Scientific.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 220, 27 November 1875, Page 18

Scientific.

DEEP SEA SOUNDINGS. Not so many years ago it was considered a feat in deep sea soundings to reach a mile or a mile and a-half, and even then, after allowance had been made for the action of currents upon the line, the actual depth attained was a good deal matter of calculation or guess. Breakages also were continually occurring in the hauling up, from the necessary slenderness of the cord in comparison with the weight of the lead. The modern method by which the lead detaches itself at the bottom meets that as well as several other difficulties nearly as important, and the wonder is that it was not thought of sooner. Now, remarks Iron, there is scarcely any limit to the depth of soundings, except the depth of the sea, which the recent explorations of the Challenger go far to show to be in accordance with the theory that its greatest depth is equivalent to the height of the highest elevations above its level. The deepest sea soundings yet effected were obtained by the Challenger this year in the abysses off New Guinea, depths which have occasioned a sharp line of demarcation between the fauna of Asia and Australasia. The “ lead” weighed 4cwt., and struck bottom at the tremendous depth of 4450 fathoms, or about 26,700 feet. The hollow rod, by which specimens of the bottom are brought up, was full of mud, and both the thermometers that had been sent down were smashed to atoms by the enormous pressure of the superincumbent water. A previous unsuccessful attempt to reach the bottom, but in which 4545 fathoms were sounded, showed the temperature at that depth to be 35£deg. Fahr., uncorrected. SPIRIT RIFLE PRACTICE. {Scientific American.) The papers contain an account of a so-called elaborate investigation of a materialised spirit, which recently took place in St. Louis. The medium was one W. C. Clark, who pretends that he has a band of thirty-two disembodied spirits about him, some of which he can materialise by the odic or mesmeric force in him. During this materialisation, the medium was tied up in a closet, and the room darkened ; when, after a little while, a curtain was withdrawn, exposing a part of the interior of the closet, in which then the ghost or materialised spirit was seen. As it was suspected that, in this case, the same kind of deception was employed as in the Katie King affair, namely, that a real person of flesh and blood acted the role of the spirit, it was suggested that a crucial test would be to fire at the spirit with a loaded musket, as a real spirit could not be hurt by such an experiment. Mr. Clark having asserted that his materialised spirits were no deception, but real spirits, and could stand such a test, he received from an able marksman the following formal challenge : “St. Louis, Aug. 4, 1875. —Mr. Clark : Dear Sir, —Having attended a seance given by you, and having seen the wonderful materialisations, I will give you fifty dollars to produce one face at the aperture, if you will let me, or any jierson I may name, fire a shot at it with a rifle. If it is a spirit face it cannot hurt it, and it will satisfy me that it is not you with a mask on your face. My conditions are that you will disrobe yourself and put on clothes I shall produce, and permit me to fasten you to the bottom of the cabinet.— Yours respectfully, Henry Timkkns.” This was accepted by Mr. Clarke. On the appointed evening, August 8, he was divested of all clothing, and other clothes brought by Mr. Timkcns were put on him ; he was tied down to the bottom of the cabinet by ropes passed through holes ; a black curtain covered the window at which the ghost was to appear ; the window was located on one side of the medium : the string to open this curtain was placed within the roach of Mr. Clark. The cabinet was closed and the lights turned down ; and after a period of painful stillness, the medium asked the audience to sing, and they did so with a will. After they had finished several songs, a loud knocking was heard, which slowly became more gentle, and then ceased. After three-quar-ters of an hour, during which nothing happened but an occasional spasmodic knock, a painful cry was heard in the cabinet, the black curtain was withdrawn, aud a face appeared at the window. It was that of a girl with blue eyes and brown hair. The face was instantly seen by all present, and is described as having fixed features and other characteristics of a mask. “ Fire,” said the voice of Mr. Clark in the cabinet; and Mr. Timkcns, who had before pointed his rifle at the centre of the window, pulled the trigger, and the ball passed through the face aud lodged in the back partition of

