Indo-European.—Hair long (accel.); jaws orthognathous (embryonic retard.); nose (generally) prominent with bridge (accel.); malar bones reduced (retard.); beard long (accel.); arms shorter (retard.); extensor muscles of the leg large (accel.).

The Indo-European race is then the highest by virtue of the acceleration of growth in the development of the muscles by which the body is maintained in the erect position (extensors of the leg), and in those important elements of beauty, a well-developed nose and beard. It is also superior in these points in which it is more embryonic than the other races, viz., the want of prominence of the jaws and cheekbones, since these are associated with a greater predominance of the cerebral part of the skull, increased size of cerebral hemispheres, and greater intellectual power.

A comparison between the two sexes of the Indo-Europeans expresses their physical and mental relations in a definite way. I select the sexes of the most civilized races, since it is in these, according to Broca and Topinard, that the sex characters are most pronounced. They may be contrasted as follows. The numbers are those of the list already used. I first consider those which are used in the tables of embryonic, quadrumanous, and race characters:

MALE. FEMALE. I. The General Form. 2. Shoulders square. Shoulders slope. 4. Waist less constricted. Waist more constricted. 5. Hips narrower. Hips wider. 6. Legs longer. Legs shorter (very frequently). 8. Muscles larger. Muscles smaller.

II. The Integuments, etc. 10. More hair on body, that Less hair on body, that of head of head shorter; beard. longer; no beard. 12. Skin rougher (generally). Skin smoother.

III. The Head and Face. 16. Superciliary ridges more Superciliary ridges low. prominent. 22. Eyes often smaller. Eyes often larger.



The characters in which the male is the most like the infant are two, viz., the narrow hips and short hair. Those in which the female is most embryonic are five, viz., the shorter legs, smaller muscles, absence of beard, low superciliary ridges, and frequently larger eyes. To these may be added two others not mentioned in the above lists; these are 1, the high pitched voice, which never falls an octave, as does that of the male; and 2, the structure of the generative organs, which in all mammalia more nearly resemble the embryo and the lower vertebrata in the female than in the male. Nevertheless, as Bischoff has pointed out, one of the most important distinctions between man and the apes is to be found in the external reproductive organs of the female.

From the preceding rapid sketch the reader will be able to explain the meaning of most of the peculiarities of face and form which he will meet with. Many persons possess at least one quadrumanous or embryonic character. The strongly convex upper lip frequently seen among the lower classes of the Irish is a modified quadrumanous character. Many people, especially those of the Sclavic races, have more or less embryonic noses. A retreating chin is a marked monkey character. Shortness of stature is mostly due to shortness of the femur, or thigh; the inequalities of people sitting are much less than those of people standing. A short femur is embryonic; so is a very large head. The faces of some people are always partially embryonic, in having a short face and light lower jaw. Such faces are still more embryonic when the forehead and eyes are protuberant. Retardation of this kind is frequently seen in children, and less frequently in women. The length of the arms would appear to have grown less in comparatively recent times. Thus the humerus in most of the Greek statues, including the Apollo Belvidere, is longer than those of modern Europeans, according to a writer in the Bulletin de la Societe d'Anthropologie of Paris, and resembles more nearly that of the modern Nubians than any other people. This is a quadrumanous approximation. The miserably developed calves of many of the savages of Australia, Africa, and America are well known. The fine, swelling gastroenemius and soleus muscles characterize the highest races, and are most remote from the slender shanks of the monkeys. The gluteus muscles developed in the lower races as well as in the higher distinguish them well from the monkeys with their flat posterior outline.

It must be borne in mind that the quadrumanous indications are found in the lower classes of the most developed races. The status of a race or family is determined by the percentage of its individuals who do and do not present the features in question. Some embryonic characters may also appear in individuals of any race, as a consequence of special circumstances. Such are, however, as important to the physiognomist as the more normal variations.

Some of these features have a purely physical significance, but the majority of them are, as already remarked, intimately connected with the development of the mind, either as a cause or as a necessary coincidence. I will examine these relations in a future article.

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THE PRODUCTION OF FIRE.

