by some early race of men, and subsequently as a cemetery, and since the corpses had been deposited on the old inhabited surface, the human bones were more or less intermingled with those of the animals. The entrance had been blocked up with a barrier of large stones, and the interior was filled nearly to the roof with the fine red silt introduced through the crevices in the roof by the rain. The human remains, which were described by Prof. Busk in the essay on the discoveries published in the Journal of the Ethnological Society, January 1871, presented points of very high interest; for while the skulls were rather above than below the present average cranial capacity, some of the leg-bones were remarkable for the peculiar antero-posterior flattening or platycnemism of the shinbones. And this flattening was caused by the prolongation of the bone in front of the inter-osseous ridge, and not in any great degree by its posterior extension, which is the distinctive feature of the tibiæ found in the caves of Cro Magnon and of Gibraltar. The fact that these platycnemic leg-bones were associated with others of the ordinary forms, and for the most part belonging to the young, and probably to females, while the skulls were of the same type, proves that the character is not one of race, as M. Broca believed, but rather one peculiar to the individual and perhaps to the sex.

Subsequently, I was able to bring this interesting sepulchral cave into relation with remains of man from other parts of Denbighshire, through the courtesy of Mrs. Williams Wynn, in whose possession were a skull and several long bones obtained some years ago ina cave at Cefn, and of the same type as those from Perthi Chwareu They were found along with the remains of sheep or goat, pig, fox, badger, and stag, and four flint flakes.

A chambered tomb at Cefn, explored in 1869 by Mrs. Williams Wynn, under the care of the Rev. D. R. Thomas and myself, and consisting of a chamber 5ft. wide and 9ft. long, which gradually contracted until it joined a passage 6ft. long and 21t. wide, contained considerably more than twelve human skeletons buried in the sitting posture, of various ages, and presenting in some cases platycnemic tibiæ. The skulls were of the same type as those from Perthi Chwareu, and some were possessed of peculiar upturned nasal bones that pointed unmistakeably in the direction of a nez retroussé. A few small broken fint pebbles were the only foreign matters in the tomb, which was built of large rough slabs of limestone placed on edge, and covered with capstones, and finally buried under a carnedd of loose fragments of limestone. A second chambered tomb with a passage was discovered by the Rev. D. R. Thomas in this carnedd in 1871, which was full of human remains of the same kind as those which I have mentioned, and in addition a few remains of dog, pig, sheep, and roe-deer were found. A broken flint and a round stone were also met with.

The remarkable correspondence of the human remains in the carnedd and the Cefn Cave with those of Perthi Chwareu, proves that the race of men who buried their dead in the tombs is the same as that which used the caves for its last resting-places. The stone chambers, with their low entrance and narrow passage, are indeed caves artificially made, and it is very possible that the idea of making "Ganggraben," or gallery graves, is derived from the ancient custom of living in and burying in

caves.

It becomes an interesting question to ascertain the relative age of these cave dwellers and carnedd builders, who have so completely passed out of remembrance that their very name has perished. The evidence offered by the flint flakes may be at once dismissed as being valueless, because they were buried with the dead at least as late as the Roman occupation of Britain, and they merely indicate an antiquity not less than that of the conversion of the Romano-Celts to Christianity, a date which is very hotly contested at the present time. Nor does an appeal to the remains of the animals help us very much. The domestic

animals are nearly the same as those still kept in the district, and were introduced into Europe during the Neolithic age. The dog, however, so far as I know, was not usually eaten in Britain in Roman times, although it was an article of food in the Neolithic age in Switzerland and in Yorkshire. The sitting posture also of the corpses points in the Neolithic direction, as well as the correspondence of the skulls with those termed "river bed" by Prof. Huxley, and others which are undoubtedly of the newer stone age. On this evidence, therefore, the Neolithic date of these ancient dwellers in Denbighshire might be inferred with a high degree of probability.

