In the Anthropological Section of the American Association, Mr. William H. Seaman read a paper on the Essentials of Education, with a new classification of knowledge, in which he set forth the changes or modifications in present systems of education required to adapt them to modern ideas. Mr. Walter Hough described the custom of cava-drinking among the Papuans and Polynesians; Major Powell exhibited his linguistic map of North America; Mr. Thomas Wilson described the jade implements from Mexico and Central America, and a collection of ancient gold ornaments from the United States of Colombia; Mr. J. Owen Dorsey discussed the onomatopous types and phonetic types of the Siouan languages; Mr. J. H. Perkins described a collection of stone pipes from Vermont; and Mr. M. M. Snell enforced the Importance of the Science of Comparative Religion.
A connection between tariffs and the distribution of life in the districts which they effect has not hitherto been supposed, but, according to the late D. H. Graham, of Iona, it was free trade brought the rooks to that island. Thus: "Since the ports were opened to the importation of foreign cattle, the rearing of black cattle has been abandoned in those parts of the Highlands; consequently sheep have taken their place, and in Iona, where two years ago you could hardly find a sheep, now you will sec scores of them; and whereas two years ago not a rook came to the island, now the hill-pastures are black with them."
A curious trial has recently taken place in London, in which an American named Pinter was prosecuted for an attempt at cheating by pretending to manufacture gold. The accused man set up in defense that he really possessed a secret by which he could increase the bulk of a mass of gold. It was alleged by the prosecution that he once did increase a piece of gold by placing a black powder in a crucible, and it was asserted that the powder must have contained gold. The accused asked the magistrate if he had ever known gold to float. Some of the powder being tested on water floated. This result was afterward said to have been produced by mixing lampblack with the powder and making it too greasy to sink quickly. The accused pretends to more power than the old alchemists, for they only assumed to turn other substances into gold, while he pretends to make it outright.
Dr. Carl Peters relates in his book on Africa that he came to a place where the natives on one bank of a broad river communicate with those on the opposite side by speaking with voices hardly raised, "and yet each side can perfectly hear what the other says." Dr. Peters says that Bishop Hannington was killed, not because he was a Christian, but because he insisted on approaching Uganda from the east. The Waganda have an old prophecy according to which an expedition from the east is to "eat up" the land and make an end of the dynasty of the Wakintu. Accordingly the approach from the east has been strictly forbidden.
The Philadelphia Zoölogical Gardens were visited during the year ending in April last by 211,884 persons, or 3,719 fewer than visited them in the previous year; giving an average of 581 daily admissions. The superintendent's report embodies the important remark that the attention of all institutions devoted to zoölogical pursuits is being directed more strongly each year to the rapid destruction of many of the more valuable and important animals of our native fauna, and to the need for immediate adoption of every means that can be employed to save them from complete extinction. In furtherance of this object increase in the capacity of zoölogical gardens is important, in order that room and facilities may be provided for their increase and growth, secure against improper crossing and inbreeding.
Besides the active enemies which are continually seeking to destroy earth-worms, these animals have a habit of seeking destruction on their own account. On any wet morning the shallow puddles in the roadways and elsewhere are often occupied by the dead bodies of earth-worms, or by individuals at their last gasp. Have these worms voluntarily sought a watery grave? or do they represent, as Darwin thought, merely the sickly and dying individuals that have been washed out of their burrows by the rain? Darwin's explanation is probably true, but it is also credible that the heating of the puddles by the sun's rays has something to do with the great mortality of the annelids. Cold fresh water seems to be practically harmless, though salt water is rapidly fatal to earth-worms.
An illustrated account of the drawings of aboriginal origin that are found in caves in different parts of the United States, prepared for Appletons' Annual Cyclopædia for 1889, has been sent us in a separate pamphlet by the author, Mr. T. H. Lewis. The designs include figures conventionalized from the forms of man, the hand, fishes, serpents, an elk, a face, birds, and combined figures. It is suggested by the editor of the Annual Cyclopædia that one of them may be intended to represent a family or tribal ensign.
In a paper read before the Medical Society of Virginia, Dr. W. W. Parker, of Richmond, favors burial rather than cremation on grounds of convenience and economy; natural sentiment, whereby we cling to every vestige of the body in which dwelt the soul of the dear one; the sentiment of affection, which wants to know the exact spot where the body lies; and religious motives.