In 1867 the Abbe Bourgeois found at Thenay, near Pont-levoy (Loir-et-Cher), in a marly bank belonging to the most ancient part of the middle Tertiary formation, fragments of silex which bore traces of the action of fire. This fire had not been lighted by accidental causes, for, says Mr. DeMortillet (Le Prehistorique, p. 90), the causes of instantaneous conflagrations can be only volcanic fires, fermentations, and lightning. "Now, in the entire region there is no trace of volcanic action, and neither are there any traces of turfy or vegetable deposits capable of giving rise to spontaneous inflammations—phenomena that are always very rare and very exceptional, as are also conflagrations started by lightning. Well, in the Thenay marls, the pieces of silex that had undergone the action of fire were found disseminated at different levels, and this could not have been a simple accident, but was evidently something that had been done intentionally. There existed, then, during the Aquitanian epoch, a being who was acquainted with fire and knew how to produce it."

Mr. De Mortillet supposes that this being was an animal intermediate between man and the monkey, which he calls the anthropopithecus.

This precursor of man made use of fire for splitting silex and manufacturing from it instruments whose cutting edge he perfected by means of a series of retouchings produced by slight percussions upon one of the surfaces only.

I shall not enter in this place upon a discussion as to the existence of an anthropopithecus or Tertiary man, whom every one does not as yet accept, but will confine myself to giving the facts as to the use of fire in the remotest epochs, incontestable proofs of which exist from the time at which Quaternary man made his appearance. How this was discovered is indicated, according to Aryan tradition, by the Vedic hymns. The ancestors of the Aryans, these tell us, had seen the lighting dart forth from the shock of black clouds. They had seen the spark that fired the forests issue from the friction of dry branches agitated by the storm. They took a branch of soft wood, arani, and passing a thong around a branch of hard wood, pramontha, they caused it to revolve rapidly in a cavity in the arani, and thus evoked the god Agni, whom they nourished with libations of clarified butter, soma.

The Pramontha, became the Prometheus of the Greeks, the Titan who stole the fire, and it is from the Sanscrit Agni that is derived the Latin Ignis, "fire," and the Greek [Greek: Agnos], "pure," and the Agnus Dei of the Christians, who purifies all.

Orientalists generally agree that the sign which is seen under the forms [inline illustration], [inline illustration], or [inline illustration], on a large number of objects of Aryan origin is a sort of sacred hieroglyphic, representing the arani or svastika, formed of two pieces of soft wood fixed by four pins in such a way as not to revolve under the pressure of the Pramontha.

This process of producing fire is also found among a host of more or less savage peoples, and especially in India, where, during the last month of the great feast of sacrifices, the sacred fire must always be kindled three hundred and sixty times a day with nine different kinds of wood that are prescribed by the rite.

Fig. 1 shows the arrangement in use among the Eskimos, and Fig. 2 that employed by the Indians of North America.

In 1828 there still existed at Essen, in Hanover, an analogous apparatus designed to produce an alarm fire. This was a large, horizontal, round wooden bar whose extremities pivoted in two apertures formed in vertical posts, and which was provided with a cord that was wound around it several times. Several persons, by pulling on the ends of this cord, caused the bar to revolve alternately in one direction and the other, and the heat developed by the friction lighted some tow that had previously been inserted in one of the apertures in the post.



It is certain that the alternate motion must have been produced directly by hand before being effected by cords. This simpler process is still in use in Tasmania, Australia, Polynesia, Kamtschatka, Thibet, Mexico, and among the Guanches of the Canary Isles, who are supposed to be the last representatives of the inhabitants of Atlantis, which sank under the waters at the close of the Quaternary epoch.

Chamisso, who accompanied Kotzebue in his voyage, describes it as follows: "In the Caroline Islands, they rest a vertical piece of roundish wood, terminating in a point, and about a foot and a half in length and one inch in diameter, upon a second one fixed in the ground, and then give it a rotary motion by acting with the palms of the hands. This motion, which is at first slow and measured, is at length accelerated, while at the same time the pressure becomes stronger, whereupon the dust from the wood which has formed by friction and accumulated around the point of the movable piece begins to carbonize. This dust, which, after a fashion, constitutes a match, soon bursts into flame. The women of Eap are wonderfully dexterous in their use of this process."



