration of the breed. Gisburn Park and Burton Constable thus lost their great ornaments. The roedeer is now only known in a domesticated state. The dormouse is found in the county, though it does not extend into Scotland, and is, curiously enough, absent from Norfolk. Among reptiles, with the exception of two cheloniads, the leathery and the hawk's bill turtle-accidental visitors from tropic seas-there is not much that calls for remark in the Yorkshire fauna, save that the very local natterjack toad has recently been added to it by Mr. Roebuck. It is somewhat scarce, but yet a native of Mytton on the Lancashire border. Bell gives another habitat for it on the shores of the Solway Frith. A rich list of fishes is obtained from the North Sea, owing to the long seaboard of the At Malton numerous species of County, Banks's probably the only one wanting. oar-fish may be named as being occasionally cast up on the coast. The trout and grayling of the interior are celebrated. For an account of the singular malformation of the trout in Malham Tarn, the reader must be referred to the Handbook. The compilers have naturally bestowed much attention on the birds of the county; and the pages devoted to this part of their subject are fuller and, to our mind, more interesting than the rest of the book. That Scandinavian form of the common dipper, Cinclus melanogaster, has been obtained The several times in the East Riding. nightingale finds its Northern British limit some twenty-one miles north of York. The Dartford warbler has been seen on more than one occasion in the extreme south of the county. The pied flycatcher is numerous, if local. That graceful little bird, the goldfinch, we regret to learn is becoming scarce, as in so many other localities-a victim to modern farming and indiscriminate shooting before the Bird Bill protected it. A very few ravens yet breed on the north-western fells, and there are suspicions that a pair may exist in Cleveland. The three harriers are now very seldom obtained; 1840 was the last year in which the avocet is known to have bred in England; its nest was on a sandy island at the mouth of the Trent. Many interesting notices are brought together in the Handbook concerning the great bustard, which was known on the Yorkshire Wolds in the first quarter of the century. It may be hoped that more information on this now extinct bird will come in to the compilers from game lists, old letters, and the like, these consequence of notices being in printed. We might dwell at length on many more topics-antiquarian details about the cost of wild fowl in old days, decoys, heronries, the seals which used to frequent the coast, or decrease at the respective increase present of different Yorkshire species of vertebrates; but here we stop, trusting that we have sufficiently whetted the appetites of many English naturalists and directed them to this carefully written book for satisfaction. Perhaps some zoologists may find their way from York during the excursions of the next fortnight to the cliffs of Flamborough. While studying the enormous assemblage of seabirds (if the gunners from the large Midland towns have not frightened them from their haunts) under Messrs. Clarke and Roebuck's auspices, it may be hoped that "Amongst the white-scalped cleeves this wonder see they may, The Mullet and the Awke, my fowlers there do find, Of all Great Britain brood, birds of the strangest kind, That building in the rocks, being taken with the hand, And cast beyond the cliff that pointeth to the land, Fall instantly to ground, as though it were a stone; But put out to the sea, they instantly are gone, M. G. WATKINS. THE NEW FRENCH ANTHROPOLOGICAL DICTIONARY. Dictionnaire des Sciences anthropologiques. 1ro livraison. A-AM. (Paris: Octave Doin.) THIS dictionary of anthropological science, of which the first part has just been issued at Paris, will excite some interest, not only by reason of the want that is felt of such a work, but also on account of the high reputations of some of the contributors. It would be difficult to discover a work which is more needed than a dictionary of anthropology, embracing, as the title-page of this livraison indicates, ethnography, manners, laws, arts, industries, religions, archaeology, philology, and anatomy; and, it may be added, one which demands more care and caution in its execution. Anthropological science, than which none is more generally valuable, has steadily progressed of late years, and it is very important to have the latest results in all its branches collected in the convenient form of an encyclopaedia. If M. Letourneau and his colleagues succeed in doing this, they will deserve well of the Republic which they adorn. But it is necessary, before we thank them, to be quite sure they have really accomplished what is required to examine whether they have entered upon their work in that spirit of sound research which is essential to scientific exposition, even in a popular form; and whether they have kept pace with the times, and have made themselves duly acquainted with the most recent discoveries. Without the fulfilment of these two conditions-a scientific spirit and adequate knowledge their work would be of small service. In a dictionary we require all attainable facts, and their reasonable explanations, set forth plainly and impartially. If the facts are scanty and the explanations defective, or if both are permeated by the spirit of party, which gathers instances in order to support foregone conclusions, the work will be worse than useless. Unhappily, the Dictionnaire des