Emma Ebsworth, widow of Joseph Ebsworth, professor of music (who died at Edinburgh in 1868), and mother of the Rev. J. Woodfall Ebsworth, the well-known antiquary, and Vicar of Molash, in Kent. Mrs. Ebsworth was herself the author of many successful dramas, several of which have been printed and reprinted, as well as acted. Among these we may mention The Two Brothers of Pisa; Ourika, the Orphan of Senegal; and Payable at Sight. She also wrote other plays in conjunction with her husband. She died in London, at the residence of her daughter, on the night of October 14, having just completed her eighty-seventh year.

WEINHOLD, A. F. Physikalische Demonstrationen. 3. Lfg.
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WE have received news from Bern of the sudden death, in his forty-third year, of Dr. BELJAME, A. Rudolf O. Ziegler, the editor of the Sonntagsblatt of the "Band" of Bern. Dr. Ziegler was one of the ablest of the modern Swiss school of novelists who follow in the footsteps of Jakob Frey, his predecessor as editor of the Sonntagsblatt, and Arthur Bitter. He was both a realist and humorist. Dr. Ziegler was a native of Solothurn, and practised for some time as a physician in that town. He was for many years an esteemed feuilletonist on some of the German and Swiss papers. A collection of his tales and essays, in three volumes, under the general title of Heinrath und Fremde, was published by Hallberger, of Stuttgart, in 1876. Dr. Ziegler was a devoted Old Catholic, and President of the Catholic Kirchgemeinde of the city of Bern.

MAGAZINES AND REVIEWS. QUARTERLY issue, part ii., of the Western Antiquary; or, Devon and Cornwall Note-book, is now to hand. Mr. Wright, the indefatigable editor, has spared no pains to make the number as full of value and interest as possible; and the embellishments which adorn its pages are both ably executed and of permanent value. Since the appearance of Mr. Andrews' Punishments in the Olden Time, much attention has been directed towards this subject, as the pages of the Western Antiquary will show. As Mr. Andrews subscribes for this publication, he will be able to share the fruits of brotherly toil in places inaccessible to himself directly. It would be impossible to note more than a few of the many interesting questions dealt with in these pages, the great majority of which are of more than local value and interest. Pedigrees and heraldry come in for a good share of notice; and as families are now widely scattered, and persons in the North, East, and South hail from the West, it often happens that such notices as these elicit much valuable information. Some of the local customs in the West, like many of the words in common use, have a long and interesting history, and help towards their study is here afforded. It is to be hoped that the number of subscribers will be sufficient to pay for the undertaking; and such an issue as the one before us is in itself almost worth the yearly subscription.

THE Deutsche Rundschau opens with a pretty little story of Paul Heyse. Its most noticeable article is on "Gambetta," by the Freiherr von der Goltz, who amply recognises the integrity and patriotism of Gambetta's policy, but points out the analogy between his position to-day and that of Napoleon III. twenty years ago; the problem is to put France on a contented and peaceable basis. Herr Ferdinand Hiller begins a series of articles called "Besuche im Jenseits," which are meant to be amusing reflections on society and literature and music, thrown into the form of a conversation in dream-land with Heine, Spohr, and other celebrities; they lack lightness of touch necessary to carry off the artificial form. An article on "The Emperor Nicolas of Russia and the July Revolution

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CORRESPONDENCE.

THE RECENT DISCOVERIES AT THEBES.

Malagny, near Geneva: Oct. 10, 1881. Allow me to add a few remarks to the most interesting articles of Miss Amelia B. Edwards on the recent discoveries at Thebes.

It is quite certain that the papyrus belonging to H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, and the papyrus at Paris of the Queen Netém or Netémt, are the two halves of one single roll which has been cut in two by the Arabs. It has been written for the first Queen of the Twenty-first Dynasty, whose name reads Netém, or more accurately Netémt, if the final t was pronounced, which seems to me doubtful. In her cartouche her name is generally preceded by the signs of the plant and the vulture, which read Suten Mut, the royal mother. These two signs are not part of the name; they are the first title of the lady, and as such are enclosed in the cartouche. A similar instance occurs in the case of the mother of Ramses II., Queen Tua, whose cartouche is written either Tua or Mut Tua, the mother Tua. At the end of the papyrus, where the titles of the Queen are stated in full, her name is only Netémt, without the usual Suten Mut, which seems to me a sufficient proof that those words do not belong Nor can I admit the reading to the name itself. Netémt Mut, or Notemit Maut, which would be the name of the last Queen of the Eighteenth Dynasty, the wife of Horemheb. I see no reason for omitting the sign of the plant, which reads Suten, especially as in the course of the text it is found with the two complementary signs t and n, Suten. I therefore read the name of the Queen Suten Mut Netémt, the royal mother Netémt. I still adhere to the view which I have advocated elsewhere, that she was the mother of Her Hor, and that, transmitted her rights to her son, who was not belonging to the family of the Ramessides, she a mere usurper, as was supposed until the papyrus was discovered.