All doubt, however, on the point has been removed by my discovery of a second cave some 300 yards removed from the first, during the exploration carried on by Mr. Lloyd, of Rhagatt, at the end of last August. Like the first it ran nearly horizontally into the rock, and was blocked up with earth and large masses of stone, and it contained the broken bones of the same animals associated with skeletons of the same type. The corpses had been buried in the sitting posture. During the first day's digging we obtained a beautiful polished axe made of greenstone, and with the edge uninjured by use, which had evidently been interred for some motive or other along with the dead, as well as a few splinters of flint, and one well-defined scraper of the same sort as those which the Eskimos use inserted into a handle of bone or antler. We added also the bear, U. Arctos, to the list of animals. And subsequently we met with a remarkably fine flint flake rather over three inches in length, which was in juxtaposition to a small heap of human bones belonging to one skeleton, and rested on the ancient floor of the cave that was indicated by a mortar-like mass of decayed stalagmite. There were also many fragments of a rude black hand-made pottery, composed of clay, worked up with small fragments of stone to prevent fracture while it was being subjected to the fire. Some were nearly an inch in thickness; while others ranged from a quarter to half an inch. It is of the same kind as that which is commonly met with in caves, occurring alike in Kühloch and Gailenreuth, and in Kent's Hole, being very frequently discovered in association with Neolithic remains. After clearing out the horizontal passage for a distance of 1oft. from the entrance, we found that it expanded into a chamber, of the dimensions of which we are unable to form an idea, as it was nearly full up to the roof with débris. The floor underneath the decomposed stalagmite consists of a tenacious gray clay, which has never yet yielded any remains either in Yorkshire, Wales, or Somerset, and is probably the result of the melting of the glaciers, the traces of which are abundant in the neighbourhood.

A third cave, running into the rock parallel with the last at a distance of 12ft., contained similar remains of man and the animals, as well as a fourth, which stands about half-way between Perthi Chwareu and those of Rhos-digre.

The interest of this discovery consists in the fact that the group of caves which has been used by a race of herdsmen in long-forgotten times as habitations and burial places, and the tombs at Cefn, must be referred to the Neolithic age. And we can now be certain that those people who have manifested the peculiar flattening forwards of the shin in Denbighshire belong to that age. It is a point also well worthy of note that the cranial capacity of these Neolithic men was not inferior to that of the average civilised man, although the ridges and processes for muscles indicated a greater physical power.

The clue to this remarkable series of caves was afforded by a small box of bones forwarded by Mr. Darwin, and obtained from the débris of a refuse heap in a neighbouring ridge, on which the Neolithic men happened to hold their feasts. We have by no means yet exhausted the evidence of a social state now unknown in Europe, which is presented by the caves and tumuli of Denbighshire.

W. BOYD DAWKINS

METEOROLOGY IN AMERICA*

THE attempt to presage great weather phenomena is nothing new. From time immemorial civilised society has sought after a plan for averting the violence of the storm and tempest as anxiously as it has sought to resist the deadly approach of the pestilence and the plague. The Great Plague of London, historians tell us, carried off in a year about 90,000 persons. This was, however, in the rude and undeveloped condition of medical science, when the metropolis of England had but few hospitals,

FIG. 1.-THE SIGNAL OFFICE AT WASHINGTON

and every victim was left in his own house to spread and speed the march of the contagious foe. Appalling as such mortality seems for the year 1665, amidst the wretched and squalid dens of the London poor, it has been overshadowed in modern times by a greater calamity. On the 5th of October, 1864, the storm which swept over Calcutta destroyed, in a single day, over 45,000 lives! Yet this is but one of a large number of similar occurrences rivalling in magnitude the great Indian disaster. To give forewarning of approaching tempests on the coasts of the Adriatic, the Italian and old Roman castles, as described by an antique writer, had on their bastions pointed rods, to which, as they passed, the guards on duty presented the iron points of their halberts, and whenever they perceived an electric spark to follow, they rang an alarm-bell to warn the farmer and the fisherman of an approaching storm. It is interesting to note that this ancient Italian custom was widely spread over the earth in former ages.

*We are very glad to avail ourselves of the courtesy of the Editor of Harper's New Monthly Magazine, who has allowed us to reprint, in a modified form, an important article on this subject by Professor T. B. Maury, in which a complete picture of what is being done in America is given. It will be seen that in many points our own Meteorological system is inferior to that

now in operation in the States. We should add that the woodcuts have also been placed at our disposal by the Editor of the Magazine referred to.

A new element of science has been introduced-the electric telegraph-an invention whose mission of useful. ness is destined to unlimited enlargement.

In November 1854, while the Anglo-French fleet was operating in the Black Sea against the stubborn walls of Sebastopol, the tidings flashed across the wires that a mighty tempest had arisen on the western coast of France, and, by the warnings of the barometer, was on its way eastward. The telegram was sent by the French Minister of War, Marshal Vaillant, from Paris, and reached the allied fleet in good time to enable them to put to sea before the cyclone could travel the five hundred leagues of its course, and disperse or destroy the most splendid navies that ever rode those waters. The storm came with a fatal punctuality to the predicted hour. The Crimea, shaken, ravaged, scourged by its fury, presented everywhere a scene of havoc and ruin in the allied camp more fearful than any the fire of all the Russian forts combined could have inflicted. It is perhaps not too much to say that, but for that telegram and its timely storm warning, the congregated navies, far from home and shattered to pieces, could not have sustained the besieging armies, and the event of the great Eastern war might have been different from what it finally was.

