84 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



cable to carry the vessel away, and that it would be better to cover it 

 from the weather and leave it where it was found. Only the smaller 

 objects were taken to Christiania. 



Antiquaries have agreed in ascribing the epoch of the erection of 

 the tumulus to the most ancient iron age, or to the ninth or tenth 

 century of our era most probably to the age of Harold the Fair- 

 haired, founder of the Norwegian state. 



Dr. Y. Gross, of Neuveville, Switzerland, has furnished a descrip- 

 tion of an ancient canoe which was found in April, 1880, buried in 

 the ground near the shores of the Lake of Bienne, and which has 

 been placed in the museum at Neuveville. It is of oak, and differs 

 somewhat in shape from similar canoes that have been found hereto- 

 fore. The stern has the square form of modern boats, and the prow 



Fig. 3. Lacustrine Canoe found in the Lake of Bienne. 



is adorned with a spur-shaped prolongation (Fig. 3). The boat is 

 9 '55 metres (or a little more than thirty feet) long, from two and a 

 half to three feet broad, and about nineteen inches deep. Rounded 

 notches at intervals along the sides seem to have been intended as 

 rests for oars. A piece of about j&ve feet by nine inches appears to 

 have been broken or taken out of one of the sides near the stern, the 

 place of which may have been supplied by a plank. In order to pre- 

 serve the form of the vessel against warping and shrinkage, it was 

 soaked in boiled linseed-oil to which colophene was afterward added. 

 The application, after a sufficient number of repetitions, was attended 

 by such satisfactory results that Dr. Gross has no hesitation in recom- 

 mending it for all objects that are too bulky to be put in glycerine. 

 La Nature, 



-- 



. THE HORACE MANN SCHOOL FOR THE DEAF. 



By MAEY GEAY MOEEISON. 



THERE is a schoolhouse in a convenient little by-street in Boston, 

 which is visited w^eekly by scholars and scientists, specialists of 

 renown and commonplace fathers and mothers, philanthropists and 

 seekers after the curious, and from its doors not one turns away with- 

 out being surprised and touched. 



The Horace Mann School for the Deaf, in Warrenton Street, is one 

 of the latest developments of that great humanitarian movement 

 which rose like a miracle in the last half of the eisihteenth centurv, 

 one of the few sunbeams which have come to us from those dark and 



