THURSDAY, MARCH 25, 1875

LUBBOCK'S "ORIGIN OF CIVILISATION" The Origin of Civilisation, and the Primitive Condition of Man: Mental and Social Condition of Savages. By Sir John Lubbock, Bart., M.P., F.R.S., &c. Third Edition. (London: Longmans, Green, and Co.)

THE

HE third edition of Sir John Lubbock's well-known book has followed so close upon the second, that the author, busy man as he is, might have been excused had he given us a mere reprint; but he has included in it additional matter which adds very considerably to its value. Nearly every chapter has been enlarged, and a chapter on the Development of Relationships has been added, which appears to us to be at least as good and useful a bit of work as Sir John Lubbock has hitherto done. To show the changes which have been made at points throughout the book is out of our power, nor does this seem to be necessary, as the changes do not, we think, in any case affect his previous conclusions otherwise than by adding to the evidence on which they rest. The new chapter is what calls for notice, and to it this notice shall for the most part be confined. The facts with which he deals in this chapter have been taken from the voluminous work of the American author, Mr. Morgan; but Sir John Lubbock, putting aside Mr. Morgan's theorising, has submitted a view of them of his own. This, in the main, and so far as it goes, we think, he has made out.

The facts collected by Mr. Morgan (though he had the assistance of the United States Government, the collection must have cost him an infinity of trouble) show the existence, widespread, among the lower races of mankind, of systems of relationships strangely different from that which exists in Europe, transmitted without material change from the Aryan nations from whom we claim descent. In these systems (to describe them, so far as can be done, by the incidents which are common to the greatest number of them) all the brothers of a family are each called father, and regarded as a father, by the children of the whole brotherhood; and all the sisters of a family are each called mother, and regarded as a mother, by the children of the whole sisterhood; while the children of brothers regard each other, and also the children of sisters of their respective mothers, as brothers and sisters, and are acknowledged as children equally by their true father and his brothers and their true mother and her sisters. This holds good of all putative brothers and sisters, and accordingly a man regards the children of a male cousin through his father's brother or his mother's sister as his children, and is by them called father; he regards the grandchildren through a male of such a cousin as his grandchildren, and is by them called grandfather. Similarly a woman regards the children of a female cousin through her father's brother or her mother's sister as her children, and is by them called mother; and the grandchildren through a female of such a cousin are her grandchildren, and call her grandmother. All the brothers of a grandfather are grandfathers, and all the sisters of a grandmother are grandmothers. In nearly all the cases in which this curious nomenclature-and it is much more than mere nomenclature, though, strictly speaking, VOL. XI.-No. 282

it is not a description of relationships—is in use, a special term is applied to a mother's brother by her children, and a special term applied to children by their mother's brother. These terms are inadequately represented by our words uncle and nephew, for they denote what the terms father and son do not in these cases usually involve-relationship being counted through females only-a recognised blood-relationship, which carries to the uncle the right and duty of exercising on behalf of his nephew such care and supervision as in more advanced communities are exercised by a father, and gives the nephew, on the other hand, the right of succession to his uncle's property. In cases not quite so numerous a special term is applied also to a father's sister, who then in turn calls her brother's children by the term applied by the brother to her children; she is an aunt, and her brother's son is her nephew. In a still more limited number of systems the terms devised for real brother and sister and their children are applied to all putative brothers and sisters and their children. Where these special terms are all in use, brother's and sister's children are in some cases considered brothers and sisters; and then the rules applicable to all putative brothers and sisters and their offspring being applied, the cousins are regarded as the fathers, mothers, or uncles, aunts of each other's children, according as the relationship arises through two male cousins, two female cousins, or a male and female cousin. In more numerous cases, the children of a brother and sister, or of a putative brother and sister, are distinguished by a special term, i.e., they are called cousins. In a considerable number of these, however, a cousin's son is addressed as if he were the son of a brother or sister—that is, either as son or nephew; and, in nearly all, a cousin's son's son is, as if he were a brother's son's son, termed a grandson. A very few of the systems of relationship, particulars of which have been collected by Mr. Morgan, fall below the description given above; in these a mother's brother is considered as a father, a father's sister as a mother, and terms for cousinry are unknown. There are others, the number of which is considerable, which are of a higher kind, which are nearer, that is, by one or more steps to our own system of relationship—applying, e.g., special terms as little father or stepfather to a father's brother, special terms as little mother or stepmother to a mother's sister, and special terms to the relationship of the children of two brothers or two sisters. All the systems which have been brought under notice, however, in whatever respects they differ, agree in considering a grandfather's brother to be a grandfather, a grandfather's sister to be a grandmother, and, on the other hand, a grandson of a cousin whether called cousin, step-brother, or brother-to be a grandson.

