THE

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1881

EGYPTIAN EXCAVATIONS AND MUMMIES HE recent excavations in Egypt have been productive of great results to archæology and the history of Egypt. One site, which has yielded unexpected additions to the early period of the country, has been excavated on scientific principles under the direction of M. Maspero, the present superintendent or director of the Archæological Department. It is his intention to open the whole group of unexplored pyramids, in order to find the sequence of monarchs of whom they were the sepulchres, and to discover any inscriptions with which they may

have been decorated.

An examination of the whole

group of pyramids indeed was formerly made by J. Shay Perring, C.E., at the expense of Col. Howard Vyse, who spent a fortune in pyramidal researches; but the excavations of Perring were chiefly devoted to the examination of three great pyramids of Gizeh, those of Cheops, Chephren, and Mycerinus, and although he examined the whole group in the scientific manner of an engineer, by some fatality he appears not to have penetrated into the interior of the smaller ones, which are now in process of examination by M. Maspero. The conviction which that savant has arrived at is that these pyramids are arranged in symmetrical groups, each group holding the remains of the monarchs who followed each other in chronological succession. The group just discovered consists of three pyramids at Sakkara, of small dimensions, lying to the N. and E. of the step-shaped pyramid, and on the road to the Serapeum, the sepulchres of three monarchs of the sixth dynasty, Ra-meri or Mira, whose name was Pepi or Phiops, a king who is said to have reigned 100 years all but an hour; his successor, Merienra, named Har-em-saf, or Ta-em-saf, and a king called Una. They seem all to have been constructed on the same principle, having inclined entrances leading to sepulchral chambers with pointed roofs, the walls of the passages and chambers covered with hieroglyphs coloured green, the ceilings of the sepulchral chambers with pointed roofs on which were stars in white upon a black ground, indicative of the hours of the night. The inscriptions of these chambers are of interest purely mythological, no historical fact or allusion being mentioned in them, but their contents consisting of prayers similar to those in the Book of the Dead, or Ritual, and chiefly referring to the myth of Osiris and Hades, especially the identification of the kings with Osiris as the son of Nut and Seb, and his following the course of the constellation Orion, rising and setting with that constellation, allied with the star Sebt, or Sothis, and the progress of the king to the Aahlu or Egyptian Elysium, and in the account of the Island of the Fields of Ho-tep, or Peace, recalling to mind Eden, mention is made of a tree of life. In the Pyramid of Pepi, the Phiops of the sixth dynasty, who is said by the history of Manetho to have reigned 100 years all but an hour, and who must consequently have ascended the throne quite a boy, was found the remains of a sarcophagus of black and white granite of unfinished work, which had been broken, and another in the south-east corner of the chamber of the same material, which had been let into the masonry. In the vicinity of this sarcophagus on the west side between VOL. XXIV.No. 621

this and the wall was found amidst a heap of rubbish remains of dresses and mummy bandages varying from yellow to dark brown of extreme fineness; of the mummy itself an embalmed hand in good condition was only found, and even this may be considered remarkable, as the bodies of the earlier period were only dried, and not embalmed, and generally fall to pieces when exposed to air. The pyramid was indeed small, considering the long reign of Pepi. The Pyramid of Merienra, or Har-em-saf, which resembled in general character that of Pepi or Phiops, had two sarcophagi of red granite close to one another, the cover of one removed and hidden under blocks of stone. The other held a body mummied, which was that of the king; it had been anciently plundered of its ornaments, but embalmed with the greatest care, the skin well preserved, the traits of the countenance distinct, the eyes closed, the end of the nose fallen in, the stature of medium height, and the limbs youthful. This king was the successor of Phiops. The third pyramid of the group was of Noferkara or Nephercheres, but no details of the inscriptions have as yet been published, although they probably refer to the Osiris myth, like the others. The details of the size of coffins and mummies of this pyramid are still wanting. Each pyramid had a special name: that of Pepi was called Mennefer, that of Ha-rem-saf was Shanefer, that of Noferkara also Mennefer. Compared with the great Pyramids of Gizeh, they are far inferior, but the inscriptions in them offer an interest greater than that of the plain Gizeh Pyramids. The only question is whether the mummies found in them are contemporaneous with the sixth dynasty, which appears most probable, or subsequent usurpations, of which there is no monumental or inscribed evidence.