So happily, in this instance, did theory (too often despised) blend with fact, that the French War Minister said, "It appears that, by the aid of the electric telegraph and barometric observations, we may be apprised several hours or several days of great atmospheric disturbances, happening at the distance of 1,000 or 1,500 leagues."

So far as we have been able to learn, the first idea of making use of the telegraph for conveying information in regard to the weather, with a view of anticipating changes at any point, occurred to Prof. Henry, the eminent secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, in the year 1847, as in the report of the Institution for that year, page 190 (presented to Congress on the 6th of January, 1848), we find the following paragraph :

"The present time appears to be peculiarly auspicious for commencing an enterprise of the proposed kind. The citizens of the United States are now scattered over every part of the southern and western portion of North Ame rica, and the extended lines of telegraph will furnish a ready means of warning the more northern and eastern observers to be on the look-out for the first appearance of an advancing storm.'

Additional references to this subject were made in the reports of 1846 and 1849, in the latter of which we are informed that "successful applications have been made to the presidents of a number of telegraph lines, to allow, at a certain period of the day, the use of their wires for the transmission of meteorological intelligence." Although subsequent reports referred to the intention of the Insti tution to organise a telegraphic department for its meteorological observations, it was not until 1856, as far as we can ascertain, that observations were actually collected and posted. In the report for 1857 we find that "the Institution is indebted to the national telegraph lines for a series of observations from New Orleans to New York, and as far westward as Cincinnati, which were published in the Evening Star."

In the report of 1858 it is announced that "an object of much interest at the Smithsonian building is the daily exhibition, on a large map, of the condition of the weather over a considerable portion of the United States, The reports are received about ten o'clock in the morning, and the changes on the maps are made by temporarily attaching to the several stations pieces of card of different colours, to denote different conditions of the weather as to clearness, cloudiness, rain, or snow. This map is not only of interest to visitors in exhibiting the kind of weather which their friends at a distance are experiencing, but is also of importance in determining at a glance the probable changes which may soon be expected."

sweep over the land, might be given sufficiently in advance to prevent shipwreck, with many other losses, disasters, and inconveniences to both man and beast (page 6). The same journal states that the Meteorological Department of the London Board of Trade, under Admiral Fuz oy, was established to co-operate with the suggestion of Lieutenant Maury, which statement is confirmed by the report of the English Board for 1866 (page 17), and also by Admiral Fitzroy himself, in his Weather Book, where he tells (page 49), "from personal knowledge, how cold Maury's views and suggestions were received in this country (England) prior to 1853." The great meteorologist, Alexander Buchan, Secretary of the Scottish Meteorological Society, in his recent work, strikingly states the indebtedness of Europe to the United States for this system: "The establishment of meteorological societies during the last twenty years must be commemorated as contributing in a high degree to the advancement of the science. In this respect the United States stand preeminent."

Less than three years after the occurrence of the famous "Black Sea storm," just mentioned, there appeared for the first time, and in an American paper, a formal proposition for the establishment of a general system of daily weather reports by telegraph, and the utilisation of that great invention for the collection of meteorologic changes at a central office, and the transmission thence of storm warnings to the sea-ports of the American lakes and our Atlantic sea-board.

"Since great storms," says Mr. Thomas B. Butler in his work on the "Atmospheric System and Elements of Prognostication," "have been found to observe pretty well-defined laws, both as respects the motions of the wind and the direction of their progress, we may often recognise such a storm in its progress, and anticipate changes which may succeed during the next few hours. When it is possible to obtain telegraphic reports of the weather from several places in the valley of the Mississi pi and its tributaries, we may often predict the approach of a great storm twenty-four hours before its violence is felt at New York."

On the coasts of the kingdom of Italy mariners are forewarned that a storm threatens them by a red flag hoisted on all the towers and light-houses of the principal localities, ranging from Genoa to Palermo, and thence up along the Adriatic. On the most dangerous points of the coast of England, where the fishing-boats and small craft that perform the service of the coast are exposed to formidable gales even during the most promising season, barometers put up by the Meteorological Bureau are at hand to warn the seamen of bad weather. A striking illustration of the importance of storm weather signals was recently furnished (March 8), when a tornado swept over St. Louis, destroying several lives and 1,000,000 dols. worth of property.