In these points of agreement is found the explanation of the relation between the various systems. Sir John Lubbock's conclusion that these, in the higher systems, are relics of previous lower stages of development, which it has perhaps not been thought worth while to get rid of, appears to be irresistible. They suggest a time in the history of each system, be it now what it may, when all brothers were equally the fathers of each other's children, when all cousins, even the children of brother and sister, were

Y

cqually brothers and sisters, and, therefore, a time when a mother's brother was a father, and a father's sister was a mother. The systems can be ranged in a series which makes the truth of this view almost self-evident. In the rudest systems noticed by Mr. Morgan the mother's brother is a father, and the father's sister is a mother; brother and sister's children are brothers and sisters, fathers or mothers of each other's children, grandfathers or grandmothers of each other's grandchildren. Above these are the systems in which special terms have been devised for the peculiar relationship between children and their mother's brother, and (in most cases) for the father's sister also-in which, as has been seen, the children of brother and sister are in some cases called brother and sister, but more commonly cousin, while the children of one of such cousins are in many instances regarded by the other cousins as their children, and his grandchildren in every case are regarded by them as their grandchildren. So far there is unmistakable evidence of a progress made through dint of thinking over social facts. Extension of our survey to more advanced systems simply shows that in them a similar progress has been carried further. Such terms as little father or stepfather applied to a father's brother, for example, are not hard to reconcile with the view that a father's brother was at a former stage regarded as a father; and when it is considered that a grandfather's brother is in such cases a grandfather, no shadow of doubt on the subject can remain. That there are some facts of which Sir John Lubbock cannot give the solution must be admitted, and these are not unimportant; but they in no way affect the validity of his argument that there has been a development of relationships from a very rude germ, and that what may be called the modern system of relationships has been arrived at by a long and very gradual progress. The explanation of them must be sought in a more careful examination of the marriage customs of the races in which they occur. Moreover, there are not wanting eccentricities of terminology, the key to which cannot in all cases be had; but usually these are obviously the result of the over-rigid application of general rules following upon a false start. The Crow Indians, for example, call their mother's brother an elder brother, which is not so very wrong in itself; but they go on to call his son (as being the son of one called brother) by the name of son. partures from the normal type of this kind are, of course, to be looked for wherever a system has been independently developed by many bodies of men.

De

It is among what Mr. Morgan calls the Turanian, American Indian, and Malayan families of men that the systems of relationship above considered are known to prevail. The lowest forms are found in the Sandwich Islands and their neighbourhood, and among one or two of the American Indian tribes; the middle systems among the Tamil races of India, the American Indians, the Fijians, and the Tongans; while the Karens and the Esquimaux supply the most advanced. One of Mr. Morgan's theories (for he has, or seems to have, two which it is no business of ours to reconcile with each other) is, that these systems are, to use the words of Sir John Lubbock, 66 arbitrary, artificial, and intentional." Mr. Morgan holds that ethnological affinities can be traced by their aid, and accordingly he is disposed to believe in the

common origin of the Tamil and Red-skin races. The same reasoning would identify the Fijians and the Tongans with both these races, and with one another-if it would not also show that the Two-mountain Iroquois of North America are of the same descent as the Malayan races, and no relatives of their Red-skin neighbours. This looks like a reductio ad absurdum; but it really is not necessary to consider the hypothesis that the systems of relationship under notice are purely factitious-a wildly improbable hypothesis-when a sufficient explanation of their relation to each other, which traces them all to a comparatively simple low form, is forthcoming. Of the origin of this lowest known system of relationships Sir John Lubbock wisely offers no theory, content with suggesting that the right which a husband among the American Indians is said to possess, of marrying his wife's sisters as they successively come to maturity, may explain why a woman's sisters are considered the mothers of her children. The so-called "communal marriage" clearly cannot be the explanation. Supposing that "communal marriage" could give rise to a system of relationships, all the full-grown men of a tribe must have been equally considered fathers of all the children of the tribe. But the facts collected by Mr. Morgan all point to a more limited amount of fatherhood than this; and to account, from the communal marriage point of view, for the Hawaiian limitation, is about as difficult as it is, from the European point of view, to understand the Hawaiian extension, of fatherhood. The influence of the custom of counting kindred through females only on the development of systems of relationship has been indicated; it is by means of it that the departure from the simplicity of the Hawaiian system was made. This Sir John Lubbock has clearly pointed out. It is only fair to Mr. Morgan to state that, notwithstanding his theory above referred to, he has not neglected to do the same.