Fig. 3 shows another manner of obtaining fire by rotation which is employed by the Guachos, a half savage, pastoral people who inhabit the pampas of South America. Longitudinal friction must have preceded that obtained by rotation. It is still in use in most of the islands of Oceanica (Fig. 4), and especially in Tahiti and in the Sandwich Islands.

In these latter, says again Chamisso, upon the fixed piece of wood they place another piece of the same kind, about the length of the palm, and press it obliquely at an angle of about 30 degrees. The extremity that touches the fixed piece is blunt, and the other extremity is held with the two hands, the two thumbs downward, in order to allow of a surer pressure. The piece is given an alternating motion, and in such a way that it shall always remain in the same plane inclined at an angle of 30 degrees, and form, through friction, a small groove from six to eight centimeters in length. When the dust thus produced begins to carbonize, the pressure and velocity are increased. Wood of a homogeneous texture, neither too hard nor too soft, is the best for the purpose.

The Malays operate as follows: A dry bamboo rod, about a foot in length, is split longitudinally, and the pith which lines the inside is scraped off, pressed, and made into a small ball which is afterward placed in the center of the cavity of one of the halves of the tube. This latter half is then fixed to the ground in such a way that the cavity and ball face downward. The operator next fashions the other half of the tube into a straight cutting instrument like a knife-blade, which he applies transversely to the fixed half and gives an alternating motion so as to produce a sort of sawing. After a certain length of time, a groove, and finally a hole, is produced. The cutting edge of the instrument is then so hot that it sets on fire the ball with which it has come in contact.



Some peoples, the Fuegians especially, procure fire by striking together two flints. In the Aleutian Islands these latter, having been previously covered with sulphur, are struck against each other over a small saucer of dry moss dusted with sulphur. The Eskimos employ for this purpose pieces of quartz and iron pyrites.

In the Sandwich Islands recourse is had to a process that necessitates much skill. There is arranged in a large dry leaf, rolled into the shape of a funnel, a certain number of flints along with some easily combustible twigs. On attaching the leaf to the end of a rod, and revolving the latter rapidly, it is said that fire is produced.

Processes that are based upon the clashing of two flint stones must be much more inconvenient of application than we would be led to suppose. We are, in fact, accustomed to see the flint and steel used, but here the spark is a bit of iron raised to red heat through a mechanical action that has violently detached it from the mass under the form of a small sliver. In the case of two flint stones, the light that is perceived is of an entirely different nature, for it is a phosphorescence which is produced, even by a very slight friction, not only between two pieces of silex, but also between two pieces of quartz, porcelain, or sugar; and that the heat developed is but slight is proved by the fact that the phenomenon may occur under water. Of course, fragments of stones may be raised to a red heat through percussion; but this does not often occur, so for this reason the Fuegians keep up with the greatest care the fires that they have lighted, and it is this very peculiarity that has given their country a characteristic aspect and caused it to be named Terra del Fuego (land of fire). When they change their residence they always carry with them a few lighted embers which rest in their canoes upon a bed of pebbles or ashes.

The same thing occurs, moreover, among the Australians and Tasmanians, who employ, as we have just seen, the rotary process. There are women among these peoples whose special mission it is to carry day and night lighted torches or cones made of a substance that burns slowly like punk. When, through accident, the fire happens to get extinguished in a tribe, these people often prefer to undertake a long voyage in order to obtain another light from a neighboring tribe rather than have recourse to a direct production of it.

We can understand from what is still taking place in these distant countries why the worship of fire should have existed among our ancestors, and why sacerdotal associations, such as the Brahmins of India, the Guebers of Persia, the Vestals of Rome, the priests of Baal in Chaldea and Phenicia should have been specially instituted for producing and preserving it.

Plutarch narrates (Numa, chap. ii.) that when the sacred fire happened to go out, there was employed for relighting it a brass mirror that had the form of a cone generated by the hypothenuse of an isosceles rectangular triangle revolving around one of the sides of the right angle.



In a poem upon stones attributed to Orpheus, it is said that the sacred fire was also lighted by a bit of crystal which concentrated the rays of the sun upon the material to be inflamed. This process must have been the one that was most usually employed before fire became common. In fact, a plano-convex crystal lens has been found among the ruins of Nineveh. Aristophanes, in the Clouds, puts on the stage a coarse personage named Strepsiades, who points out to Socrates how he must manage so as not to pay his debts:

"Streps.—Hast thou seen among druggists that beautiful transparent stone that they employ for lighting a fire?

