MINOR PARAGRAPHS.
Miss Kingsley defines one of the fundamental doctrines of African fetich as being that the connection of a certain spirit with a certain mass of matter, a material object, is not permanent. "The African will point out to you a lightning-stricken tree and tell you that its spirit has been killed; he will tell you when the cooking pot has gone to bits that it has lost its spirit; if his weapon fails, it is because some one has stolen or made sick its spirit by means of witchcraft. In every action of his daily life he shows you how he lives with a great, powerful spirit world around him. You will see him, before starting out to hunt or fight, rubbing medicine into his weapons to strengthen the spirit within them, talking the while, telling them what care he has taken of them, reminding them of the gifts he has given them, though those gifts were hard to give, and begging them in the hour of his dire necessity not to fail him. You will see him bending over the face of a river, talking to its spirit with proper incantations, asking it when it meets a man who is an enemy of his to upset his canoe or drown him, or asking it to carry down with it some curse to the village below which has angered him, and in a thousand other ways he shows you what he believes if you will watch him patiently. It is a very important point in the study of pure fetich to gain a clear conception of this arrangement of things in grades. As far as I have gone I think I may say fourteen classes of spirits exist in fetich. Dr. Nassau, of Gaboon, thinks that the spirits affecting human affairs can be classified completely into six classes."
At a recent meeting of the Institute of Mining Engineers (England), reported by Industries and Iron, Mr. J. A. Longden, who delivered the opening address, discussed the problem presented by the rapid exhaustion of the English coal fields. During the last twenty-five years, he said, the output of coal had increased from 120,000,000 to 200,000,000 tons, the ratio of increase being two and a half per cent per annum. Assuming that the increase for the next twenty-five years will only be one and a half per cent, the coal output in 1925 would reach 280,000,000 tons. At such an increasing annual output the commercially workable coal would be practically used up. Mr. Longden suggested the propriety of putting an export duty of sixpence per ton on all coal exported, and finally said: The evidence before them all pointed to one thing—namely, that in fifty years they would practically be dependent on the United States of America for cheap coal, iron, and steel, and when this came about "we or our sons will find out that an alliance with the United States for coaling our navy was imperative." In conclusion, he insisted upon the necessity of taking measures to avoid waste in the coal industry.
The following note is from Nature of May 11th: "At the last meeting of the Anatomical Society of Great Britain and Ireland Dr. Elliot Smith settled a point in the comparative morphology of the brain which at one time was the subject of a heated controversy between Huxley and Owen. In 1861, it may be remembered, Owen maintained that the calcar avis and the calcarine fissure which causes it were characters peculiar to the brain of man, a statement which Huxley showed to be untrue, the formation being well marked in all primate brains. Dr. Elliot Smith has reached the further generalization that the calcar avis is a character shown by all mammalian brains, with the possible exception of the prototherian. He identifies—and the reasons for this identification do not seem capable of refutation—the calcarine fissure of the primate brain with the splenial fissure of the brain of other mammals. This generalization will materially assist in homologizing the primate and unguiculate pallium."
The influence of wind on the speed of steamers is of considerably more importance than is generally believed. In the Annalen der Hydrographie for January, 1899, L. E. Dinklage describes some observations recently made on two of the North German Lloyd steamers of about five thousand tons and fifteen or sixteen knots. The results show that when the wind was favorable no difference whatever could be detected in the speed of the vessels during a light breeze or a heavy gale. But with a beam (cross-wind) or head wind a reduction of from three to five knots and a half was produced. The obvious conclusion is that the wind when favorable never helps a fast steamer, but always hinders it when unfavorable. Probably with vessels steaming ten knots or less a favoring gale might increase the speed.