After so much exposition a little criticism may be not out of season, and to begin with a phrase which has just been mentioned, "communal marriage," we cannot help regretting that Sir John Lubbock, in his chapter on Marriage, has made so much use of it, since beyond question it is unprecise and misleading. Sir John exhibits a number of facts, all of which, with one doubtful exception, point to the entire absence among certain tribes of the very germ of a marriage law, and to this he gives the name of communal marriage. If this were a mere matter of phraseology, it would be hypercritical to say anything about it; but Sir John goes on to argue as if he had shown that, in a tribe without any law of marriage, every man was the lawful husband of every woman-as if, in fact, there were a defined, though unusually free system of marriage rigid, while what the evidence goes to show is that such a thing never was even thought of. The view just noticed has had no inconsiderable influence over his opinions about Marriage; and it seems, to say the least, unsafe to allow it any weight whatever. Of tribes which have had no marriage law, all we really know is, that in the intercourse of the sexes nothing was deemed by them wrong, and this state of feeing seems to involve the non-existence of any idea of marriage right. Without evidence, at any rate, we are unable to believe that this idea, as postulated

by Sir John Lubbock, could have been generated in the circumstances, and of evidence, so far as we know, there is not a trace. Sir John Lubbock's theory of the origin of monandric marriage, exogamy, and the form of capture, also seems open to observation. He ascribes monandric marriage to the appropriation, in tribes without any marriage law, of captured women by individual captors; supposing that a captured woman, as she did not belong to the tribe, would be readily left with the man who took her; that envy of the superior felicity attained by captors would lead to a frequency of capture, until, at length, the possession of a captured woman became the ambition and hope of every man of a tribe; and that, there being no other way than capture of getting a wife of one's own, the custom of exogamy was in fact established, becoming a defined tribal law as capture, and therewith monandric marriage, became frequent, and thereafter surviving, as such customs do survive, when wives were got by purchase or exchange, with the capture symbolised. Among savages, however, women are no unconsidered trifles; and the proposition that, when captured, they would be freely left to their captors is so far from being self-evident that it might reasonably be deemed improbable, and certainly requires an amount of support which Sir J. Lubbock has failed to give it. But apart from this, it is, we are disposed to think, fatal to Sir J. Lubbock's hypothesis, that it overlooks the fact that captures of women are usually made by parties, not by single persons, and that it is a conflict between parties which, as a rule, is symbolised in the form of capture. In ascribing to the prevalence of the capture of wives the curious custom which forbids a father-in-law and mother-in-law to speak to their son-in-law-indignation at the capture being presumed to be the foundation of this rule of nonintercourse-Sir John, we venture to think, has certainly been hasty. At the time when the capture was real and the indignation of the father-in-law and mother-in-law real, their new relative would not have been much in the way of meeting them. He, with his wife, would have been in another tribe than theirs, and that a hostile tribe. Moreover, the same custom prevents a woman from speaking to her father-in-law, and operates, if we mistake not, in other cases also; and these Sir John's suggestion would not explain.

Our criticism shall extend to only one point more, and that is, the explanation offered by Sir John Lubbock of the origin of Totem worship. We notice it the more readily because, in this edition, he puts it forward with some appearance of hesitation. He thinks that the worship of animals may have arisen out of a practice of "naming first individuals, and then their families," after particular animals. "A family which was called after the bear would look on that animal first with interest, then with respect, and at length with a sort of awe." But does not this sound as if Sir J. Lubbock believed that the world began with the patriarchal family system? With it the transmission of a name through an individual, first to a family and then to a tribe, would offer no difficulty. It is necessary, however, to explain the worship of animals in tribes which acknowledge kinship through females only; in tribes in which children take the tribal name, not of their father but of their mother; and in which the family, still in an extremely undeveloped state, was probably altogether unknown at

the distant time when animal worship arose. In such tribes a man's personal name dies with him. Though he has his "medicine," it goes to no successor. It is the women, who, by the way, are without the "medicine," who transmit the totem. That names given to individuals, especially if the individuals were men, should diffuse themselves through tribes of this kind, and this in the case of an endless number of such tribes, appears altogether impossible. This, however, after all, only means that we cannot see how the thing can have happened; and, on the other hand, if Sir John Lubbock should find that in his theorising he has overlooked some of the most perplexing of the facts to be accounted for, he need not greatly grieve. He is entitled to reflect that, allowing for all shortcomings, his book has a sterling value and has done a most useful work.