The next remarkable discovery is that of the thirtynine mummies, several of kings, in a subterraneous well or pit not very far from the edifice of the Deir-el-Bahari. This remarkable structure, consisting of a temple on a platform with chambers let into the solid rock, had been published by Marriette Pasha, and had been suspected by Brugsch Bey to be the site of the sepulchres of the early monarchs of the eighteenth dynasty. The temple itself had been commenced by the queen Hatasu or Hasheps, daughter of Thothmes I. and wife of Thothmes II., and its sculptures commemorated the expedition made by that queen to Punt or Somali, the treasures brought from thence in gold, silver, frankincense, besides trees of that material, besides giraffes, cynocephali, large dogs. Besides which they give representations of the inhabitants and of the Egyptian fleet which descended the Red Sea on the voyage of amity or discovery promoted by the Egyptian queen.

In the well or pit of the Deir-el-Bahari, which was formed of bricks of conical shape stamped with inscriptions, on which could be traced the titles of the high priest of Amen-ra thus used by the monarchs of the twentyfirst dynasty, were found the coffins, mummies, and other objects which appear to have been there deposited in the reign of Herhor, first monarch of the twenty-first dynasty, and of another king, Panetem or Pinotem, of the same dynasty. The cause of the removal of the mummies deposited in the Theban sepulchres, such as the El Assasif and the Biban-el-Molook, is stated on some of the wraps of the mummies to have been the apprehension

Y

of a foreign invasion, and that possibly of the Assyrians, whose arms had made great progress in Central Asia. According to Brugsch Bey the twenty-second dynasty was Assyrian, and he identifies the name of the monarch with that race; but at all events they were never Assyrian monarchs, such names as Shashanq or Shishak, Namrutha or Nimrod, not having been found in the Assyrian annals, although Uasarkan or Sargon, and Takelloth or Diglath may correspond with Assyrian kings.

From the El Assasif had been removed the mummy of Taakan, also known as Skanenra, which was formerly deposited at the Drah Abu-el-Neggah with its three inscribed coffins, and which was intact at the time of Rameses IX. about B.C. 1150. It was in his reign that the quarrel of the Egyptian kings with the Shepherd Kings commenced, and he is mentioned in the celebrated Sallier Papyrus. The mummy of Aahmes or Amosis I. in three plain cases was also found amongst the coffins, but it is not known where this king was buried; as he succeeded Skanenra, his tomb was probably somewhere in the vicinity. The mummy of Aahmes Nefertari was also found, it is said, in three cartonages with paintings on a white ground. Another queen, Aahhotep, daughter of the King Aahmes, was also found, and it will be recollected that this was the name of the queen whose mummy and coffins, and gold and silver jewellery, and arms were discovered by fellaheen at the Biban-el-Molook, a few feet below the surface. She was wife of Kames and mother of Aahmes, while the queen of the Deir-el-Bahari was the wife of Amenophis I. The mummy of Amenhotep I. or Amenophis was found in a wonderful state of preservation, painted and varnished, and with wreaths of flowers so exquisitely preserved that they retain all their colour like recent flowers kept and pressed between the leaves of books. These flowers, it will be remembered, are above 3000 years old, and their preservation is probably due to their having been buried in hot sand, a mode still in use in Palestine, by which means botanical specimens retain their colour for a long time unchanged, a process perhaps known to the ancient Egyptians, although wreaths and flowers, even of the Roman times, from Egypt are brown and semicarbonised. The tomb of Amenophis I. is mentioned as at the Drah Abu-el-Neggah in the Abbot Papyrus, and the body transported thence of Thothmes I., his son; the mummy case, considerably mutilated, was only found, and this had been appropriated by Pinotem, The mummy of Thothmes II., in three mummy cases, was likewise discovered. That of Thothmes III., the great and warlike monarch of the eighteenth dynasty, was found in a single coffin much mutilated, his body broken into three pieces and rifled in ancient times, but with an inscribed ritualistic linen roll said to prove the identity of the mummy. Of the other personages of the eighteenth dynasty were the mummies and coffins of the Prince Saamen, the Princess Satamen, a princess and king's sister, but unmarried, named Hanta-em-hu; and a similar royal sister and queen named Me-han-ta-emhu, child of Hanta-ena-hu, had been removed at the time of the twenty-first dynasty; another unmarried queen-sister named Miramen, and Nebseni, a priest or flamen of a Pharaoh. All these coffins of the