In former publications the writer has demonstrated at length the fire-sprinkled paths and tracks of these storms, some of which are generated in the torrid zone, and sweep over the Gulf of Mexico, and thence up the valley of the Mississippi; or, shooting off from the bosom of the Gulf Stream, strike upon the Atlantic coast, and thence commence their march upon the sea-board and central States of the Union. In these published papers the view taken of these tropic-born cyclones is, with some modifications, that announced in 1831, and then substantially demonstrated by Mr. William C. Redfield, of New York, viz. that they rotate round a calm centre of low barometer, in a direction contrary to the hands of a watch in the northern hemisphere, and with the hands of a watch in the southern hemisphere.

The writer was aware, when this view was first publicly sustained by himself, that it was not accepted by all meteorologists.

The observations, of the most reliable and extended character, made within the last few years, go far to show

that the storms which descend on low latitudes of the earth from high polar regions are, as the storms of the tropical regions, likewise of a rotary or cyclonical character.

One of the most beautiful illustrations of the law which governs these atmospheric disturbances may be found in the gale which is so celebrated as that in which, on the 25th of October, 1859, the noble steamship Royal Charter went down, and several hundred lives were lost, in aight of the island of Anglesea, on the coast of Wales. "The Royal Charter gale, so remarkable in its features, and so complete in its illustrations," as Admiral Fitzroy has well remarked, we may say (from the fact of its having been noted at so many parts of the English coast, and because the storm passed over the middle of the country), is one of the very best to examine which has occurred for some length of time."

The peculiarity of this gale which swept over the deck of the Charter was its intense coldness, being a polar current. The phenomena of the Royal Charter gale, as detailed in Fitzroy's Weather Book and the publications of the day, are important because they furnish the reader with the type to which most American storms, and, indeed, all storms, more or less strictly conform, as geographical or orographical circumstances permit or prevent.

Storms similar in their conditions to that of the Royal Charter not unfrequently occur in the United States, especially in the winter, when the conflict of the tw currents, the polar and the equatorial, in high latitudes, is marked by sudden transitions in January from mild, moist, and balmy weather to a sudden and fearful cold, below zero. The great snow-storm which visited Chicago on Friday, the 13th of January last, was from the great polar current, and, as is the wont of westerly storms (from the orographic peculiarity of the country), made its way to the Atlantic along the lakes and through the valley of the St. Lawrence.

"With daily telegrams from the Azores and Iceland,* Buchan says, 66 two and often three days' intimation of almost every storm that visits Great Britain could be had." The Iceland telegram would give tidings from the polar air current, and that from the Azores would adver tise the movement of the tropical current.

It is highly important that the United States should have telegrams from the Pacific, and from the valley of the Saskatchewan, or some point in British America on the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains. The importance of reports from the south-west was also fearfully demonstrated in March, during the already mentioned interruption of the Signal Service.

It is due to the cyclone theory, or "law of storms," here and heretofore advanced by the writer, to say that many of the storms which seem to be deviations from the cyclonic law are modified by interfering cyclones, This view was formally adopted by the committee of the Meteorological Department of the London Board of Trade. Mr. Stevenson, of Berwickshire, England, as quoted by Fitzroy in the Board of Trade Report for 1862 (p. 33), has some striking observations, founded on his own invaluable labours: "The storms which pass over the British Isles are found generally to act in strict accordance with the cyclonic theory. In many cases, however, this accordance is not so obvious, and the phenomena become highly complicated. This is a result which often happens when two or more cyclones interfere -an event of very frequent occurrence. When inter ferences of this description take place, we have squalls, calms (often accompanied by heavy rains), thunder storms, great variations in the direction and force of the wind, and much irregularity in the barometric oscillations. These complex results are. however, completely explicable by the cyclonic theory, as I have tested in several instances. A very beautiful and striking example of a compound cyclonic disturbance of the atmosphere at this place was investigated by me in September 1840, and found to be

due to the interference of three storms." Mr. Stevenson gives a number of instances of interfering cyclones which confirm this view. The points of interference, where two cyclones strike and revolve against each other, are best marked by a peculiarly and treacherously fine rain.

It may not inappropriately be added here that the cyclone theory, so strikingly illustrated by the hurricanes of the West Indies, has been demonstrated by Dove to apply to the typhoons of the Indian Ocean and China Seas. And Mr. Thorn has long since shown that the theory holds good for the storms of the Indian Ocean, south of the equator.

EXHIBITION AT MOSCOW

ΤΗ HE Society of Arts has been exerting itself to ensure that England shall take part in the International Exhibition to take place at Moscow next year. At a recent meeting of the Council a deputation was received, consisting of M. Philip Koroleff, Conseiller d'Etat Actuel, Director of the Moscow Agricultural Academy and Preresident of the Educational Department of the Exhibition, MM. Lvoff, Nicholas Saenger, Secretary of the Society of Friends of Natural Science, and the Rev. Basil E. Popove.