KINAHAN'S "VALLEYS, FISSURES, FRACTURES, AND FAULTS"

Valleys, and their Relation to Fissures, Fractures, and Faults. By G. H. Kinahan, M.R.I.A., F.R.G.S.I. (London: Trübner and Co.)

WHE

WHENEVER a new explanation of natural phenomena is offered to the public, its advocates, assuming that due importance will be still assigned to the forces to which formerly all had been attributed, frequently seem to ignore them altogether, and therefore other inquirers are generally found who take up the defence of the old view, though they often admit practically as much as is required by the new theory. Mr. Kinahan thinks that sub-aërialists, in explaining the present configuration of the country, have been in the habit of attaching too great importance to surface wear and tear, and of ignoring the effect of fractures produced by earth movements.

Any contribution of facts, well observed and clearly recorded and reasoned upon, is of value, whether or not we accept the deductions of the author. We are, however, unable to satisfy ourselves from the perusal of the work before us that the facts would have appeared to us as they appeared to the author-the references to localities where the evidence for faults and other phenomena may be seen are too vague, and the inferences seem very doubtful.

There are few who would not be prepared to agree with the statement "that the present valleys are not solely due to rain and rivers, but rather to that action combined with glacial and marine denudation, and that all were generally led by the breaks and faults in the rocks" (p. 181), if it means that we must not refer all valleys to rain and rivers exclusively, that denudation of any kind is apt to be directed by the greater or less resisting power of the material to be denuded, and that fractured work is more easily acted upon and denuded than solid work.

What we really have to do is to inquire in each special case which of the various agents have had most to do with the formation of the particular valley, lake, or other earth feature before us; and therefore, in discussing the relation between faults and valleys, we require something more definite than a reference to places, where, as the author says (p. 102), "some of what are here considered faults might possibly only be Silurian cliffs, at the base of which the Old Red Sandstone and limestones were

deposited, as the rocks strike with the line of fault ;" or a map, in which many of the faults upon which the form of a lake is said to depend are drawn altogether below the waters of the lake, and the direct evidence of their direc. tion or even existence is not given in the text (p. 123, and pl. ii. p. 15). Again, anyone who wished to see for himself whether it was possible that "streams have run over polished, scratched, and etched surfaces of rock for ages without having been able to obliterate the icemarks" (p. 87), could hardly be sure of finding the places referred to by the author from the vague description that they were "among the ice-dressed hills of Galway, Kerry, and Cork" (ib.)

We cannot see what right our author has to assume because the "outlines-river-valleys, lake-basins, and bays-occur in systems, the general bearing of which may be indicated by lines," that "if such systems are not caused by breaks in the subjacent rocks, they must be due to chance" (p. 99), when we know that other authors have appealed to this very same fact in support of the theory that the leading features of the country referred to are due to a body of ice moving from the N.E.

It does not seem unreasonable to suppose that valleys which appear to have been shifted (p. 175) may have been formed along lines of fracture or of softer rock which had been previously shifted, or were for any reason not opposite to one another.

That an unfinished plain of marine denudation should have an irregular margin (p. 177) does not prevent our believing that the sea can in time cut back most of the hard promontories as well as the softer rock, or arrest at a uniform level the sub-aërial action which is reducing both hard and soft. That a river should deposit sediment on a slope at any part of its course, even out into the estuary (p. 187), seems to present fewer difficulties than the supposition that the rock débris resulting from the denudation of Loch Lomond was carried out through a hole in the bottom of the lake (p. 215).

Although, however, such statements lead us to distrust somewhat the author's judgment, we must allow that the work contains much that is useful and suggestive, and should be read by all who are engaged in the study of earth-sculpture.

OUR BOOK SHELF

By

The Cone and its Sections treated Geometrically. S. A. Renshaw. Pp. 148. (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1875.)

"WHAT so intricate and pleasing withal, as to peruse and practise Apollonius's Conics?" The author of the present work has evidently the same admiration for this Old World writer that Burton had. He remarks of him that his work has apparently maintained its superiority over every subsequent treatise on the subject. Like Apollonius in one respect, Mr. Renshaw derives the sections from the Scalene Cone, and rebuts the possible charge of "considerable prolixity" by affirming his belief that "the reader will be well repaid for the time and patience expended in the investigation." Upon this point opinions will most likely differ. The subject, though of considerable interest to all minds of a geometrical cast, is yet only a subordinate one, and we question if many can find time in these days of "high pressure" for the extra time and patience demanded. However, the student need not so occupy

his time, for our author has also derived the principal well-known properties from the right cone independently. Further, he establishes a proposition by means of which the scalene-cone properties may be derived from the right cone.

