It is reported that the recent revival of archæological research in Italy is continually being hampered by the extortionate demands of proprietors on whose lands excavations are desirable. It is also alleged that a large trade has been organised in the manufacture of sham antiquities. Senator Fiorelli, the head of the Archæological Department, seeks to put a stop to these abuses by the passage of a law which will place excavations under state supervision and by official permission only. It is also suggested that the smaller antiquities should only be admitted to be genuine after due examination and the attachment of some form of official stamp or seal.
The London Chamber of Commerce have under their consideration the establishment in the metropolis of Commercial Museums, or, as they might be termed, permanent exhibitions, such as are found in Holland, Belgium, Germany, France, Switzerland, and other countries. With this view, they have deputed their secretary, Mr Kenrick Murray, to visit the Museums of the chief commercial centres on the Continent. They have instructed him to report to them upon the area of the buildings used for the purpose, their financial organisation and annual expenditure, the number of visitors they receive, and their presumed effect upon the trades of the country in which they are situated. Mr Murray will bear Foreign Office introductions to the Queen’s representatives in the different countries which he will visit, and will, therefore, have every facility for carrying out a most important commission.
The most fearful outbreak of volcanic force which the world has experienced since the eruption of Krakatoa in the Straits of Sunda, has recently laid waste many miles of the fairest part of New Zealand. It is not yet known how many human lives have been sacrificed in this terrible visitation, but it is certain that several Maori settlements have been completely destroyed, and that the country for many miles round the centre of disturbance has been literally devastated. The outbreak commenced at midnight on the 9th of last June with a succession of fearful earthquake shocks. Then, for the first time within living memory, Mount Tarawera suddenly became an active volcano, and belched forth torrents of stones and boiling mud mingled with fire and smoke. The once fertile district is covered with a layer of mud and ashes, so that those who have survived the terrible ordeal have starvation and ruin before them. One minor effect of the disaster will be regretted all the world over by those who have visited or have read of the wondrous scenery of New Zealand. The far-famed pink and white terraces have ceased to exist. These terraces were unique, and had they been known in ancient times, must have been counted with the wonders of the world. Boiling water heavily charged with silica issued from the ground, and as it tumbled over the hillside and gradually cooled in its descent, it deposited its silica as a glittering crystallisation. Mr Froude, one of the last visitors who has written upon the subject, says: ‘Stretched before us we saw the white terrace in all its strangeness: a crystal staircase, glittering and stainless as if it were ice, spreading out like an open fan from a point above us on the hillside, and projecting at the bottom into a lake, where it was perhaps two hundred yards wide.’
This hot-lake district was becoming a great sanatorium, and tourists flocked to it from all countries, for the warm water was credited with wonderful healing powers. From this circumstance alone, it was believed that the district had a great future before it. The Maoris thought not a little of the natural wonders of which they were the stewards, and took care to levy blackmail on all their visitors. All this is now at an end, for the wonders have gone, until possibly new ones are gradually developed in their stead.
Much has been written on the subject of mysterious noises, which in most cases, if intelligently inquired into, would be found to have no mystery at all about them. A Professor at Philadelphia recently recorded that at a certain hour each day one of the windows in his house rattled in the most violent manner. On consulting the local railway time-table, he could find no train running at the hour specified. But on examining another table, which included a separate line, he found that a heavy train passed at the time at a distance of several miles from his house. He then referred to the geological formation of the ground between the two points, and at once saw that there was an outcropping ledge of rock which formed a link of connection between the distant railway line and his home. It was the vibration carried by this rock from the passing train that rattled the window.
Dr Marter of Rome has discovered in many of the skulls in the different Roman and Etruscan tombs, as well as in those deposited in the various museums, interesting specimens of ancient dentistry and artificial teeth. These latter are in most cases carved out of the teeth of some large animal. In many instances, these teeth are fastened to the natural ones by bands of gold. No cases of stopped teeth have been discovered, although many cases of decay present themselves where stopping would have been advantageous. The skulls examined date as far back as the sixth century B.C., and prove that the art of dentistry and the pains of toothache are by no means modern institutions.
The city of Hernosand, in Sweden, can boast of being the first place in Europe where the streets are lighted entirely by electricity to the exclusion of gas. It has the advantage of plenty of natural water-power for driving the electric engines, so that the new lights can actually be produced at a cheaper rate than the old ones.
Although many investors have burnt their fingers—metaphorically, we mean—over the electric-lighting question in this country, it seems to be becoming a profitable form of investment in America. A circular addressed by the editor of one of the American papers to the general managers of the lighting Companies has elicited the information that many of them are earning good dividends—in one case as much as eighteen per cent. for the year. As we have before had occasion to remind our readers, the price of gas in this country averages about half what it does in New York, and this fact alone would account for the more flourishing state of transatlantic electric lighting Companies.
At a half-demolished Jesuit College at Vienna, a dog lately fell through a fissure in the pavement. The efforts to rescue the poor animal led to a curious archæological discovery. The dog had, it was found, fallen into a large vault containing ninety coffins. The existence of this underground burial-place had hitherto been quite unsuspected. The inscriptions on the coffins date back to the reign of Maria Theresa, and the bodies are of the monks of that period, and of the nobles who helped to support the monastery.
In an interesting lecture lately delivered before the Royal Institution on ‘Photography as an Aid to Astronomy,’ Mr A. A. Common, who is the principal British labourer in this comparatively new field of research, described his methods of working, and held out sanguine hopes of future things possible by astronomical photography. Speaking of modern dry-plate photography, he said: ‘At a bound, it has gone far beyond anything that was expected of it, and bids fair to overturn a good deal of the practice that has hitherto existed among astronomers. I hope soon to see it recognised as the most potent agent of research and record that has ever been within the reach of the astronomer; so that the records which the future astronomer will use will not be the written impression of dead men’s views, but veritable images of the different objects of the heavens recorded by themselves as they existed.’