Sciences anthropologiques is open to criticism on both these heads. It is the fashion to think that the casting off of religious belief frees the mind at the same time from all prejudice and bigotry. This work, however, reminds us that there is a fanaticism of unbelief as well as of faith. It is possible to be a materialist, and yet to see things in a perverted light; unconsciously to twist facts to agree with fanatical prejudices, and to treat scientific subjects on an a priori theory which is deaf to reason. The gentlemen and scholars who edit and contribute to the new anthropological dictionary all belong to the French materialist school. So great is their unanimity that nothing will be found in their writings which conflicts with their theory of the universe; their facts are chosen to the one end of proving a theorem accepted before they began. It is foreign to our object to discuss this materialist theorem, but it may surely be urged that there is want of dignity in a scientific work which loses no opportunity of making a side-thrust at Christianity. It is not worthy of a professedly serious contribution to science to include in the article 164 on "Ages (fabuleux)" such a sentence as without serious examination, so that one "Quatre mille ans avant notre ère les grandes 99 66 But, on the second count, it is impossible to acquit the writers of carelessness and neglect of the means of knowledge. On many subjects they are altogether out of date. Such articles as "Abor," ""Aka," Ahoms,' "Aléontes" (in which nothing is said of the people who speak the Aleonte language), are quite obsolete; and the writer of the article "Accadien" is apparently unaware of the discoveries of last year, and confuses the Accadian and Sumerian dialects together. Five lines are given to "Akra," although we have grammars and vocabularies of the language, which is, moreover, peculiarly interesting in its phonetics. It may be demanded in a dictionary that some consistency be observed; but we find the article "Afrique (Ethnographie)" mentioning "un lien intime entre toutes les langues de l'Afrique," while in "Afrique (Langues de l')" it is stated that "la plus grande partie de ces idiomes sont certainement indépendants les uns des autres;" and the classifications of languages in the two articles differ essentially. The same want of system is to be observed in the transliteration of foreign names. Why give Achantis and Aschantis, sechuana and sétchouana? A very serious fault is the almost entire absence of references to authorities-except the works of collaborateurs, such as M. Hovelacque's Avesta, which is referred to in preference to the great work of u Harlez; but M. Hovelacque is a contributor to the dictionary. We do not wish to say that the new Dictionnaire des Sciences anthropologiques is disappointing in every part of its first number. There are able articles, like M. Picot's "Albanaïs," ," which is well arranged, and the rare merit of indicating the possesses M. G. du Mortillet conproper authorities. tributes several excellent notices, among which "Ambie" and "Alignement" may be specified. But, as a whole, the dictionary is not a scientific work. It is written with a strong bias in favour of certain theories, and its authors are often not sufficiently well-read in their subjects to know the danger of cantering over slippery ground. The general tone is light and the treatment sketchy. It is the writing of journalists, in appearance, rather than of savants. The articles of M. Ch. Letourneau may be taken as examples of what to avoid. They are strongly marked by fanaticism; they contain only such facts as suit the preconceived theory of the writer, selected TERRIEN DE LA COUPERIE. CURRENT SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. Report of the Migration of Birds in the Spring October 1880. There is doubtless much mor- Mr. geological societies is that of Glasgow. OBITUARY. CAPT. POPELIN. ONLY last week we announced the death of Dr. P. Matteucci, the Italian traveller, who was the first European to cross Northern Africa from the Red Sea to the Gulf of Guinea, and who landed in England only to die of fever. We now learn from the Independence belge that the homicidal enthusiasm of African travel has claimed a fresh victim in Capt. Emile Popelin, the leader of the second Belgian Central Africa. The news expedition to comes by telegraph from Zanzibar. The cause of death assigned is fever (from which he is known to have long suffered), aggravated by disease of the liver; but the actual place of death is not given. It may be assumed to be on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, where Capt. Popelin had proposed to establish a new station on the western side, opposite Karema, but somewhat more to the north. Capt. Popelin was young, having been born in 1847, but not so young as Dr. Matteucci, who was only twenty-nine years old when he died. He first went to Africa in 1879; and was expecting to be relieved next spring by Capt. Hansens, who has already left for Zanzibar. NOTES OF TRAVEL. AT the jubilee meeting of the British Association, which will open next week at York, we believe that some interesting papers will be read in the Geographical section, reviewing the progress in our knowledge of the geography of various parts of the world during the past halfcentury. Asia and Africa will be respectively dealt with by Sir Richard Temple and the Rev. Horace Waller; Mr. Clements R. Markham will naturally discourse on the Arctic regions; and oceanic discovery in all its phases will be undertaken by Sir