M. Koroleff stated that on June 11, 1872, the Society of Friends of Natural Science, Anthropology, and Ethnography, attached to the Imperial University at Moscow, proposes, with the permission of his Imperial Majesty, to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Peter the Great, falling on that day, by the opening of a Polytechnic Exhibition in Moscow.

This exhibition, which is intended to form the foundation of a Central Polytechnic Museum in the old capital of Russia, and to present, as far as possible, a complete view of the present relations of Natural Science and Technicology to arts and commerce in Russia, as well as of the progress made by the Russian nation in applied sciences throughout a period of two centuries, since the time of Peter the Great, will, in the opinion of Russian naturalists, form a most suitable tribute to the genius of this great historical character, and communicate a more elevated and especially interesting feature to the festival in his honour. This exhibition is not, strictly speaking, an international one, for, in accordance with its immediate object, it is proposed to limit the number of nations represented in it. The co-operation of German, French, Belgian, and Dutch exhibitors is hoped for, but the desired sympathy and aid is more particularly requested from England, which has attained, in comparison with other nations, such vast and unsurpassed results in that particular sphere, comprising the applications of science to art and commerce, within the limits of which it is proposed to keep the exhibition.

The Applied Natural Sciences and Technicology will form the two great divisions in the exhibition. It is in these two branches of social life that England has given so great an impulse to its own people, and is able to do the same in the case of other nations.

The exhibition is not a commercial undertaking. Its idea has been started, and is being carried out, by men devoted to science and art, who have accordingly based it, not on the principle of competition, but on that of previous invitation, and selection by competent judges.

In view of the proposed formation of a Polytechnic Museum in Moscow, the Committee will also take the necessary measures that articles considered essential to form parts of a systematic collection in it, should be, if possible, secured for the museum.

with the following sentence-" Surely there must be an error somewhere. The maximum temperature of Mr. S. or Mr. N. differ by 40° and 50°! Who is to teach or correct amateur meteorologists?" With your permission I will endeavour (1) to explain the possible cause of these discrepancies, (2) to show that it is to logists" alone that we are indebted for (a) all published information on the subject, and (8) for the inauguration of a system of strictly comparable observations on the temperature of the sun.

amateur meteoro

The difference between a thermomcter in sun and shade may I suppose be roughly defined as due to the excess of the heat rays which penetrate the former beyond those with which it can part. A bright, clear, glass bulb filled with mercury is evidently a mirror; it therefore reflects nearly all the heat rays which fall upon it, and therefore reads nearly the same in full blaze of the sun as in perfect shade. Hence it is useless as a measure of solar heat, and so long back as 1835 it was supplanted by a thermometer of which the bulb was blown in black glass. The next improvement was placing the thermometer inside a glass jacket, which was suggested about the year 1860. The reason for this arrangement was very simple; the naked black bulb thermometer varied with every change of force in the wind, and no two instruments were comparable, because it was impossible to secure precisely similar currents over both thermometers. The glass shields have greatly diminished, but not removed, this source of error. The next improvement was to substitute a dull coating of black for the glassy surface which still acted as a partial reflector. Lastly, it was found that the unblackened stem of the thermometer reduced slightly the temperature of the bulb. Hence we arrive at the present form of instrument, a maximum thermometer, with its bulb and part of the stem dull blackened, enclosed in a glass shield or jacket. Most of them are at present made with nearly all the air exhausted from the shield (whence the term vacuum thermometers), but experiments are in progress with non-exhausted jackets, and that point must therefore be left open.

The difference between one of the earliest and one of the latest form of instruments will reach 60° or 70°.

It was supposed that position did not affect these improved instruments, and so (for example) we have that at Greenwich lying on grass, that at Oxford "in a niche in the west front of the observatory about five feet from the ground." Some experiments made by myself in 1867 showed that the temperatures on grass depended on the state of the grass, whether succulent or parched, and on its length. Hence it was evident that here again comparability was gone. After many experiments by the Rev. F. W. Stow and others, one of his suggestions was adopted, and the thermometer placed on a post at the same height (4 ft.) as everybody (except the Meteorological Committee) places their shade thermometers.

Having thus epitomised the progress of solar temperature observations, I proceed very briefly to the points already mentioned.

(1.) Explanation of the discrepancies.

1280

125'2

Mean

The instruments and their position at Chiselhurst,

Radcliffe Met. Obs. 1867, page 4.