sarcophagus are at the Biban-el-Molook. There is some uncertainty in the different accounts which have come to hand whether there are three coffins or one, and if the mummy was deposited at the Deir-el-Bahari. The mummy of Seti I., whose tomb is in the Biban-el-Molook and alabaster sarcophagus in the Soane Museum of London, is well preserved in one wooden coffin; the mummy of one of the Ramessids, apparently the twelfth, not the second, as reported, in a plain coffin, the features not aquiline, but the shroud, covered with lotus flowers, looking remark ably fresh; this also came from the Biban-el-Molook These mummies, it is stated, were removed under appre hension of a foreign invasion. Then follow the cases and mummies of the twenty-first dynasty. The queen Notem, mother or wife of Herhor, of whom there is a papyrus in the British Museum, exhibited by H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, in a badly-preserved but inlaid coffin: Panotem or Pinotem, high-priest of Amen, in three coffins of the style called richi by Marriette, and gilded faces; be was, besides high-priest, a saten sa Kush, Prince of Cust or Ethiopia, according to the inscription in Lepas Königsbuch; the queen, Ramaka or Makarra, whe assumed the same prenominal title as Hatasu of the eighteenth dynasty, who is in three coffins with the youthful queen, called the "lady of the two countries." or absolute queen-heiress, embalmed in a sitting posture. either having died in a fit or at her birth, and named Mutemhat; the king, Pinotem II., hastily, deposited in the coffins of Thothnes I., the mummy has been partially unwrapped and the features exposed, which have a singlar resemblance to those of Voltaire, with a sarcastic or satiric smile or grin, a peculiarity also found on a hierani papyrus ritual in the British Museum, probably of the same period; the queen-mother, Hantau, whose ritual had found its way to the Boolak Museum prior to the discovery; in three cases, the prince Masaharuta, soz of Pinotem II. in the same; the queen Asemkheb x Hesemkheb, in as many cases, who appears to have beet the wife of Menkheperra; another princess called Nas khonsu; Tet-ptahaufankha in an appropriate coffin, and four other priests and functionaries. Several other objects were found in the pit: a leather tent embroidered with names, boxes with royal names, boards with inscripticas and five rituals of the monarchs of the later dynasty but the whole of the details-amulets, inscriptions, and style of art-cannot be known until the mummies are unrolled and all peculiarities carefully examined, for this remarkable find will afford invaluable data for Egyptia archæology, especially the sepulchral division.

eighteenth dynasty have a certain similarity with each other.

Those of the nineteenth are Rameses I., whose tomb and

TWO SPIDER BOOKS

The Spiders of Dorset, with an Appendix containing Descriptions of those British Species not yet found Dorsetshire. By the Rev. Octavius Pickard-Cambridge M.A., C.M.Z.Š., &c. From the Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Antiquarian Field Cab edited by Prof. James Buckman. (Sherborne: LH Ruegg, pp. 1-625, with 6 plates, 1879-1881, 8vo.) Studi sui Ragni malesi e papuani. Per T. Thorell. !!! Ragni dell' Austro-Malesia e del Capo York, conservat nel Museo Civico di Storia Naturali di Genoa. Pp. 1-720. 8vo. (Genoa, 1881.)