As for the text itself, it bears the character of the funereal texts of the Twenty-first Dynasty. It is written by a scribe who did not understand the signs which he copied, and therefore it is full of gross mistakes. It had probably been in the first instance for some dead who not a member of the royal family. Like several papyri of the

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Eighteenth Dynasty, it has two pictures of the weighing of the heart, one towards the beginning, and the other towards the end; the text of the chapter being copied with the last one. A curious fact is that in both pictures the deceased herself is represented in the scale, instead of her heart. Unfortunately, the papyrus is divided between two museums. Such inconveniences are often met with, and I can quote another instance derived from two English collections. The Liverpool Museum has the first part of a papyrus of the Eighteenth Dynasty, the end of which is at the British Museum-No. 9933. It is a very good text, and was written for a man called Aahmes. Most likely his family did not pay for the roll, or they did not like it; for the name was carefully erased everywhere, in order that the papyrus might be sold for another dead person, and there remain only very faint traces of the name of the first

owner.

Miss Edwards has pointed out several objects which may have been found in the tomb at Deir el Bahari, if, as seems likely, that precious mine has been known to the Arabs for at least ten years. There is only one slight error, which arises from a similarity of names. The papyrus of Nebseni-No. 9900 of the British Museum-does not come from the hiding-place at Thebes. The deceased was a priest of Phtah of the Eighteenth Dynasty; and he lived at Memphis, where he was buried, and where his papyrus was found. The Nebseni whose mummy-case has been discovered is the father of a Queen of the Twenty-first Dynasty; we know his name from one of the papyri of Boolak.

It is to be regretted that Anastasy has left us such scanty accounts of the places he excavated. It seems probable that he came across some tombs of the Twenty-first Dynasty. All the mummies of these kings and priests had not been gathered into the tomb of Deir el Bahari, for we know of several objects belonging to them which have been found elsewhere; and some of these objects have been in the museums for more than forty years. Thus one of the large papyri of Leyden-No. iii.-belongs to the priestess of Amen, Taou-Her, whose coffin was lately discovered. We know from her papyrus that her father was Chonsu-Mes and her mother Tentamen. I would refer also to the same family the papyrus of Tsi-em-Cheb, in the British Museum. I dare say that all the large collections have some relics of the family of the high-priests of Amen.

The discoveries made at Thebes furnish striking proof that immense treasures are still buried in the sand of Egypt. There is hardly one spot in Egypt which would not yield important results if it were only properly excavated. I earnestly hope that the successes of M. Maspero may impress upon the mind of of the public in England the necessity of making thorough excavations in the Delta, and chiefly at San, the capital of the Hyksos kings, which has hardly been touched, and where we may reasonably expect to make most interesting discoveries concerning the neighbouring nations of Syria and Palestine. EDOUARD NAVILLE.

AN OLD SYRIAC MS. LOST OR HIDDEN
IN ENGLAND OR IRELAND.

Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge: Oct. 19, 1881.

I have much pleasure in informing Dr. Nestle, with reference to his letter (ACADEMY, October 15), that the Syriac MS. containing the "Invention of the Cross," for which he has so long searched, is, according to all probability, still in existence.

Dr. Nestle was on the right track when he enquired for it at Dublin. In the list of the MSS. of Trinity College, there is one in Syriac, numbered 726 (586) in Bernard's Catalogue, which contains, together with some homilies of Severus and other matter, an article-" De Inventione S. Crucis." I have very little doubt that this was the MS. which Dudley Loftus used for his book entitled A History of the Twofold Invention of the Cross. In his address to the reader, he states that "it is contained in a Bialogie [sic] of Eastern Saints, written in a fair Estrangalar [sic] character." It is true that the former part of this description is, to judge from the printed account, by no means an accurate summing-up of the contents of the MS.; but it may be, to some extent, justified by the character of certain tracts in the volume. That the Dublin MS. is written in Estrangela I can state on the authority of Prof. Wright, who casually looked at it a few years ago.

