CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CALMUCKS. 419 



influences, by chemical influences ; that they, in turn, cease to commu- 

 nicate impressions, or, in other words, to stimulate the voluntary mus- 

 cles ; and that then there is sleep which lasts until there is re-solution 

 of structure, whereupon there is wakefulness, from renewed motion in 

 brain-matter, and renewed stimulation of voluntary muscle, through 

 nerve. 



The change of structure of the brain which I assume to be the 

 proximate cause of sleep is possibly the same change as occurs in a 

 more extreme degree when the brain and its subordinate parts actually 

 die. The effects of a concussion of the brain from a blow, the effects 

 of a simple puncture of nervous matter in centres essential to life as 

 the point in the medulla oblongata which Flourens has designated the 

 vital point have never been explained, and admit, I imagine, of no 

 explanation except the change of structure I have now ventured to 

 suggest. 



Here, for the moment, my task must end. My object has been to 

 make the reader conversant with what has been said by philosophers 

 upon the subject of sleep and its proximate cause, and to indicate 

 briefly a new Line of scientific inquiry. I shall hope on some future 

 occasion to be able to announce further and more fruitful labor. 



*** 



CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CALMUCKS. 



AN ETHNOLOGICAL STUDY. 



Bt J. KOPERNICKI. 



THE Calmucks primitively inhabited the countries northeast of the 

 Chinese Empire. At the commencement of the seventeenth cen- 

 tury, they arrived on the shores of the Caspian Sea ; and they have 

 camped there to the present day. 



The first glance at a Calmuck suffices to recognize in him the model 

 representative of the true Mongol type. They are of middle stature, 

 robust, and broad in the shoulders. Their skin is swarthy, face flat, 

 fissure of the eyelids narrow and oblique, nose depressed, nostrils wide, 

 lips thick, teeth white and regular, ears long and prominent, hair black, 

 and beard thin. 



The principal trait in the character of the Calmucks, after their 

 simplicity, want of cleanliness, and laziness, is that, after the manner 

 of all nomad people, they are extremely superstitious. The Calmuck 

 never undertakes any serious matter without having previously con- 

 sulted a sorcerer. He never dares to kill a fly, for fear of assailing the 

 soul of one of his ancestors, which may perhaps animate this insect. 

 When, on a journey, a Calmuck perceives a certain bird which he esteems 