F we take down part 2 of vol. i. of the twelfth edition

that marvellously incongruous order Aptera, in which the

old naturalist contrived to group together nearly all the Arthropods known to him and which agreed almost solely in the one point of the non-possession of wings, we find under the genus Aranea" only 47 species indicated, and of these only 9 are from outside Europe. In the second edition of the "Fauna Suecica" (1761) we find 33 species indicated for Scandinavia. Thus six years later all the spiders known to Linné from outside his native country amounted to 14 species! At the present time 518 species are recorded as British, and a still almost unexplored region of the Eastern Archipelago has contributed nearly as many from the researches of one or two naturalist-travellers, with whom spider-collecting was certainly not considered of first importance. And yet, notwithstanding the vast and rapid strides that arachnology has made within the twenty years past, the number of workers is still small. The subject is not always an attractive one to naturalists, and is often repugnant to non-naturalists, with whom a passion for collecting or studying spiders is seldom associated with respect for the naturalist thus smitten. But all this is rapidly changing, and no two men have done more to bring this about than the authors of the books noticed below.

66

66

In vol. xxi. p. 273, we noticed vol. i. of Mr. PickardCambridge's work; vol. ii., completing it, is now before us. The whole is dedicated to John Blackwall, and the second volume must have appeared about the time of the decease of that venerable naturalist. A postscript notices some species new for the county or for Britain, and there are additional remarks on senses and economy, in which sight," "touch and hearing," "power to utter sounds," venom," "modes of forming snares," &c., are severally alluded to. 66 With regard to venom," the author expresses his firm belief that the bite of the common garden geometric spider (Epeira diademata) is attended by the emission of a poisonous fluid, sufficiently strong to cause visible effects on the skin of his young son, but without effect upon his own. He now agrees with the conclusion that currents of air play a great part in enabling spiders to carry their lines across from one object to another, although previously he was of opinion that the lines were carried across by the spiders themselves. As we remarked when noticing vol. i., it is a pity the author did not intercalate the descriptions of those British species not yet found in Dorsetshire amongst the others, instead of placing them in appendices at the end. This would have vastly increased the usefulness of what is still a most useful work, and while not destroying its local intentions (as indicated by the title) would have rendered it more distinctly a Manual of British Spiders, for such it really is. With it and Blackwall's magnificently illustrated Ray Society monograph before him, no student of our spider-fauna should be at a loss to determine, with approximate certainty, any species he may come across. The six plain plates are excellent, engraved from the author's own drawings, and representing many of the principal genera, with copious details. The index is full. The author recognises 518 species of spiders as inhabiting the British Isles, of which 373 have been found in Dorsetshire. The distribution of these amongst the several families is strikingly unequal. Thus we find three families represented by only one species each; another

by only three species. On the other hand the Therideides claim 267 species, the Drassides 56, the Epeirides 32, and so on. Possibly this is the first time that any thoroughly local society has undertaken to bring out a manual of a large group of British animals; so much the more to the credit of the Dorset Society for initiating so laudable a scheme. Their undertaking, so well concluded, is not of local (or even British) interest only, but will have to be considered by every European student of | Arachnida.

In Dr. Thorell's bulky memoir (which forms vol. xxii. of the Annali del Museo Civico di Genoa) the author continues his studies on the Spiders of the Eastern Archipelago. The descriptions are worked out with his well-known detail and accuracy. Most of the materials result from the exploring voyages of D'Albertis and Beccari, and the flourishing society under whose auspices the volume is published deserves the highest credit for the promptness with which it is making known to the scientific world the riches acquired during the voyages of these renowned travellers. The descriptive portion is preceded by a bibliographical sketch of what was previously known from the regions, with an analytical and comparative examination of the arachnid fauna generally, still further subdivided in a series of tables at the end; 317 species are noticed as in the collection (of which 173 appeared to be new to science), viz. 252 from AustroMalesia and 82 from Cape York, but 505 are recorded for the whole of that part of the globe, divided as follows:Orbitelaria, 162 species; Retitelaria, 38; Tubitelariæ, 31; Territelaria, 10; Laterigrada, 84; Citigrada, 29; and Saltigrada, 151. Some idea of the riches of the fauna in this particular respect may be gathered from the fact that no less than eighteen species of the extraordinary genus Gasteracantha are described. We cannot resist a few words of admiration at the manner in which the publications of this Italian society are got up, the more so as the printing is done at the Deaf and Dumb Institute of Genoa (Istituto Sordo-Muti). Paper, typography, and editing alike leave nothing to be desired.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected manuscripts. No notice is taken of anonymous communications. [The Editor urgently requests correspondents to keep their letters as short as possible. The pressure on his space is so great that it is impossible otherwise to ensure the appearance even of communications containing interesting and novel facts.]

