My attention has been occupied of late with a chemical and microscopical study on the action of various compounds on the lower forms of plant-life. I have already presented to the Chemical Society of London a paper on the Action of a Solution of Ferrous Sulphate on certain Parasitic Diseases which attack our Crops. (This paper will be published presently.) I wish here to detail some studies on the action of salicylic acid (C7H6O3) on certain ferments (organised and unorganised). A solution of salicylic acid was prepared contaiaing 0·2 gram, of the acid in 1000 c.c. of water.

The structure of all animal hairs is very complicated, and presents many difficulties, both to the scientific observer and to those who require to manipulate these fibres in the various processes of textile and other manufactures.

As appendages of the skin they are liable, like all the epidermal growths, to great variation in structure, which is seen in its extreme form in the feathers of birds, and in the horns, hoofs, nails, and claws of the higher mammals.

In August of last year I was in South Uist on an angling expedition, and, while fishing one of the lochs on the island, my attention was drawn to some very remarkable balls that were lying in great numbers at the bottom. I examined a good many of these, and found that they were composed of innumerable algal filaments so intertwined and matted together as to form an outer covering of an almost felt-like consistency, which could, however, be torn open without difficulty. This outer coating varied (speaking very roughly) from about a twentieth to two-twentieths of an inch in thickness, or even more, and the interior of the balls consisted, so far as the naked eye could see, only of mud. The microscope, of course, tells a different story.

The lacquer tree (Rhus vernicifera) is indigenous to Japan; it supplies a valuable timber, and its fruit yields vegetable wax, but it is chiefly cultivated on account of its juice–lacquer (Urushi)–which forms the basis of the famous Japanese varnishes. The juice is obtained by making incisions in the tree, and it is made into a varnish by simply stirring in the sun in order to drive off an excess of moisture. Different colours may be imparted to the varnish by the addition of various metals, oxides, and sulphides; and after it has been applied to an object it must be hardened by exposure to a moist atmosphere at a moderately high temperature.

The Indians, to whom the preparation of these heads is traced, are scattered over a wide tract of country on the eastern side of the Andes. They are known under the general designation Macao, the name of the region they inhabit—a designation which includes the Jivaros, Pastazas, Mendes, Tumbas, and more than twenty other tribes. Early brought into contact with the first Spanish invaders, they suffered much at their hands. Many references to them occur in the history of the Spanish settlers. Their appearance, social habits, and superstitious practices have much prominence given to them in the recent literature of South American travel. At present I limit my remarks mainly to the specimens of “shrunk” or reduced heads now before us. They are from several points of view remarkable, and raise several questions of great ethnological interest, but trustworthy references to them are comparatively few. Indeed, the only sources of information worth mentioning are a communication by Mr William Bollaert, F.R.G.S., to the Ethnological Society of London, 1860, and another, by Sir John Lubbock, to the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain in 1873. The former is entitled “On the Idol Human Head of the Jivaro Indians in Ecuador;” the latter, “Note on the Macas Indians.” In Mr Bollaert's paper special attention is given to a specimen obtained by M. José Felix Barriero, of the Secretariat of the Provincial Government, Quito, and sent by him to Don R. de Silva Ferro, Chilian Consul, London. This specimen was placed in the Ecuador Court of the International Exhibition, 1862. Sir John Lubbock's paper is devoted chiefly to a general description of the Macas Indians.

For many years past some little amount of isolated work has occasionally been accomplished in photographing certain of the brighter stars. But lately, stellar photography has gone forward with leaps and bounds; so that at a dozen different Observatories in Europe, America, South Africa, and Australia, so much is now being done in that line, that there is a speedy prospect of, in a manner, the whole sidereal heavens being photographed, and after a fashion that would not only have astonished Hipparchus, but been equally surprising to either Sir William Herschel, or Argelander or Struve up to within a very few years ago.