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spirited and unruly tribe than the more industrial Motuans, who have been called the 'British' of New Guinea, while the others have been likened to the Irish. Nor is the comparison in the latter case without fitness also; for not only in their excitability and impatience of control, but also in their light-hearted gaiety and wit, the resemblances are not far to seek.

The social arrangements here are different from those at Port Moresby, where the people live en famille in their cottages; for in Motu-motu the men congregate in large club-houses or dubus, while the women and children live in smaller houses. Even married men live in these clubs, and, although they may visit their families, they must always return to the dubu before daybreak, otherwise they commit a serious breach of Papuan etiquette. These dubus are curious structures built on platforms 14 to 16 feet from the ground, and shaped like the open mouth of a shark. Under the great projecting upper jaw or gable the men lounge and smoke in the daytime, and have their food brought to them here by the women, who are strictly forbidden to enter the interior, which is helaga, sacred, or tapu to the men. In each village there are several dubus, occupied by different clans or families. At a certain age the boys of the clan are taken into the dubu to undergo initiation, have their heads shaved, and remain in seclusion till their hair is fully grown.

The remainder of the paper dealt in a similar way with inhabitants of Movi-avi and Kerepuna.

5. On the Tobas of Gran Chaco, South America. By J. GRAHAM Kerr.

The author gave a short account of the manners and customs of the Natokoi or Tobas of the Gran Chaco. This region is inhabited by very numerous nations of American Indians, differing markedly in language, customs, and in minor physical characters. The Tobas are exclusively nomadic in their habits, living entirely on the products of the chase. They usually go about in small hunting parties, larger tribal encampments being only formed occasionally, e.g., at particular seasons. regard to their mental characters, it was pointed out that they appeared to believe only in the existence of numerous minor evil spirits, who were the causes of disease, accidents, defeats in battle, and other misfortunes; and that their arithmetical powers were very limited, the limit of counting being usually about five.

6. On the Maya Indians of Chichén Itzá, Yucatan.
By ALFRED P. MAUDSLAY.

In

In this paper the author gave an account of some excavations of a burial-mound in the Vera Paz of Guatemala, and the discovery of little jars containing the bones of the little fingers probably deposited by mourners.

The earliest notices of the great Maya ruins at Chichén Itzá, in Yucatan, were discussed, and extracts given from a document lately found by Dr. Marimon in Seville, describing the ceremonies still performed by the Mayas at the great Cenote at Chichén at the time of the Spanish conquest, although the town was already abandoned and the buildings in ruins.

A description was given of the great tennis-court, and a model of it exhibited. The paper concluded by calling attention to some photographs of a hitherto unknown Maya monument at Ixkum, in which the supporters of the Maya figures are captives bound with cords, who are altogether unlike the Mayas in appearance, and probably belong to another race.

7. On the Loochooan Language. By Professor BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN,

Hitherto only two languages have been generally recognised as spoken in the Japanese Empire-viz. Japanese proper, and Aino or Ainu, the language of the hairy aborigines of the north. Professor Chamberlain's paper contains a preliminary sketch of his analysis of a third language-Loochooan-known hitherto, or one might better say suspected, only from a short and exceedingly imperfect vocabulary by the late Lieutenant Clifford, R.N., appended to Captain Basil Hall's

'Voyage of Discovery to the Great Loochoo Island,' published in the year 1818. Mr. Chamberlain has now ascertained that Loochooan stands to Japanese in about the same relation that Spanish does to French. The importance of this discovery will be best appreciated when it is remembered that the Japanese language had hitherto stood in a position of complete isolation, without kindred of any sort. With this new key it will be possible to solve many difficult questions of Japanese philology, and in the paper the author discusses the formation of the negative conjugation of Japanese verbs from this new point of view. Mr. Chamberlain also establishes the fact that Japanese, as we now have it, is the language of the invaders of the Archipelago, not that of the previous inhabitants, by whom the invaders might be supposed to have been absorbed.

8. Report of the Committee on the North-western Tribes of Canada. See Reports, p. 453.

9. On the Significance of Objects with Holes.
By Miss A. W. BUCKLAND.

This paper treats of what appears to be a world-wide superstition, belonging to all races and to all time, in which holes are credited with healing and protective powers.

The superstition exists among us at present in the shape of lucky money and lucky stones, but can be traced back to Neolithic times, in the great holed stones and dolmens which are found in Great Britain and Ireland as well as in many countries of Europe, in North Africa, India, Syria, Circassia, and also in America. The chief of British holed stones, the Men-an-tol, is still known locally as the Crickstone, and through it people creep for the cure of rheumatism.

In Siberia wooden figures bored with holes are carried about as a cure for various diseases, according to the part in which the hole is bored; and figures of great age have been found in Peru and among the Eskimo, which seem from the holes in them to have been intended for the same purpose. Engraved shells also similarly bored have been found in ancient Chaldea and in the American mounds.