"Socr.—Thou meanest glass.

"Streps.—Yes.

"Socr.—Well! what wouldst thou do with it?

"Streps.—When the registrar shall have made out his summons against me, I will take the glass, and, placing myself thus in the sun, will cause his writing to melt."

As well known, writing was then traced on waxen tablets. Servius (in AEn., xii., 200) affirms that men of ancient times, instead of lighting fire upon the altar themselves, in their sacrifices, caused it to descend from heaven. He adds, according to Pliny, Titus Livius, and several old Latin historians, that Numa, who was initiated into all the wisdom of Etruria, practiced this art with success, but that Tullius Hostilius, having desired to repeat the evocation, guided only by the books of Numa, did not accomplish all the formalities prescribed by the rite and was struck dead by lightning.

Is it not curious that twenty-four centuries afterward, in 1753, the physicist Reichman was killed by lightning in trying to repeat Franklin's experiment? This coincidence, however, is not the only one. Pliny (ii., 53) recounts that lightning was evoked by King Porsenna at the time when a monster named Volta, who was ravaging the country, was directing himself toward the capital, Volsinies.

If we return to the Vedas, who had the habit of personifying all phenomena, we shall find that the fire Agni was the son of the carpenter who had manufactured the instrument by which it was produced, and of Maya (magic). He took the name of Akta (anointed, [Greek: christos]) when, nourished by libations of butter, he had acquired his full development. The Persians attributed likewise to Zoroaster the power of causing fire to descend from heaven through magic. Saint Clement of Alexandria (Recog., lib. iv.) and Gregory of Tours (Hist. de Fr., i., 5) speak of this. However this may be, the marvelous art was lost at an early date, for it was at such a date that priests began to have recourse to tricks that were more or less ingenious for lighting their sacred fireplaces in an apparently supernatural manner.—A. De Rochas, in La Nature.

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ST. BLAISE, THE WINNER OF THE DERBY.

St. Blaise, the property of Sir Frederick Johnstone, was bred by Lord Alington, and is by Hermit from Fusee. This is an unexceptionable pedigree, for Hermit is now as successful and fashionable a sire as was even Stockwell in his palmiest days, while Fusee was far more than an average performer on the turf, and won several Queen's Plates and other races over a distance of ground. St. Blaise is by no means a big colt, standing considerably under sixteen hands. His color is about his worst point, as he is a light, washy chestnut, with a bald face and three white heels. He has a good head and neck, and very powerful back and muscular quarters, added to which his legs and feet are well shaped and thoroughly sound. His first appearance was made in the Twenty-fourth Stockbridge Biennial at the Bibury Club Meeting, when he won easily enough; but there were only four moderate animals behind him. A walk-over for the Troy Stakes followed, and then Macheath beat him easily enough for the Hurstbourne Stakes, though he finished in front of Adriana and Tyndrum. For the Molecomb Stakes at Goodwood, he ran a dead-heat with Elzevir, to whom he was giving 7 lb.; and Bonny Jean, in receipt of 10 lb., was unplaced. A 7 lb. penalty seemed to put him completely out of the Dewhurst Plate; but he must then have been out of form, as, on the following day, it took him all his time to defeat Pebble by a neck in the Troy Stakes. This season he has only run twice. His fourth in the Two Thousand was by no means a bad performance, considering that he was palpably backward; and his victory of last week is too recent to need further allusion. Porter, his trainer, can boast of several other successes in the great race at Epsom; but Charles Wood had never previously ridden a Derby winner. St. Blaise was unfortunately omitted from the entries for the St. Leger, but has several valuable engagements at Ascot next week, and appears to have the Grand Prize of Paris, on Sunday, at his mercy.—Illustrated London News.



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[NATURE.]



SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS IN CHINA AND JAPAN.