the cabinet ; while the face remained at the window unmoved for about a minute longer, when it was concealed by the black curtain, which was drawn over the opening. The account is very minute in details about the inspection of the cabinet, and the ropes with which the medium was tied ; and it especially reports all which the latter said concerning his fatigue and the emanations from his own spirit, and the other spirits he controls ; but no means appear to have been taken to get hold of the mask, which was doubtless the thing used. The same parties (the Holmes’) who exhibited the Katie King materialisation in Philadelphia were recently exposed in Brooklyn, where a company of spiritualists themselves found out the deception practised by masks, which were exhibited before a curtained window, as at St. Louis. Such a mask, of course, would not be hurt much by a ball ; but there are other more scientific and refined methods of practising these deceptions, such as optical contrivances, which can lie made to give images which are perfectly visible and totally intangible. ETHNOLOGY. The Ethnology of New Zealand and Polynesia received much attention at the recent meeting of the British Association, owing to the presence of two distinguished authorities, the Lev. Wyatt Gill, from the Ilervey Islands, and Dr. Hector, of the New Zealand Geological Survey. The connection between the origin of the Maoris and the Polynesians was brought out in a series of papers followed by a valuable discussion. Mr. W. S. Vaux, in a paper “ On the Probable Origin of the Maori Race,” concluded that Maoris were descenrants of the great colonising race of yellow men who originally migrated from Central Asia. The Lev. W. Gill then read a paper “ On the Origin of the South Sea Islands.” Mr. Gill said that Mr. A. R. Wallace, in his “Malay Archipelago,” has advanced the theory that the Polynesians are descended from a race which once overspread a vast submerged southern continent. As the land gradually sank, a few of the aborigines may have escaped to the tops of the loftiest mountains, around which subsequently coral reefs were found. Admitting that Polynesia is pre-eminently an area of subsidence, and its great widespread groups of coral reefs may mark out the positions of former continents, Mr. Gill believed that Mr. Wallace’s reference was unwarranted. (1) Supposing that human beings inhabited this great southern continent at the period of the subsidence, and that a remnant escaped, it is not probable human life coidd have been sustained on the tops of these mountains for any considerable time, owing to the want of food and water. (2) The theory is utterly opposed to the native accounts of their own origin, which all point to the north-west. (3) The spread of the race can easily be accounted for on the basis of historical facts. In 1862 he saw on Manua, the easternmost island of the Samoan group, a small boat which had accidentally drifted from Moorea, a distance of 1250 miles, and no life was lost. A few months later on in the same year Elikana and his friends drifted in a canoe from Manihiki to Nukurairae, in the Ellice group, lying N.W. of Samoa, a distance of 1360 miles. Half of the party on board perished from want of food and water. In both these instances the drifting was from east to west, before the trade winds. A far more remarkable event occurred in January, 1858, during the prevalence of the violent easterly winds, when a numerous family of adult natives drifted from Fakaofo, in the Union Group, north of Samoa, to an uninhabited spot known as Nassau Island ; thence to Palmerston’s Island ; and finally to Maugaia, where Mr. Gill lived ; altogether a distance of more than 1200 miles in a southeasterly direction. (4) The color, hair, general physiognomy, habits, character, and especially the language, of the Polynesians clearly indicate a Malay origin. This could not be accidental. Mr. Gill’s impression was that long ages ago the progenitors of the present race entered the Pacific from the S.E. fork of New Guinea, but when driven eastward by the fierce Negrito race. The greatest distance from land to land, as they pressed eastward, would be from Samoa to the Hervey Group, about 700 miles, which had been successfully performed by natives in their fragile barks under Mr. Gill’s own observation. In the subsequent discussion Prof. Lolleston expressed his opinion that there was little difference between Papuans and Australoids ; the superficial differences were outweighed by great radical points of resemblance. He referred to the Lev. S. J. Whitmee’s paper in the Contemporar// Revieio for February, 187-3, as of the highest value on this question of the origin of the races of the Polynesian Islands. This opinion was diametrically opposed to Mr. Wallace’s. Dr. Hector described the three chief race-types among the Maoris. The first was rarely met with except in the extreme south; it was of the same typo as the aborigines of the Chatham Islands, with a distinct dialect, only comprehensible by old Maoris. They had a sloping forehead and strong muscular ridges on their skulls, which were very distinct from the great majority of Maori skulls. The other two types were now pretty well intermixed. One was more common in the northern extremity of the Northern Island, having yellow shock-hair and high cheek-bones. The third was the ordinary Maori. He mentioned the fact that the Maories had a much better knowledge of the natural history of their country than any people he had ever heard of. The older Maoris had noticed and had distinct names for nearly all their plants, not merely those that were of use ; and the same names, with slight modifications, were universally in use throughout a country a thousand miles in length. They had generic names by which they grouped plants according to their affinities in a way impossible to most people who were not educated botanists. The veronicas of New Zealand appeared under a great variety of external forms, yet they were all identified by one name. The Lev. Gill, in closing the discussion, said

that difference in shade of color was not to relied upon as a test of difference of race ; for he had seen the most intense blackness pro* duced in Polynesia in those of the poorer classes who habitually spent much time in salt water, while the wealthier classes remained of a much lighter hue.