The same superstition appears to be traceable in the trephined skulls of Neolithic times found in many countries, and from which amulets have been cut, probably for the cure of epilepsy, the disease for which the operation was undoubtedly undertaken, since it was thus employed up to quite recent times; and the bones of the human skull were always recommended, either grated as a potion, or worn as an amulet, for the cure of epileptic disease.

Miss Buckland believes the healing property thus attached to holes to be of necromantic origin. She regards the hole as the symbol of the underworld, the abode of the Creator in some cosmogonies, and always of the spirits of dead ancestors. Hence they are summoned by the medicine-men to assist them in their healing ceremonies and magic incantations; and thus the hole, through which they are drawn by sorcery, became to the savage the source of healing, and in this form, modified by time, it has descended to us.

The underworld also was the reputed source of wealth; hence the symbolical hole in money caused it to be regarded as lucky money, and this probably explains the use of ring money among the ancients. These symbolical holes are also found in ceremonial weapons in West Africa and in the South Sea Islands, as they were also probably in Ancient Egypt and other countries; the idea suggested being that the bearer of the weapon assumed the power of sending offenders to Hades. Holes exist also in magic wands and in staves, especially in the South Sea Islands, where the holes certainly represent deceased ancestors.

The magic wands and the South Sea staves or idols resemble so strongly the holed implements of reindeer horn found in caves of Paleolithic times, that Miss Buckland believes these staves also to have been used by the medicine-men of that remote period as symbols of the world of spirits over which they assumed control, and that thus we can trace the superstitions connected with holes to the earliest of the human race.

SECTION I.-PHYSIOLOGY.

PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION-Professor E. A. SCHÄFER, F.R.S.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 9.

[The President's Address was delivered on Friday, August 10.—See p. 795.] THE following Papers were read :

1. The Response of Animals to Changes of Temperature.
By M. S. PEMBREY, M.A., M.B.

The simplest method of investigating the response of animals to changes of temperature is to determine the amounts of carbonic acid which they discharge. The carbonic acid is a measure, it may be not an exact one, of the heat produced. From this point of view a series of experiments have been made upon the power which warm-blooded animals possess of varying their production and loss of heat in such a way that their mean temperature is constant.

A mouse is a very suitable animal for such experiments, because on account of its large cutaneous surface compared with its small bulk the reaction to a change of temperature is very rapid. Within two minutes of a fall in external temperature from 30° to 18° the mouse increases its output of carbonic acid by 74 per cent.; within one minute of a change from 33°25 to 17°5 the increase is 60 per cent. The response to a rise in temperature is not so rapid: within two minutes of a rise from 18° to 34°5 the decrease in carbonic acid is 18 per cent.; within one minute of a change from 17° to 32° the decrease is 5 per cent. With cold surroundings the mouse is very active, whereas with a warm temperature it becomes quiet and goes to sleep. The relationship between muscular activity and the production of heat is well shown.1

Experiments were next made upon the developing chick. It is a warm-blooded animal, but during its development it was probable that it passed through a stage in which it would have responded to changes of temperature in a similar way to that seen in cold-blooded animals; that in cold surroundings it would have produced less carbonic acid, but that with a rise in temperature it would have increased its output of carbonic acid. The experiments show that during the greater part of the period of incubation the developing chick responds to changes of temperature in a similar manner to that of a cold-blooded animal; that towards the end of incubation, about the 20th or 21st day, there is an apparently neutral stage in which no marked response is seen; that this neutral condition is succeeded, when the chick is hatched, by a warm-blooded stage. The intermediate stage may be the resultant of two opposite tendencies-on the one hand the cold-blooded condition, on the other the imperfectly developed power of regulating the production of heat. When

1 'On the Reaction-time of Mammals to Changes in the Temperature of their Surroundings,' Journal of Physiology, xv. 1893, p. 401.

the developing chick is exposed to shock by the prolonged action of cold, this neutral condition may be replaced by a return to the cold-blooded stage.

The reaction of the recently-hatched chick is rapid; a fall of 20° in temperature will within fifteen minutes raise the carbonic acid to double its previous

amount.

It would appear that this power of regulation depends upon the integrity and full development of the nervous control of muscular action. The chick directly it is hatched possesses great control over its muscles; it is able to run about, feed itself, and perform other complicated movements. At the same time it is able to regulate its production of heat.

It was probable that animals born blind and in a very helpless condition would not possess this power of regulation; that in their case a fall in external temperature would be accompanied by a decrease in carbonic acid, and that with a rise of temperature the output of carbonic acid would be increased. This has been proved to be true in the case of the pigeon. A young pigeon was examined, when it was one day old, and it was found that a fall of 14° in external temperature caused the carbonic acid to diminish to one-third its former value within thirty minutes of the change in temperature. When two days old a similar change of temperature produced almost as great a fall in the output of carbonic acid; raising the temperature to its former level did not cause the carbonic acid to increase with the same rapidity with which it had fallen.

Thus a young pigeon resembles to a certain extent a cold-blooded animal. There is, however, one great difference. The young pigeon responds very rapidly, the frog responds extremely slowly.