In conclusion, I may observe, with regard to some incidental remarks of Dr. Nestle, that all the Syriac MSS. of Dr. Huntingdon are not in the Bodleian, for a copy of the Ecclesiastical History of Bar Hebraeus, which once belonged to him, is preserved in the University Library of Cambridge; and, from internal evidence, it may be proved that this was the MS. from which Dudley Loftus made his translation.

BOBT. L. BENSLY.

NUÑEZ DE ARCE.

Fern Bank, Higher Broughton, Manchester:
Oct. 15, 1881.

The readers of the Rev. Wentworth Webster's

interesting notice of Nuñez de Arce will, I think, be glad to see another specimen of that poet's writings, and I therefore send you the latest sonnet he has published. It appeared in El Imparcial of the 10th inst. :

ANTE UNA PIRÁMIDE DE EGIPTO.
Quiso imponer al mundo su memoria
un rey, en su soberbia desmedida,
y por miles de esclavos construida
erigió esta pirámide mortuoria.
¡Sueño estéril y vano! Ya la historia
no recuerda su nombre ni su vida;
que el tiempo ciego, en su veloz corrida,
dejó la tumba y se llevó la gloria.
El polvo que en el hueco de la mano
contempla absorto el caminante; ha sido
parte de un siervo, ó parte del tirano ?
¡Ah! todo va revuelto y confundido;
que guarda Dios para el orgullo humano

sólo una eternidad: la del olvido.

This fine sonnet may be instructively compared with that on Ozymandias, in which Shelley has dealt with the same grand but sombre subject, WILLIAM E. A. AXON.

Vegetable Mould and Earth-worms. Charles Darwin, LL.D., F.R.S., &c. (John Murray.)

his pen, for which all intelligent readers will feel the heavy obligation which they are all the other vast amount of original investigaalready under to him greatly increased. With tion of the utmost importance on his mind, the fruits of which have so deeply affected the world, he has, nevertheless, ever since 1837, when he read a short paper on "The Formation of Mould" before the Geological Society of London, been steadily accumulating the observations and making the experiments the results of which are set forth in the present fascinating volume. We read with astonishment of such experiments as that of his spreading a layer of chalk over a patch in one of his fields in 1842, and patiently awaiting to exhume his result until 1871.

Mr. Darwin has long kept worms in confinement in pots of earth in his study, and the first chapter is devoted to their habits. Worms, though they must be considered as terrestrial animals, are nevertheless able to live under water, and Perrier kept several large worms for nearly four months alive thus submerged. They are nocturnal in their habits, but seldom wander far from their burrows, though sometimes after heavy rain they crawl as great a distance as fifteen yards. They probably then never find their old burrows again, but have to make fresh ones. They often lie for hours almost motionless close beneath the mouths of their burrows, probably, as Mr. Darwin believes, for the sake of warmth. They line the upper parts of their burrows with leaves with great skill and neatness, filling up the interstices between the leaves with small stones and such objects as beads and bits of tile when these are strewed near their burrows. That the tubes are thus lined with leaves is a discovery of Mr. Darwin's. It is in keeping with the great skill in tube marine building exhibited by numerous annelids, though not hitherto suspected of earth-worms. Worms, though destitute of eyes, are not entirely insensible to light. But light takes some time to act upon them, and must be intense to do so. Only the anterior extremity of the worm's body is sensitive to light, which acts apparently directly on the cerebral ganglia. Possibly their progenitors had eyes, which were lost on their taking to underground habits; and the sensitiveness of the cerebral surface may be a last trace of a former more complete power of vision. When the attention of worms is taken up by work at leaf dragging, or some such occupation, their sensibility to light seems to fall into abeyance. Worms kept in the dark, from habit still come out in the night and withdraw into their burrows during the day. Though they are entirely deaf, they are extremely sensitive to vibrations of the earth in which their burrows are made. This was proved by putting two pots of earth with worm burrows in them on a piano. Single notes struck in either bass or treble sent the animals into their holes forthwith. The worms kept in confinement found out little bits of food buried near the mouths of their burrows apparently by means of a sense of smell. They like raw fat better than anything else to eat, and next to that onion. They swallow earth in enormous quantities in digging their holes,

Chequered Career; or, Fifteen Years' Vicissitudes of Life in Australia and New Zealand; and With the Cape Mounted Rifles, by an Ex-Rifle

man.