We have, in former numbers of NATURE, given in our adhesion to the principle of deriving the properties of these curves from the cone, and so are glad to see that the latest work on the subject is grounded on this principle. Robertson (1802), following Hamilton (1758), takes be four lines in the plane of a conic which are parallel, as his fundamental proposition the following -If there two and two, then the ratio of the rectangles under the segments from one point of section to the rectangles under the segments from the other point of section is constant. Mr. Renshaw builds upon the proposition that in the ellipse and the hyperbola the tangent at any point on the curve makes equal angles with the focal distances of the point (with modification for the special case of the parabola). These and the other primary properties are, as we have said, proved from the cone, and this "it is believed to a greater extent than in any previous treatise." A great portion of the work, however, is taken up with the treatment of the curves in plano, and here a fundamental proposition is that of the generating circle. The properties are neatly derived by this means. We should mention that the generating circle (which in a particular case becomes the auxiliary circle of modern treatises) is said to have been first employed in Walker's work on Conics (1794), and is thus defined: If we have a focus and corresponding directrix of a conic, and in the same plane take any point and from it let fall a perpendicular on the directrix, then the circle required is that described from the above point as centre with a radius equal e times the above perpendicular (e being the eccentricity of the curve). We have been thus explicit, as this circle appears for application to the work under review. The subject is to have dropped out of recent text-books. We must refer ably treated, and the book copiously illustrated by welldrawn figures (in most cases); these latter, however, have been sadly marred in the engraving. Indeed, it is matter of regret that the paper, the ink, and the engraving are of an inferior character. The work was printed at Nottingham.

A Whaling Cruise to Baffin's Bay and the Gulf of Boothia. By A. H. Markham, F.R.G.S., Commander R.N. With an Introduction by Rear Admiral Osborn, C.B., F.R.S. Second Edition. (London: Sampson Low and Co., 1875.)

COMMANDER MARKHAM has done well to issue a cheap edition of his attractive narrative at the present time. The author, in the summer of 1873, went out to Baffin's Bay in the whaler Arctic, with the deliberate intention of his book a reader is likely to obtain a better idea of the acquiring experience in ice-navigation; consequently from real nature of the dangers attendant on pushing through the frozen ocean, than from a book whose chief aim is to narrate discoveries. Commander Markham, it is evident from the work before us, took such excellent advantage of the opportunities afforded him while cruising about in the Arctic seeking for whales, and finding them plentifully, that his knowledge of the "ways" of the ice must be of great advantage to the expedition of which he is second in command.

To those who wish to have a full and accurate idea of how the whale-fishing is prosecuted at the present day, we recommend this delightful narrative, which we should think is likely to become an established favourite with boys. There is a wonderful amount of information packed into the small volume concerning the regions visited, the nature of the ice and icebergs, currents, coasts, natives, fauna, flora, &c. He visited some of the spots rendered classical by former explorers, and actually

corrected the delineation of part of the coast-line in Prince Regent's Inlet. Altogether the book is full of instruction and healthy entertainment; the map and illustrations add to its value in both respects.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected manuscripts. No notice is taken of anonymous communications.]

Antares

IN reference to the apparent change in the angle of the companion to a Scorpii as shown by the recent measures of Mr. Wilson (NATURE, vol. xi. p. 274), an arrangement of the following, which, so far as I am aware, are all the measures that have been made of this beautiful pair since its discovery by Mitchel in 1845, may prove interesting. From a comparison of these earlier results it is evident that no sensible variation has taken place; and it is probable that in the last, either a slight error has been made in reading the position circle, or the observation was taken under too unfavourable conditions to admit of a high degree of accuracy. The details of these measures will be found in the several publications mentioned below.*

Dawes, in connection with his last measures, says, "there is very little, if any, ground for supposing change has occurred in this splendid but difficult object." The difficulty of seeing the small star in this latitude, as in the case of Sirius and its companion, arises not from its closeness or faintness, but from atmospheric causes due to its southern declination. Mitchel called the small star 11'12 magnitude, but Dawes, Secchi, and others rate it at about 8 m., which is more nearly what it appears to be at the present time. With a very steady air I have several times seen it perfectly with a 6-inch Clark refractor contracted to 3 inch, and on one or two occasions with 34 inch. Chicago, March 2

S. W. BURNHAM

Storm Warnings from the United States ALLUSION has recently been made in NATURE to a proposal for the transmission of weather telegrams from the United States to Europe, as likely to afford valuable data for forecasting the weather on our coasts. Some misconception appears to me to attach to this subject.

