276 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



facts of the state of the weather three times 

 a day, and reports of health are received 

 regularly. The reports, as a whole, show 

 how certain diseases vary with the season, 

 and indicate that relations exist, for in- 

 stance, between the great heat of summer 

 and the amount of sickness from diarrhoea, 

 cholera-morbus, cholera-infantum, etc., and 

 between the cold, dry air in winter and 

 spring and the increase of sickness from 

 pneumonia and similar diseases, which near- 

 ly disappear during the warm months. In 

 several years the sickness from pneumonia 

 increased slightly in September, decreased 

 slightly in October, about the time of the 

 Indian summer, and then gradually rose as 

 cold weather set in. "When the facts are 

 represented in diagrams, a correspondence 

 appears to be shown between the changes 

 in certain features of the weather and the 

 progress of particular diseases. Thus, the 

 line representing the amount of ozone at 

 night for IS'/S nearly agrees with the line 

 representing the prevalence of pneumonia. 

 The bronchitis line is nearly parallel with 

 these, while the lines representing zymotic 

 diseases run in an opposite direction. It is 

 unsafe, however, to lay too much stress on 

 these conincidences, for it is not probable 

 that the amount of ozone was accurately 

 measured. Intermittent fever was at its 

 highest from July to September, remittent 

 fever in August, typho-malarial fever in 

 September, typhoid fever in November, and 

 cerebro-spinal meningitis was irregular, pre- 

 vailing most from January to March. 



Sknil-Worship. " Skull-Worship in the 

 Pacific Ocean " was the title of an address 

 recently made by Ilerr J. D. C. Schmeltz 

 before a scientific society in Hamburg. The 

 Museum Godefroy in Hamburg has several 

 skulls which have been adorned with stripes 

 over the eyebrows ; on some a triangle has 

 been traced in red, from the apex of which 

 another red stripe has been drawn down the 

 nose, with black stripes on either side of it. 

 In other specimens a red line has also been 

 drawn from the apex of the triangle to the 

 roof of the skull, ending there in a spiral on 

 cither side. It was already known that 

 the under jaws, if not the whole skulls, of 

 dead relatives were often peculiarly adorned 

 and highly honored in New Guinea. Ilerr 



Schmeltz, observing similarly painted skulls 

 in the New Britain Islands, has concluded 

 that a like cultus exists there. Herr Klein- 

 schmidt, of the Museum Godefroy, relates 

 that at stated times a kind of priestly per- 

 son, called at Pall-Pall the Duk-Duk, or re- 

 ligion-man, collects the Bkulls of the dead 

 and commits them to the care of their rela- 

 tives; and he has sent to the museum a 

 skull from there, in which the fleshy parts 

 are represented by plaster and the eyes 

 by a snail-shell, and the whole is painted. 

 On one of the New Hebrides Islands whole 

 skeletons of deceased persons have been 

 exhumed, endowed with a flesh prepared 

 from vegetable matters, and installed in 

 the temples. A traveler on the German 

 man-of-war Ariadne sent the museum at 

 Hamburg a skull from the Island of Isabel 

 (Solomon Islands) which had been browned 

 with smoke, and with it the statement that, 

 "when prominent men, who have distin- 

 guished themselves in war or by superior 

 power, die, they enjoy after death a par- 

 ticular reverence, which aj^ears to origi- 

 nate in the belief that the spirit of the 

 dead man passes over to his worshiper 

 and makes him fit for similar deeds. After 

 the body has remained for a half-year in 

 the earth, the grave is opened and the skull 

 taken out. It is then subjected to a course 

 of various processes, especially to a pro- 

 tracted smoking, after which it is deposited 

 in the temple as an object of worship." 



Chesapeake Zoological Lahoratory. 



The fourth annual session of the Chesapeake 

 Zoological Laboratory of Johns Hopkins 

 University was to begin at Beaufort, North 

 Carolina, May 2d, and will continue till the 

 end of August. Dr. W. K. Brooks^ Associ- 

 ate in Biology and Assistant Professor of 

 Comparative Anatomy, has charge as direc- 

 tor. The laboratory is designed for advanced 

 students, and for persons who are qualified 

 to carry on original investigations. No defi- 

 nite courses of instruction are given, as 

 the persons who are received as students 

 are presumed to have sufficient knowl- 

 edge to carry on their studies without such. 

 aid. An elementary class will also be con- ' 

 ducted in connection with the laboratory, 

 during about six weeks of the summer, at 

 which daily lectures will be given, and ar- 