F. J. O. Evans, the Hydrographer of the Admiralty. FROM time immemorial, we believe, it has been customary for the Hydrographer of the Admiralty to make his annual Report, not to his official superiors, but to the President of the Royal Geographical Society, in whose was always incoranniversary address it porated in extenso. The arrangement was, By no doubt, an irregular one; but this year Among the Rocks around Glasgow. Dugald Bell. (Glasgow: James MacLehose.) the Report was missed from its usual place, One of the most vigorous of our provincial and has for the first time appeared as a parliamentary paper. One of the most interesting parts of the Report deals with the surveying operations of H.M.S. Alert in Magellan Strait, and her subsequent voyage across the South Pacific Ocean. The account of the voyage of Staff-Commander Boulton along the little-known north-east coast of Labrador is, perhaps, of more general interest. Advantage was taken, we learn, of the yearly visit of the Hudson's Bay Company's steamer Labrador to their extreme settlement in Ungava Bay, in the south of Hudson's Straits, to despatch that officer to make such partial surveys as the occasion afforded. During this interesting trip, which occupied thirty-seven days, he was able to assign fairly exact positions to many of the principal headlands and outlying islands, and to make many useful geographical observations. His account of the climate is not attractive, as during August small icebergs were seen, and ice formed during the night in Nachvak Bay. Between Koksoak River, the extreme point reached, and Cape Chudleigh, and thence also to Nachvak Bay (N. lat. 59°), E-kimo are the sole inhabitants. It is worthy of note that, owing to the absence of trees, firewood is one of the annual supplies sent to the station in Nachvak Bay. During the long winter season intercourse is occasionally kept up by means of dog-sledges between the various posts and missionary stations from N. lat. 54° to 59°. THE Pope has lately appointed M. d'Abbadie, the well-known explorer, a commander of the Order of St. Gregory the Great, and, as a special attention, sent the insignia to him by the hands of Mgr. Massaja, formerly Vicar-General of the Galla country. M. d'Abbadie, it may be remembered, spent ten years in travelling through Abyssinia, and it was almost entirely through him that a missionary expedition was sent to the Galla country. M. GEORGES REVOIL, whose return from Somali-land we recorded last week, has already given some account of his scientific expedition in that country before the Marseilles Geographical Society, to which he had been indebted for a useful loan of instruments. M. Revoil gave a general sketch of his route, which traversed the whole of the country inhabited by the chief Somali tribes. Systematic opposition to his farther advance beyond the Karkar Mountains compelled him to return to the coast, where by chance he claims to have made a very interesting discovery. In a tumulus which he had an opportunity of opening and examining, he found some remains which he believes to point to the existence of a Greek colony on the coast; and he thinks that their descendants are still to be found in a lightcoloured Galla tribe living farther south. THE Rev. W. Deans Cowan, of the London Missionary Society, has just published at Faravohitra, Madagascar, a brochure entitled The Tanala, giving a general description of the Tanala country and the people in that island, but reserving for a future occasion the various customs and ceremonies of the inhabitants. The paper before us is illustrated by a sketch-map of the south-east province of Madagascar from Mr. Cowan's own surveys; and it is interesting to note that this map was drawn on stone by Bajemisa, presumably a native of Madagascar. Mr. Cowan has also published, at Antananarivo, a list of Madagascar birds, together with the native names among a few of the different tr.bes. Iv order to bring the Argentine Republic Finently before European readers, the National Government have just published at Buenos Ayres translations in English, French, German, and Italian of a portion of the Visconde o Januario's Report on his mission to the republics of South America in 1878-79. This contains some interesting information in regard to the geographical situation, territory, and climate of the Argentine Republic, and the formation of the pampas is also referred to. SCIENCE NOTES. The Origin of Split Boulders.-Large boulders of hard rock, such as carboniferous limestone and silurian grit, are not unfrequently found scattered over the surface of the northern part of Lancashire and the neighbouring border of Yorkshire. It is notable that some of these boulders are split completely through, the fragments being either scattered about or still held in apposition. Dr. Ricketts, of Birkenhead, has contributed an interesting paper on this subject to the Liverpool Geological Society, which has been printed, with illustrations, in the society's Proceedings. It has been suggested that the boulders may have been split by a fall from a height at the end of a glacier, or from a high cliff, or may have been shattered by the impact of the ice, in which they were embedded, against a ledge of rock. But the boulders offer no evidence of having been subjected to such rough treatment; and Dr. Ricketts therefore concludes that the splitting must be due, not to any sudden shock, but simply to the long-continued action of atmospheric agencies, such as successive variations of temperature and moisture, frost and thaw, which would produce frequent