The Oldest-known Insects

I MUST ask your permission to correct the errors into which your correspondent, Dr. Hagen, has fallen respecting the Erian (Devonian) beds near St. John, New Brunswick, holding certain fossil insects described by Dr. Scudder.

The Dadoxylon sandstone and Cordaite shale of the vicinity of St. John have been studied not only by myself, but by so good geologists as Prof. Hartt, Prof. Bailey, and Mr. Matthew, and by the officers of the Geological Survey of Canada; and their stratigraphical relations have been illustrated by maps and sections, not only in my "Acadian Geology," but in the Reports of the Geological Survey, more especially those for 1871 and 1875. They have, besides, been thoroughly exposed and ransacked for fossils by expensive quarrying operations undertaken by the Natural History Society of St. John, and their plants have been described and compared in detail with those of the neighbouring Carboniferous formations in my Keport "On the Devo

nian Plants of Canada," and subsequent Reports on the plants of the Lower Carbonifercus and Millstone Grit formations (Geo!. Survey of Canada, 1871 and 1873). In these circumstances it seems strange that the received conclusions as to their age should be termed "simple negation not supported by facts," and regarded as of no scientific value in comparison with the mere assertion of a gentleman who has no knowledge whatever of the stratigraphy of the region, and with the "authority" of Dr. Heer, who is no doubt an excellent authority on certain departments of European palæobotany, but who has not seen the beds in question, nor, so far as I am aware, studied their fossils.

The beds referred to, like the Devonian generally in Eastern Canada, underlie unconformably the lowest Carboniferous beds, a circumstance due apparently to the extensive igneous action which closed the Devonian period in this region, giving origin to masses and dykes of intrusive granite, and disturbing and partially altering the strata of Devonian and greater age, the materials of which have contributed to the Lower Carboniferous conglomerates. There is thus no question here as to any transition between Devonian and Carboniferous, and the beds holding the plants and insects are stratigraphically pre-Carboniferous.

The Lower Carboniferous beds, succeeding to the Devonian formation, and developed to the eastward of St. John, hold the - characteristic flora of the Horton series, or Lowest Carboni. ferous, equivalent to the Calciferous or Tweedian formation of Scotland. In succession to this we have the flora of the Millstone grit, of the true Coal-Measures, and of the Permo-Carboniferous or Lower Permian. All of these have been explored and their plants catalogued and described in my own memoirs or in the reports of the Geological Survey, and it has been fully established that the flora of the Devonian beds is characteristic and distinct from any of these sub-floras of the Carboniferous.

The plants of the Cordaite shales are not only distinguishable from those of the Carboniferous found in their vicinity, but the assemblage includes forms like Psilophyton and Arch@opteris, which are characteristic of the Devonian, and are not found in the Carboniferous elsewhere in America. In the Devonian of Northern New Brunswick some of these plants are associated with fishes of the genera Cephalaspis, Pterichthys, &c., wellknown Devonian types.

For additional information as to the geological relations of the St. John plant beds and notices of new species, I may refer to my paper on "New Erian Plants," in the Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. xxxvii., May, 1881. This paper Dr. Hagen had probably not seen at the time when his letter was written.

The particular fern in question, Pecapteris serrulata of Hartt, has been fully described, first by Prof. Hartt, and subsequently by myself, and its distinctness from P. plumosa pointed out.1 The criticism of Dr. Hagen, as to its not appearing in the sectional lists, and still being called by me a common fern, is based on a mere accident, which I could easily have explained to him. The plants referred to as found in each layer in the detailed section are those originally described by me from these beds. Some species, subsequently recognised and described by Hartt, were not included in the sectional lists, and were referred to only in a note, because I had received no information from Prof. Hartt as to the particular layers in which they were found, though I knew that some of them were by no means uncommon, from the number of specimen obtained. Dr. Hagen criticises my figure of the species, but that does not affect the question, as I have compared the specimen on the slab with Platephemera with the original specimens in my collection. My figures, however, show fairly the general form of the frond; and there is also a magnified figure of a pinnule, showing the venation, which should enable any one to recognise the species, and with the aid of the description to distinguish it from P. plumosa.