MR. J. WEMYSS REID, best known for his monograph on Charlotte Brontë, has gone on a holiday excursion to Tunis.

MOST contradictory rumours and hypotheses are being circulated in the United States as to the fate of the Jeannette exploring expedition in the Arctic seas. At the beginning of this month a whaling captain reported at San Francisco having heard from natives of a wreck far to the eastward of Behring Strait; and he advanced the theory that the Jeannette had endeavoured to make her way round North America, mentioning as corroborative evidence that the Indians had shown him a new brass kettle from the wreck, which he believed to be of American manufacture. This was not very satisfactory; and now Prof. Nordenskiöld telegraphs to New York that Capt. Johannesen, of the Lena, which has just returned from Yakutsk, reports having heard from a native that a steamer, supposed to be the Jeannette, was seen at the mouth of the Lena on September 13, 1879. The Louise again, whose return to Hammerfest we have lately recorded, brings the news that some Samoyedes from the mouth of the Yenisei last winter found two European corpses; and, as no European crew is known to have been lost there last year, these are believed to have belonged to the Jeannette expedition. Capt. Johannesen's supposition seems to be quite untenable, for, unless we are much mistaken, the Jeannette was seen by a whaler not far from Wrangel Land on September 2, 1879; and a letter from Capt. de Long, written from Cape Serdze Kamen on August 29, 1879, reached New York last year. These facts taken together show almost conclusively that the Jeannette could not have reached the Lena by September 13, 1879.

COMMENTING on the above telegram from Prof. Nordenskiöld, an evidently inexperienced writer in the Times seizes the opportunity of giving the world his views of American Polar expeditions, which will certainly be read with amazement on the other side of the Atlantic. He tells us that nothing has yet been heard of the Jeannette relief expedition in the United States steamer Rodgers, which left San Francisco last June, while news of her was published in the ACADEMY of October 1. Again, he speaks of the well-known revenue cutter Thomas Corwin as the Cowan; but, worst of all, he says that the objects of Lieut. Greely's party at Lady Franklin Bay "have not been very definitely stated." Clearly he has never heard of Polar stations and observatories.

AN evening contemporary lately published some particulars respecting four Belgian expeditions which were to start simultaneously from various parts of Africa. The names of the leaders of these, as well as their routes, were given. Unfortunately, the writer omitted to verify the statements of the Brussels papers from which he obtained his startling news, for which one of the supposed leaders says there

is no foundation whatever.

THE Canadian Department of the Interior has published its new map of the North-west territories, and it is stated that another edition will shortly be issued showing the route of the Pacific Railway.

NEWS has been received of Herr Carl Bock, whose book on Borneo has just been issued by Messrs. Sampson Low and Co. He is now engaged in explorations in Siam, and has lately been collecting specimens of the fauna of the West coast. As soon as the rainy season is

over, he intends going to the Northern interior, where he will remain several months.

THE Paris Municipality have lately published an atlas containing reproductions of all the known old maps of the city at various periods, and they have also in preparation a work on the topography of ancient Paris.

THE new number of the Revue scientifique contains a long article on the geography, races, and explorers of New Guinea, by M. Ad. T. de Fontpertuis, who starts rather badly by speaking of Mr. A. R. Wallace as "M. William Russell Wallace."

SCIENCE NOTES.

Embryonic Trilobites.—In the current number of the American Journal of Science Mr. S. W. Ford describes and figures some interesting embryonic forms of trilobites, which he has lately obtained from the Primordial rocks of Troy, in New York. His specimens belong to the genus Olenellus, and serve to show that the macropleural and brachypleural types under this genus can no longer be regarded as indicative of fixed groups. Some of the deeper problems of organic evolution suggested by these specimens are briefly discussed, and the importance of fossil embryonic forms strongly insisted on.

GONVILLE AND CAIUS COLLEGE, Cambridge, has taken a noteworthy step by transforming encouragement of original research. In place an effete lectureship into a fund for the of what is known as the Thurston Speech, the governing body have decided that in future there shall be given triennially about £54 in money, or in any other form that may be who has published in the course of the prethought best, to that member of the college ceding three years the best original investigation in physiology (including physiological chemistry), pathology, or practical medicine, the person to whom the prize is awarded being required to give an account of his investigation in the form of a lecture (or otherwise as the governing body may think best) in the college.

