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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



from the tribes of the northwest, and many 

 carvings obtained from the Eskimos. Dr. C. C. 

 Abbott has presented a quantity of material 

 obtained from the site of an old Dutch trad- 

 ing house on the Delaware, which tells the 

 story of the early contact of the white race 

 with the Indians. Mr. Valk explored during 

 the year an ancient village site and burial 

 place in the Delaware Valley, where interest- 

 ing discoveries were made relating to the early 

 inhabitants. In his examination of the singu- 

 lar and ancient burial places on the coast of 

 Maine, Mr. Willoughby has ascertained sev- 

 eral important facts, and has obtained many 

 interesting objects, some of which show Es- 

 kimo affinities. Mr. George Byron Gordon 

 has undertaken the exploration of Copan 

 under a concession from the Government of 

 Honduras. More money is needed for this 

 work, and other institutions are invited to co- 

 operate in it. The collection already in the 

 museum is pronoimced to be of remarkable 

 interest and not equaled elsewhere, but is 

 so crowded and unprotected that it is not 

 open except under special arrangement. The 

 course of general anthropology was attended 

 by nine pupils. 



The Passing of Torture. Asiatic peoples 

 tolerate torture, practice it, almost seem to 

 like it (the infliction of it, that is) ; European 

 nations do not now permit it. The differ- 

 ence presents a problem in the development 

 of human character. Europeans did not 

 always abhor torture; they have changed 

 since the Romans delighted in gladiatorial 

 shows and in seeing captives and Christians 

 thrown into the arena to be devoured by 

 wild beasts. Aversion to torture can hardly 

 be called a characteristic of Christians, al- 

 though it is inculcated in the Christian code, 

 and may have been developed under Chris- 

 tian teachings. King Menelek of Abyssinia, 

 who is said to have recently condemned a 

 treacherous page to terrible sufferings by 

 mutilations and exposure in the wilderness, 

 calls himself a Christian. The Inquisition 

 was in full blast under the asgis of the 

 Church only two or three centuries ago, and 

 autos dafe were festivals in Madrid down to 

 1750. Prisoners convicted of certain crimes 

 were broken on the wheel only a bare hun- 

 dred years ago in France. Torture was legal 

 in Denmark within living men's memories, 



and is still practiced, though not authorized, 

 in Russian prisons. And what are we to say 

 to the punishments still sometimes inflicted 

 upon offending negroes in the southwest? 

 But these things have passed away, and only 

 a few vestiges of them, like the last men- 

 tioned, remain among any men of European 

 lineage, while the world at large abhors the 

 recital of them. Having shown a number 

 of otber special causes the validity of which, 

 he considers, can not be depended upon 

 to account wholly for the change, a writer 

 in the London Spectator assumes that " there 

 must be some separate moral impulse which 

 has arisen apart, or in a certain degree 

 apart, from any teaching of the creeds ; and 

 we find it difficult not to believe that it is a 

 new impulse, that man's moral nature has on 

 this side made in Europe a distinct stride 

 forward. It is an advance the extent and 

 depth of which have not yet been tested, for 

 the masses of Europe have not of late years 

 been provoked to furious anger, as they once 

 were, by heresies and treasons, or as they 

 may be, by and by, by anarchist explosions ; 

 but it is an advance which it is impossible 

 not to recognize, and one that has gone far 

 down, reaching classes whom the spirit of 

 practical Christianity has hardly touched. 

 If that is true, it is the most hopeful thought 

 suggested by any of the social phenomena 

 around us ; and after much observation, con- 

 tinued for many years, the present writer 

 can hardly doubt that it is true." 



Oysters and Disease. In view of what 

 has been said of the possibility of the com- 

 munication of disease by eating raw oysters, 

 inquiries have been instituted by the English 

 Local Government Board into the circum- 

 stances under which the cultivation and 

 storage of shellfish along the coast are car- 

 ried on. As a result of his bacteriological 

 investigation of water from an oyster bed 

 and of oysters from the same source, Prof. 

 Cruikshank, of King's College, London, re- 

 ports that he found a considerable number 

 of bacteria in the sea water, but very few in 

 the liquid of the oyster, in which the in- 

 crease of bacteria was also very slow, but 

 that in both cases the bacteria were familiar 

 and harmless species, and there was no sep- 

 tic odor. Hence he finds no evidence that 

 would lead him to condemn the oysters as 