Various steps in the progress of China, and Japan in the adoption of Western science and educational methods have from time to time been noticed in these columns. To the popular mind the names of the two countries are synonymous with rigid, unreasoning conservatism and with rapid change, respectively. The grave, dignified Chinese, who maintains his own dress and habits even when isolated among strangers, and whose motto appears to be, Stare super mas antiquas, is popularly believed to be animated by a sullen, obstinate hostility toward any introduction from the West, however plain its value may be; while his gayer and more mercurial neighbor, the Japanese, is regarded as the true child of the old age of the West, following assiduously in its parent's footsteps, and pursuing obediently the path marked out by European experience. There is considerable misconception in this, as indeed there is at all times in the English popular mind with regard to strange peoples. Broadly speaking, it is no doubt correct to say that, Japan has adopted Western inventions and scientific appliances with avidity; that she has shown a desire for change which is abnormal, and a disposition to destroy her charts and sail away into unsurveyed seas, while China remains pretty much where she always was. She is now, with some exceptions, what she was twenty, two hundred, perhaps two thousand years ago, while a new Japan has been created in fifteen years. All this, we say, is true, but it is not the whole truth. China also has had her changes; not indeed so marked or rapid, not so much in the nature of a volte-face on all her past as those of her neighbor.

The radical difference between the two countries in this respect we take to be this: that while Japan loves change for the sake of change, China dislikes it, and will only adopt it when it is clearly demonstrated to her that change is absolutely necessary. To the Japanese change appears to be a delightful excitement, to the Chinese a distasteful necessity; to the former whatever is must be wrong, to the latter whatever is is right. As a consequence of this difference between the two peoples, when China once makes a step forward it is generally after much deliberation, and is never retraced. Japan is constantly undertaking new schemes with little care or thought for the morrow, but with the applause of injudicious foreign friends. In a short time she discovers that she has underrated the expense or exaggerated the results, and her projects are straightway abandoned as rapidly and thoughtlessly as they were commenced. Swift suggested as a suitable subject for a philosophical writer a history of human projects which were never carried out; the historian of modern Japan finds these at every turn. Where, for example, are the results of the great surveys, trigonometrical and others, which were commenced in Yezo and the main island about ten years ago? A large, expensive, but highly competent foreign staff was engaged, and worked for a few years; but suddenly the whole survey department was swept away, and the valuable instruments are, or were recently, lying rusting in a warehouse in Tokio. The same story may be told of scores of other scientific or educational undertakings in Japan. An able and careful writer, Col. H.S. Palmer, R.E., who has recently, with a friendly and sympathetic eye, examined the whole field of recent Japanese progress, in the British Quarterly Review is forced to acknowledge this. "Once having recognized," says this officer, "that progress is essential to welfare, and having resolved, first among the nations of the East, to throw off past traditions and mould their civilization after that of Western countries, it was not in the nature of the lively and impulsive Japanese to advance along the path of reform with the calmness and circumspection that might have been possible to a people of less active temperament. Without doubt many foreign institutions were at first adopted rather too hastily, and the passing difficulties which now beset Japan are to some extent the inevitable result." It would be blindness to deny that the net result of the Japanese efforts is progress of a very remarkable kind, but it is a progress which in many respects lacks the firm and abiding characteristics of Chinese movements.

The proverb, Chi va piano va sano, which was recommended ten years ago to Japanese attention by an eminent English official, and apparently disregarded by them, has been adopted by their continental neighbors. To the blandishments of pushing diplomatists or acute promoters, the Chinese are deaf. However we may felicitate ourselves on our inventions, scientific appliances, "the railway and the steamship and the thoughts that shake mankind," our progress, the newspapers, the penny post, and what not, China will not adopt them simply because we have found their value and are proud of them. But if, within the range of her own experience, she finds the advantage of these things, she will employ them with a rapidity and decision surpassing those of the Japanese. A conspicuous instance of this will be found in her recent action with respect to telegraphs. For years the Chinese steadily refused to have anything to do with them; the small land line which connected the foreign community of Shanghai with the outer world, was maintained against the violent protests of the local authorities, and the cable companies experienced some difficulty in getting permission to land their cables. But during the winter of 1870-80, when war with Russia was threatened, the value of telegraphs was demonstrated to the Peking government. The Peiho at Tientsin was closed by ice against steamers, and news could only be carried to the capital by overland couriers from Shanghai. Before a year elapsed a land line of telegraph was being constructed between this port and Tientsin; in a few months the line was in working order, and the Chinese metropolis is now in telegraphic communication with every capital in Europe.