3. The rapidity of their progress varies indefinitely, and could not be deduced, pace Mr. Draper, from the velocity of the currents experienced in them, even if the latter were not variable also.

4. Many of our most destructive European storms occur when pressures over the Eastern States are tolerably high and steady, and appear to be developed on the Atlantic near the eastern limits of the area of high pressure. In such instances attention to the telegrams would in all probability mislead (at least until the relations of areas of high pressures to those of low pressures be better understood), and thus lead to unfortunate consequences.

For these reasons I believe that the utility of a system of weather telegrams from North America to Europe would be by no means commensurate with the serious expense involved in it. The connection between the weather periods on this and on the other side of the Atlantic is one of the problems which the progress of research is steadily, though slowly, attacking. But such research can be carried on without embarking on a system of weather telegraphy which is unlikely to be practically beneficial, and the failure of which might rather tend to bring this branch W. CLEMENT LEY of the science into disrepute.

Ashby Parva, Lutterworth, March 12

Meteorological Observations in the Pacific

IN the leader on "Meteorology-Present and Future" which appeared in NATURE, vol. x. p. 99, it is said: "In order to complete the preliminary meteorological survey of the earth's atmosphere and surface it is indispensable that measures be taken to obtain observations from the less frequented regions of the ocean, from Arctic and Antarctic regions, large portions of British America, South America, Africa, and Polynesia." It is also very correctly observed that "in working out the great question of local climates it is absolutely indispensable that uniformity as regards instruments and methods of observation be secured at the different stations."

The meteorology of the Pacific has often occupied my attention, and I have regretted that no systematic effort was made to secure regular observations upon some uniform plan throughout the islands occupied by missionaries. The principal islands in Eastern, Central, and Western Polynesia (as far as the New Hebrides) have gentlemen residing on them, many of whom would (I have good reason to believe) be willing to render assistance in this work. Indeed, many of them are accustomed, already, to make more or less meteorological observations, so far as the reading of the barometer and thermometer goes. But these observations, if collected, would at present be comparatively useless, owing to the want of "uniformity as regards instruments and methods of observation."

Should measures be taken to secure such observations as those suggested in the article above mentioned, and should means be found for supplying (say lending, under certain conditions) instruments to those who are willing to become observers, I believe the co-operation of missionaries in most, if not all, of the following islands may be secured, viz., Society Islands, Hervey or Cook's Islands, Niue or Savage Island, Friendly or Tongan Islands, Samoa or Navigators Islands, Fiji Islands, Loyalty Islands, the New Hebrides, and the south-cast peninsula of New Guinea.

1. Only a small proportion of the storms experienced on the American side of the Atlantic can subsequently be distinctly traced in Europe at all.

2. Of those thus traceable, the majority are felt severely only in the extreme north of Europe, and are not (productive of serious results on the coasts of Great Britain, France, or Denmark.

1. Sidereal Messenger, Sept. 1846.

2. Memoirs of the R.A.S., vol. xxxv.

4. Communicated to Dawes.

5. Memoirs of the R. A S., vol. xxxii.

6. Memorie dell' Osservatorio del Collegio Romano, 1859.

7. Memoirs of the R.A.S., vol. xxviii.

8. Memoirs of the R A.S., vol. xxix. 9. Memoirs of the R.A.S., vol. xxxii. 10. Memoirs of the R. A.S., vol. xxxv. 11. Astronomische Nachrichten, 1574. 12. Astronomische Nachrichten, 1614.

Struck by Lightning

THE following is offered you for publication in the hope that the facts were observed accurately enough to be of value, and in the belief that reliable accounts of similar experiences are rare. The house, in which with my family I have spent the winter, stands in the centre of Torbay and close to the sea. In the garden, which gives access to the shore, is a flagstaff (once belonging to the Coast Guard) 50 feet high, with a metal vane at the top, and having the mast steadied at about 25 feet from the ground in the usual way with iron wire guys. About a foot above ground each wire rope terminates in a 4-inch chain which is anchored a few feet in the soil, These chains are much