With regard to the "Ura stage" of my respected friend Dr. Heer, founded on a little known and apparently exceptional locality, I have always objected to its being made a standard of comparison for the thoroughly worked and widely distributed Devonian or Erian rocks of North America. I gave some reasons for this in a paper sent to the Geological Society of London shortly after the appearance of Dr. Heer's memoir, an abstract of which appears in the Proceedings of the Society. It will be sufficient to say here that the grounds on which Dr. Heer refers the Devonian of New Brunswick to the Ursa stage would apply to the Chenning, and even to the Hamilton formations of the New York series.

I "Acadian Geology; Report on Devonian Plants." Canadian Naturalist, 1881.

The great richness of the Devonian of North America in f plants is a very remarkable geological fact, which I regret to say has hitherto far exceeded the means available for its adequate illustration. I hope, however, to remedy this to some extent the occasion of the meeting of the American Association in Motreal a 1882, when my whole collection of Erian plants, together wit those illustrating the several stages of the Carboniferous, be exhibited in the new Peter Redpath Museum, and will s more fully than has been hitherto possible the progress of the American flora from the Silurian to the Permian. It will be a great pleasure to me if any paleobotanists who are sceptical to the magnitude of the Devonian flora will avail themselves f this opportunity to judge for themselves and to form their c opinions as to the affinities and relations of the species. McGill College, Montreal, September 2 J. W. DAWSON

Sound-producing Ants

I AM glad to see my statement in NATURE, vol. xxii, pâ verified by Mr. H. O. Forbes, from Sumatra, and now inter a few ants of another kind that make this peculiar tappi scratching sound, though not in the same system of taps 2 before noted, and that was thus-

1111

i.e. three taps in unison and a pause of about a secon taps of equal duration. The ants inclosed make a that dies off and does not seem renest unless the exciting cause again acts, when they again st beautiful unison. How they so correctly start together cases of .. or the and keep tap in time, is really wonderful. White ants make tappings, but not in rhythm as far as I know, and they re call or warn. These little black ants cannot be heard b unless the material they are on is sensitively sonorous, Hip ing to place a tumbler on a sideboard lately in the dark, - arise from a sugar-bo repeated it, and the noise at once convinced me that it wa On getting a light I found a sheet of writing paper had bee on the bowl, and was covered by them; the glass alone was less, I found.

startled to hear this

S. E. PEN

Asam, July 6 [The ants sent are apparently "workers" of a species: larger than a small British Myrmica.-ED.]

Wasps

2

A COUPLE of weeks ago I found on my window-pane a black wasp holding in its mandibles a plump spider of t an eighth of an inch in diameter. I placed the wasp t bell-glass and set it on my desk, where I could readily wa further developments. Finding itself in captivity, the a dropped its booty and spent some time in trying to find a y escape. Coming at length to a state of rest, it espied the s and sprang upon it with tiger-like fierceness. Seizing raising itself up to its full height, the wasp brought its pote under and forward with a quick motion, and gave the s two or three thrusts with its sting. Assured that the spider dead, the wasp proceeded to roll it over and over, rapidly ing it up into a globular mass. This done it started to fly av but, foiled in the attempt, it dropped the spider, which some time apparently forgotten. This whole operation I several times repeated during the two days of my observztr Being called away from home for a few days, I was caricas my return to ascertain the results of my experiment. 1 taken the precaution at the first to place under the bellsmall dish of clean water, to which the wasp had helped freely. I found the wasp dead; but not the least morsel of spider had it eaten. My conclusions are: (1) that the wasp of starvation; (2) that the spider was intended, not for its food, but for that of its young in their larval state. Inc mation of this I have broken open several of the finished e of these wasps, and found them filled with pellets made portions of spiders, flies, and worms. Only yesterday a opportunity was afforded me for further observations direction. One of my flowering vines is infested with 57 worm-the larva of the yellow butterfly. I discovered a b and-yellow wasp standing on the edge of a leaf of this holding fast to one of these worms of twice its own size. worm was dangling in mid-air, and the wasp endeavoured riously for a long time to pull it up on the surface of the