This conservatism, respect for antiquity, conceit, prejudice, call it what we will, has something in it that extorts our respect. Let us imagine a dignified and cultivated Chinese official conversing with a pushing Manchester or Birmingham manufacturer, who descants on the benefits of our modern inventions. He would probably commune with himself in this wise, whatever reply Oriental politeness would dictate to his interviewer: "China has got on very well for some tens of centuries without the curious things of which this foreigner speaks; she has produced in this time statesmen, poets, philosophers, soldiers; her people appear to have had their share of affliction, but not more than those of Europe; why should we now turn round at the bidding of a handful of strangers who know little of us or our country, and make violent changes in our life and habits? A railway in a province will throw thousands of coolies and boatmen out of employment and bring on them misery and starvation. This foreigner says that railways and telegraphs have been found beneficial in his country; good, let his countrymen have them if they please, but let us rest as we are for the present. Moreover, past events have not given us such faith in Europeans that we should take all they say for wisdom and justice." A day will undoubtedly come when China also will have her great mechanical and scientific enterprises; but what we contend for here is that nothing we can say or do will bring that time an hour nearer. European public opinion is to China a dead letter; she refuses to plead before that tribunal. Each step of her advance along our path must be the result of her own reflection and experience; and our wisest policy would be to leave her to herself to advance on it as she deems best. SINENSIS.

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THE DIAMOND FIELDS OF SOUTH AFRICA.

At a recent meeting of the Institution of Civil Engineers, the paper read was "On the Diamond Fields and Mines of South Africa," by Mr. James N. Paxman, Asoc. M. Inst. C.E.

The author commenced by stating that Kimberley was situated in Griqualand West, above 700 miles northeast from Table Bay, and 450 miles inland from Port Elizabeth and Natal on the east coast. Lines of railway were in course of construction from Table Bay and Port Elizabeth to Kimberley, and were about half completed. In Griqualand there were several diamond mines, the principal of which were Kimberley, De Beer's, Du Toit's Pan, and Bultfontein.

In the Orange Free States there were also two mines, viz., Jagersfontein and Koffeyfontein, the first of which produced fine white stones. The mines were all divided into claims, the greatest number of which were to be found in the Du Toit's Pan mine. Bultfontein came next.

The deepest and most regularly worked was the Kimberley mine. The next deepest was De Beer's, which, however, was very unevenly worked. Then followed Du Toit's Pan and Bultfontein. The Du Toit's Pan mine ranked next in importance to Kimberley mine. Diamonds were first discovered in 1867 by Mr. O'Reilley, a trader and hunter, who visited a colonist named van Niekirk, residing in Griqua. The first diamond, on being sent to the authorities, was valued at 500l. Considerable excitement was caused throughout the colony, and the natives commenced to look for diamonds, and many were found, among which was one of eighty-three and a half carats, valued at 15,000l. In 1868 many enterprising colonists made their way up the Vaal River, and were successful in finding a good number of diamonds. The center of the river diggings on the Transvaal side was Klipdrift, and on the opposite side Pniel. In all there were fourteen river diggings. Du Toit's Pan and Bultfontein mines were discovered in 1870 at a distance of twenty-four miles from the river diggings. The diggers took possession of these places. Licenses were granted giving the first diggers a right to work. In 1871 De Beer's and Kimberley mines were discovered, and in 1872, Mr. Spalding's great diamond of 2821/2 carats was found at the river diggings.

The mines were of irregular shape, and were surrounded by reef. The top reef was a loose shale, and had given great trouble from the frequent slips. Below this were strata of trachitic breccia and augite; the formation was then seamy to an unknown depth.

Within the reef, the surface soil was red, and of a sandy nature. The next stratum was of a loose, yellow, gravelly lime, and the third blue, of a hard, slaty nature. This last was the real diamantiferous soil. Large stones had been found in the "yellow," but the working of this generally did not pay. Kimberley mine, however, had paid very well all through. The method of working in deep ground was determined by roadways running north and south. The soil was hauled up to these roadways, and taken to the sorting tables. The roadways decaying shortly after exposure to the atmosphere, a system of hand windlass was adopted, which worked very well for a time until horsewhims were adopted in 1873. The depths of the mines increasing, horsewhims had to give way to steam-engines in 1876.