To study still further the influence of the nervo-muscular system upon the regulation of temperature by the production of heat, experiments have been made upon mice after section of the spinal cord and during anesthesia. Both these procedures tend to make the mouse respond in a somewhat similar way to that observed in the cold-blooded animal.

The writer has to thank Messrs. Gordon and Warren for much assistance in some of the experiments.

2. On some Experiments to determine the Time-relations of the Voluntary Tetanus in Man. By DAVID FRASER HARRIS, B.Sc. Lond., M.B.

1. In a large number of experiments the following apparatus was used:A metallic case, made air-tight at each end, was fitted over the forearm from below the elbow to near the wrist. This instrument, practically an air-plethysmo graph (for it could register the pulse-beats), had a circular aperture cut in the upper surface, and over this space was fastened a membrane of gold-beater's skin, to which was fastened a disc of platinum. There was no tension exerted on the membrane, which the slightest increase of pressure caused to move, but which, on the cessa tion of the agitation, came immediately to rest.

Touching the platinum disc was a fine metallic point-the end of a screw supported by an upright soldered to the metallic case. A wire was led to a battery, thence the current traversed an electro-magnetic writer (or signal'), and the cir cuit was completed to the screw-point. The vibrations of the muscles of the forearm thrown into voluntary tetanus (via the air under the membrane) agitated the membrane, and so made and broke the current, these interruptions in turn synchronously affecting the writing style of the electro-magnet, which traced on a revolving drum a myogram of 'incomplete' tetanus. The rhythm of this as computed from nine different parts of a tracing varied thus: 10, 12, 233, 10, 10, 20, 20, 20, 26-6 vibrations per second, or on an average 16-8. The average of a very large number of computations was 13.3.

2. The method employed by Schäfer gave exactly similar results-viz. an average of 10, 8 to 13 being the minimum and maximum rates respectively.

The paper is published in the Journal of Physiology, October 1894. 2 Journal of Physiology, vol. vii.

3. This method was modified as follows:

A steel spring, strongly clamped at one end, was arranged so that its free end could be bent back to touch a hinged upright connected with a tambour; the recording tambour was in connection as in method 2. By pulling on the spring by the index-finger (the corresponding thumb being at the fixed point of resistance) the vibratory movements of tetanic muscles are communicated through the spring to the air, and so to the recording tambour. The graphic representation of this is very similar to that in 2.

18.

The figures in a typical set of tracings were 9, 6·6, 10, 113, 14, 17, 13, 11·7, The average of a large number of experiments was 12.5 vibrations per second. 4. In this, the apparatus was as in 3, except that the myogram was taken on a rotating cylinder, which also oscillated transversely seventeen times per second. The tracing was in places identical with that obtained when one combines two wave-systems whose periods are as 1:2; in other places there was a perfectly simple wave-form.

It is contrary to all we know to suppose that the tetanus had twice the rate of the cylinder-viz. 34; the contrary must be true.

If, then, the tetanus had at times a rhythm of 8.5 per second, and at times rose to 17, the mean is 12.75.

5. By a method employing a carbon resistance pile (upon which the muscle was pressed) in the primary circuit of the inductorium, a capillary electrometer in the secondary, and viewing the electrometer through a stroboscopic card, a rate of 12 per second was estimated.

6. By experiments with the microphone, on which the muscle was laid, the rest of the connections being as in 5, the rate was fixed at 12-15.

7. By the microphone laid over the contracting biceps, and a frog's gastrocnemius stimulated by secondary shocks (the microphone being in the primary circuit of inductorium), a rate of 8-15 was estimated, or an average of 115 vibra tions per second.

The average of these and very many other experiments is 12.5 per second.

3. On Mirror Writing. By Professor F. J. ALLEN.

4. On a Model of the Cochlea. By JOHN G. M'KENDRICK, M.D., F.R.S., Professor of Physiology in the University of Glasgow.

Professor M'Kendrick exhibited a working moded intended to illustrate the mechanism of the cochlea, devised by himself, with the aid of valuable suggestions by Professor Crum Brown. It consisted of a water-tight glass tank divided into two compartments by a horizontal glass diaphragm. At the end of each compartment a round hole was cut and covered with an india-rubber membrane. The upper hole represented the fenestra ovalis, and the lower the fenestra rotunda. The horizontal glass plate had two holes cut, each of which was supplied with an indiarubber membrane, and on each membrane there was a steel watch-spring tuned to vibrate at a certain rate. The vibrations of the two springs were as 2: 1. An arrangement was used for imitating the movements of the stapes, consisting of a rod caused to oscillate horizontally by an eccentric wheel. In this way pendular vibrations were transmitted by the fenestra ovalis, and it was shown that when the number of pushes made by the base of the stapes corresponded to the period of spring A, spring A began to vibrate; if the number of pushes was increased A ceased to move; and when the pushes reached the period of B, the latter began to move. Finally, by an appropriate harmonic motion, the wave form of two vibrations of 2:1 was transmitted to the fenestra ovalis, and both springs vibrated when the period of A was reached, thus showing that the apparatus analysed the compound wave-form. The model generally supported the Helmholtz-Hensen theory of the

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