expansions and contractions of the rock, especially if joints originally existed in the boulders. A COMPLETE programme of the local arrangements in connexion with the jubilee meeting of the British Association in York, from August 31 to September 7, has been issued by the hou. local secretaries, the Rev. T. Adams and Dr. zoology of Yorkshire is contributed by Mr. W. Tempest Anderson. A short chapter on the Eagle Clarke and Mr. W. Denison Roebuck (being a condensation of the volume reviewed in the ACADEMY this week), and one on the botany of the district by Mr. Thomas Gough, B.Sc. An interesting sketch of the York founders of the Association is written by Archdeacon Hay. The Archbishop of York is the president of the local executive committee; the acting-chairman is the Lord Mayor of York. The first general meeting will be held on Wednesday, August 31, at eight p.m., in the Exhibition building, when Mr. A. C. Ramsay, Director-General of the Geological Survey of the United Kingdom, will resign the chair; and Sir John Lubbock, president-elect, will assume the presidency, and deliver an address. On Thursday evening there will be a soirée in the assembly rooms and concert rooms; on Friday evening, Prof. Huxley will give a discourse on the "Rise and Progress of Palaeontology." On Saturday evening, Prof. Osborne Reynolds will deliver a lecture to the operative classes. On Monday evening, Mr. Spottiswoode, President of the Royal Society, will give an address on the "Electric Discharge: its Forms and its Functions." On Tuesday evening there will be a soirée. On Wednesday, September 7, the concluding general meeting will be held at 2.30 p.m. THE General Bibliography of Astronomy, which is now in course of publication by M. Havermans, of Brussels, under the editorship of MM. Houzeau and Lancaster, has now reached the third part of the second volume. THE Royal Zoological Society of Amsterdam has just published a catalogue of its library, containing 4,361 works in Dutch, Latin, and various other languages. PHILOLOGY NOTES. MR. HENRY SWEET will read a paper next session at the Philological Society on the Welsh verb and on Welsh genders. It seems that you cannot apply a participial adjective to a noun ; and the genders are capricious. English nouns adapted into Welsh follow the genders of the Welsh words they displace. MISS JANE LEE, the learned daughter of the Archdeacon of Dublin, was charged by her old teacher, Prof. Benfey, before his death, to English the whole of the great Sanskrit epic, the Mahabharata, 80,000 lines, as only fragments of it had been translated before. Miss Lee has begun her task. She is also to help Prof. Atkinson in his Old-Irish Dictionary for the Royal Irish Academy; and she will probably contribute papers to the New Shakspere and the Browning Societies during the ensuing session. M. GEORGES EDON recently read a paper before the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, which occupied two meetings, upon certain violations of the law of quantity to be found in early Latin poets, chiefly in Plautus and Terence. The cases considered may be exemplified by those in which the second e of senectutem and the second a in amat me, though both long by position, are required to be short by the metre of the lines in which the words occur. After rejecting the explanation of some German philologists, notably Corsen, that one long syllable ought to be read instead of two short ones, by the omission of a vowel, so as to We make "snectutem" and "amt me," M. Edon suggested his own theory-that where, in the comic poets, a vowel before two consonants remains short, one of the two consonants was in popular pronunciation mute, and that the poets followed this popular pronunciation. should thus have sene'tutem" and "ama' me." from Marius Victorinus, who says that, to avoid In support of this theory, M. Edon quoted the lengthening of a short syllable before two initial consonants in dactyllic poetry, flagello and graves ought to be pronounced as "fagello Lucan's line ending distincta smaragdo requires gaves; and Priscian's dictum, that the s of smaragdo to be lost. He also adduced where consonants are dropped, from which numerous examples from MSS. and inscriptions he argued that these consonants were probably also dropped in popular pronunciation. M. Edon referred the origin of this ingenious speculation to a hint of M. Baudry. and 66 UNDER the title of "Grande Bibliothèque provençale," M. Albert Savine, of Aix, proposes to publish a series of volumes containing documents, either rare or hitherto unedited, relating to Provence. Each volume will consist of a text, carefully edited, with a few notes, together with a biographical, and where necessary a bibliographical, notice. The first of the series will be a narrative, hitherto unpublished, of the disturbances of 1648. ON August 14, a bronze bust of J. J. Courtaud-Diverneresse, the Greek grammarian, was inaugurated at his native town of Felletin, in the department of Creuse. Part of the expense was defrayed by the French Government; the rest of the money required was got together by a committee, presided over by M. Egger. The sculptor was M. Cougny. AMONG the recent publications of M. Ernest Leroux are the first series of the selected works of the late A. J. Letroune, consisting of two volumes, entitled Egypte ancienne, edited, with an Index, by M. Fagnan, with a portrait by Delaroche; the first part of M. Barbier de Meynard's Turko-French Dictionary; and the Sefer Nameh, or narrative of the travels of Nassiri Khosrau in Syria, Palestine, Egypt, |