The first diggers treated on an average ten loads per day each party. At the present time the least taken out by any engine, when fully employed, was 250 loads per day. The cost of working, with present appliances, the first one hundred feet in depth, was 3s. 6d. per load; the second one hundred feet (mostly blue) 5s.; the third one hundred feet 8s.; and the fourth one hundred feet 11s. Through scarcity of water a system of dry-sorting had to be resorted to for several years; but it was superseded by the introduction of washing machinery, which was now generally employed.

At the commencement, through inexperience, many serious mistakes were made. When the first diggers reached the bottom of the red sand, they thought no diamonds would be found in the next stratum. When, however, diamonds were found in the second stratum, the diggers had again to remove the debris, and so also when the "blue" was reached. Some of the claims in the Du Toit's Pan and Bultfontein mines were irregular in shape. The other mines, however, had been properly and regularly laid out. One or two shafts had been connected with the mines by underground galleries. These galleries were convenient in the case of falls of reef. Labor, at first, was cheap; but from 20s. per month, wages rose to 30s. per week, and food. The yellow soil offered no difficulty in working, being loose and broken, but the blue soil required blasting.

Several methods were adopted for extracting the soil and carrying it from the mine before steam was introduced. The cost of wood for heating purposes was a serious item, but good coal had now been found at 160 miles from Kimberley, costing 13l. per ton; another serious item of expense was the transport over natural roads only, costing from 18l. to 30l. per ton.

The machinery designed by the author for this industry was described. A sixteen horse-power direct-acting winding engine was introduced for hauling up loads at the rate of about one thousand feet per minute, and a twenty-five horse-power geared engine, for hauling up heavier loads at the rate of from six hundred feet to seven hundred feet per minute.

Water was dear, and water-heaters were fitted to each engine, by which thirty-three per cent. of the water was again used, thus saving one third. The boilers were of the locomotive type, mostly of steel, to save weight, and thus reduce the cost of transit. The fire-boxes were also made of steel of very soft and ductile quality. A semi-portable engine was made for driving the wash mill. The engine was so arranged that it might be removed from the boiler and placed separately. The boiler was made to work at a pressure of 140 pounds per square inch. Automatic cut off gear was fixed to each engine, and the governors were provided with a spiral spring for adjusting the speed. A screen, or cylinder wash mill and elevator, were used for dealing with the diamantiferous soil, and were described. Standing wires were fixed at the back of the machinery, and passed over a frame fixed at the top of the mine, the end of the mine being secured to strong wooden posts. After the blue soil had been blasted and collected into trucks, it was placed in tubs, which ascended the standing wires. It was then emptied into the depositing box. The yellow soil might be put into the wash mill direct, also that portion of the blue which had passed through the screen fixed over the depositing box. The remainder of the blue, which was spread out to a thickness of four inches or six inches on the depositing ground, some distance from the mine to dry, was delivered into the upper part of the screen. The return water from the elevator, with a portion of fresh water, was also discharged at this point, and operations were thus greatly facilitated, the soil becoming thoroughly saturated, and passing more easily down the shoots. The large pieces which would not drop through the meshes of the screen were discharged into trucks at the lower end and carried away. The smaller pieces with water, in the form of sludge, fell through into a shoot, and thus were conveyed into the wash mill pan, and there kept in constant rotating motion by agitators. The diamonds and other pieces of high specific gravity sank to the deepest part of the pan, and the remainder of the sludge was forced over the inner ledge to the elevator. The sludge was then lifted and thrown upon an inclined screen and down the shoot over the side of the bank. The residue left in the pan at the end of the day's work was passed through a pulsator, in which, by the force of water, the mud and lighter particles were carried away, leaving behind the diamonds, agates, garnets, and other heavy stones. It was the practice occasionally to put a few inferior stones in the soil, to test the efficiency of the machinery.

