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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ern times, no sickly community can be 

 prosperous. It may be intelligent, and 

 moral, and industrious, but it must be 

 poor. Hence it is a duty, imposed not only 

 by the claim of the individual on the com- 

 munity, but also by the vital interest of the 

 community itself, to protect every person 

 in it against those diseases and dangers 

 whose power for evil has grown along 

 with our civilization. The wonderfully 

 rapid accumulation of wealth, far surpass- 

 ing anything ever witnessed in the past, 

 which is one of the characteristics of mod- 

 ern times, is not due to improvements in 

 machinery, to applications of science, to 

 the spread of education, the decrease of 

 wars, or the more extended production of 

 precious metals, though all these have con- 

 tributed their part, so much as to the better 

 average health of civilized countries and 

 the longer average term of life which is 

 now secured to workiugmen. Even now, 

 a single pestilence like those with which 

 Savannah and Memphis have recently been 

 afflicted, may set the most prosperous city 

 back many years. New Haven has had but 

 one visitation of yellow fever, but it took 

 the city eight or ten years to recover from 

 the visible effects of it, and a permanent 

 loss of " what might have been " was suf- 

 fered at a critical period in the commercial 

 development of the city, the value of which 

 can never be ascertained or guessed. The 

 sanitary work, which is of such importance 

 in this aspect of civic life, is often over- 

 looked, because of its unobtrusive charac- 

 ter ; and it is never more efficient than 

 when it is least obtrusive. In the ordina- 

 ry pursuits of business, the clang of ma- 

 chinery, brilliant scientific applications, the 

 bustle, etc., " are more conspicuously in the 

 eyes of the public than the quiet, persist- 

 ent, unroraantic, but heroic fight with un- 

 seen but unwholesome influences which lurk 

 in the air of our towns. These influences, 

 mostly growing out of our modes of life, 

 are ever present in all our cities, ever grow- 

 ing unless checked, always producing dis- 

 ease, and from time to time especially in- 

 viting pestilence." Few cities can afford 

 to allow a pestilence to invade them. " A 

 single epidemic, but one fourth as bad as 

 that of Memphis last year, would cost this 

 city," says Professor Brewer, speaking of 



New Haven, "more, and leave us with 

 higher taxes, than the most expensive sys- 

 tem of sewers and of garbage collection 

 that was ever dreamed of here." More- 

 over, a pestilence is only an intensified 

 manifestation of disease, and most of its 

 disastrous effects may be produced by pro- 

 longed but general ill health ; and it is 

 perfectly safe to say that no Northern city 

 can be really prosperous and really sickly 

 at the same time. 



The Mound-Builders. The report of re- 

 tiring President Pratt, of the Academy of 

 Sciences of Davenport, Iowa, gives especial 

 attention to the researches respecting the 

 mound-builders, in which this association is 

 much interested. One of the members of the 

 society, the Rev. Mr. Gass, explored seventy- 

 five mounds during 1880, about fifteen of 

 which afforded relics to be deposited in the 

 museum. According to the evidence of the 

 mounds in the vicinity of Davenport, copper 

 was a rare and highly valued article among 

 the people who built them, so rare as to indi- 

 cate that they did not work the copper-mines 

 of Lake Superior or any others, and were not 

 in communication with any people who did. 

 The amount of drift copper still found in 

 the region indicates that a sufficient supply 

 for all that the mound-builders seem to 

 have had could be accounted for from that 

 source. The copper was all hammered ; no 

 evidence exists of any of it ever having 

 been smelted or cast. The so-called copper 

 axes do not seem ever to have been used as 

 tools, and are supposed to have been kept 

 as badges of wealth and distinction. The 

 mound-builders smoked tobacco, but, as is 

 inferred from the form of the pipes, 

 ceremonially rather than for enjoyment. 

 Among the great variety of animal forma 

 represented on the pipes, two distinctly re- 

 semble the elephant, mammoth, or masto- 

 don. Mr. Pratt declares that the Davenport 

 Academy has evidence the only evidence 

 discovered so far that the mound-builders 

 had a written language. It exists in the 

 shape of two inscribed tablets found in the 

 mounds and deposited in the museum of the 

 society, which have attracted considerable 

 attention in this country and Europe, and 

 to which, provided their genuineness can be 

 maintained, much importance is naturally 