THE Smithsonian Institution will issue during the present year Prof. S. H. Scudder's Index of names used for genera in zoology; new tables of the rainfall, with charts of the precipitation of moisture from the air during the four seasons, by Mr. Charles A. Schott; a Nomenclature of American Birds, by Mr. Robert Ridgway; a synopsis of the fishes of North America, by Prof. D. S. Jordan; and directions for collecting specimens of natural history, with special referRathban. ence to deep-sea dredging, by Mr. Richard

"conduit ""

PHILOLOGY NOTES.

M. DEREMBOURG has read a paper before the Académie des Inscriptions advocating the high antiquity of the Siloam inscription. He first showed that the word Siloah meant or" tunnel," and must consequently have been applied to the locality after the construction of the tunnel, the excavation of which is recorded by the inscription. He then pointed out that "the waters of Shiloah" are alluded to by Isaiah (viii. 6) in the time of Ahaz as though the name were already a well-known one, and that consequently both tunnel and inscription must belong to an earlier period-at least as far back as the beginning of the ninth

century B.C.

PROF. ZUPITZA, of Berlin, is seeing through the press the last sheets of his new editions both of Koch's Historical English Grammar, vol. i., and his own Specimens of Old and Middle English. He has also done good part of the transliteration of, and critical notes on,

the autotype facsimiles of the unique MS. of Beowulf, which he and Prof. Müllenhoff are editing for the Early-English Text Society.

DR. CARL ABEL's Origin of Language, with other linguistic essays, having already passed through three editions in Germany, will shortly appear in English, from the house of Messrs. Trübner.

THE twelfth volume of the Journal of the

American Oriental Society, a work of 383 pages in double column, consists of Prof. Whitney's Index Verborum to the published text of the Atharva Veda. The printing throughout is in Roman characters. Apart from certain specified exceptions, this Index is intended to be absolutely exhaustive, every word and form being given in every instance of its occurrence.

THE professors and students of the philological faculty at Jena have begun to publish, with Teubner, a periodical under the title of Commentationes philologicae Tenenses.

THE last addition to the 66 orientale elzévirenne" (Paris: Leroux), forming Bibliothèque the thirty-first volume, is the Kitabi Kulsum Naneh, or Book of the Persian Ladies, translated, with notes, by M. J. Thonnelier.

MEETINGS OF SOCIETIES. NEW SHAKSPERE SOCIETY.-(Friday, Oct. 14.) OPENING meeting of the ninth session.—Mr. FURsteter, one of the society's French vice-presidents, NIVALL, Director, in the Chair.-M. James Darme

was present.-In the words of the committee's

Report, the Chairman proposed, and Dr. P. Bayne seconded, the following resolutions, which were :- "(1) That the New Shakcarried unanimously Garfield, its heartfelt sympathy with them in the pere Society desires to express to Mrs. Garfield and her family, and to the mother of the late President grievous' loss which they have sustained by the death of the late President of the United States,

long a member of this society. (2) That as a slight tribute of admiration for the loving devotion shown by Mrs. Garfield during the long and painful illness of the late President, she be, and hereby is, elected the first honorary member of the New Shakspere Garfield's connexion with Hiram College, U.S.A., Society. (3) That in memory of the late President of the society's publications be presented to and with the New Shakspere Society, a set the library of the said college. (4) That H.R.H. Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, one of the vice-presidents of the society, be requested to communicate these resolutions to Mrs. Garfield." The rest of the Report was then read, commenting on the deaths of the society's late members, James Spedding, Tom Taylor, and Richard Johnson (the donor of the edition of The Two Noble Kinsmen); reviewing with gratification the society's eight years' work-its publications, branches, prizes, &c. ; and announcing that a Monthly Abstract of Proceedings would be published.-The paper read was by Mr. J. W. Mills, B.A., "I have much to say in the behalf of that Falstaff." Mr. Mills not only contended that Falstaff was a blessing to humanity, on account of the unceasing merriment he provided them, but that the fat knight's account of his own delinquencies was so greatly and humorously exaggerated that the present age-which was full of hypocritical vices and basenesses-had no right to flout Falstaff for his sins of the flesh. also argued that Falstaff was no coward, that all his inferiors loved him, and that he was, on the whole, a far better man than many who affected which Mr. Furnivall, Dr. Bayne, Dr. Nicholson, Mr. Spalding, M. Darmesteter, Miss Hickey, &c., took part-strong opinions were uttered against Mr. Mills' views, except as to the good of laughter.

Mr. Mills

to find fault with him. In the discussion--in