In 1881 the author paid a visit to Kimberley, and found the industry a large one. The Post Office return showed the value of diamonds passed through the office in one year to be 3,685,000l. Illicit diamond traffic had hitherto been a source of great trouble at the fields. It was a question whether this industry would ever cease; in any case there was no doubt but that it would last for over a century. It was believed that the main bed of diamonds had not yet been reached, and that the mines in operation were merely shafts leading to it. Now that the water works were finished, with a bountiful supply of water, coupled with the great boon of railways to the Fields, and the advantage of a law recently passed for the prevention of illicit buying, a great and prosperous future was in store for the Diamond Fields.

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SPONGES AT THE BAHAMAS.

Within the last few decades the sponge industry of the Bahama Islands has increased at such a rate that to-day it is the second in importance on the island. Although the product is not of such excellent quality as that from the Mediterranean, it sells well and is in demand both in England and in America.

For sponge fishing little boats of ten tons burden are employed and manned by from six to twelve men. The sponges that are washed upon the rocks and reefs are taken with iron rakes fastened to long poles, or are brought to the surface by divers and spread out on the deck of the vessel. This kills their soft, slimy organisms, which are black as tar. The sponges are then repeatedly beaten with sticks to remove this black slime, and afterward well washed.

The sponges are then sorted and softened for several hours in lime water, dried in the sun, and bleached. They are finally pressed by machinery into 100 lb. balls and then packed for shipping.

A rich and very extensive "sponge field" was recently discovered near Eleuthera, but as the water there has a considerable depth, five or six fathoms, fishing is attended with difficulty. In fact, it is rendered impossible wherever the "segler" or sailor fish are found, for the mud which these tiny creatures stir up completely veils the sponges from the eye of the fisherman.

In 1881 the export amounted to $150,000, of which three-fourths came to America.—Chem. Zeit.

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TESTING FISH OVA FOR IMPREGNATION.

The development of the eyes of game fishes (salmonoids), as is well known, is relatively far advanced before the fish culturist is positively assured that embryos are developing normally in the egg. A method, therefore, which would enable us to shorten this period of probation would not only be desirable, but be also of value under certain circumstances, since it is certainly annoying after having had them in water for four or five weeks, spending time and care over them, to eventually find, when the "eye spots" do not develop, that all our trouble was wasted and that no development at all took place.

It is true one may, with proper preparations and with the help of the pocket lens or microscope, follow the development while there may be no external signs of the process evident. This method of making the test is, however, not adapted to the purposes of the practical fish culturist, who will have better success by the following method:

If fertilized fish ova are placed in a 50 per cent. solution of wine vinegar [any ordinary vinegar will probably be found to answer just as well—Tr.] the embryo, even during the very first stages of development, will become apparent to the eye lying on the transparent yelk. The acetic acid contained in the mixture, one part water to one part wine vinegar, causes the material of the embryo proper to coagulate, while the yelk remains clear.

A short time after the ova are laid in this mixture, and during the first week after impregnation, a white circle at one pole of the egg should become apparent, and in the course of the second week a cylindrical white streak running from the edge of the circle toward its center should be evident. If these features are not developed by the test, the eggs have not been fertilized, and are, therefore, worthless.

We will not complicate the application of the method by describing other details of the development, but would merely suggest that when a lot of ova are fertilized a small portion should be left unimpregnated. These could then be tested in comparison with the fertilized ova from day to day, using say three eggs at a time of each lot. The observant culturist could by this means construct for himself a scale of development covering the period embraced by his experiments. At a lower temperature the development is slower than at a higher one. The difference of appearance between fertilized and unfertilized ova treated by the method will demonstrate its utility. Whoever does not trust to the method for the evidence of death of the eggs until after five weeks subsequent to impregnation, must of course wait.

Director Tiefenthaler, of Koelzen, has had the kindness to test the method practically, and finds it useful to fish culturists.—Prof. Nussbaum.

[A very little practice, it seems to the translator, would serve to enable any person of ordinary intelligence to apply this method, or several others which might be suggested. Other substances which would answer the same purpose would be dilute solutions of picric or chromic acid, of not more than one to one-half per cent., or one part to two hundred of water. Vinegar or acetic acid of the shops may also be used; the last to be diluted in the proportions of about one part in ten of water. The acids cited will coagulate and cause the germ disk to turn white or yellow in a few hours. Chromic is better than picric acid, as it coagulates the yelk also, but turns the latter much darker than the embryo or embryonic disk.—Tr.]

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