NOTES. 



863 



these researches at a certain date, under 

 appropriate pains and penalties. Precisely 

 the same was the case with Darwin : he was 

 able to pursue his inquiries calmly and dis- 

 passionately ; able always to take two or 

 three years, if his task could not be finished 

 in one, and in no fear of unpleasant conse- 

 quences if some idea which he had taken up 

 should lead to nothing. But, if we say to a 

 youth, or, worse still, to a child, ' You must, 

 by a given date, reach a certain standard of 

 knowledge, a certain grade of culture, to be 

 judged of in a summary way . . .,' we place 

 him in the very conditions wherein study 

 becomes unsanitary, even ruinous, and that 

 the more decidedly the more immature the 

 brain." This is the tendency in hosts of 

 schools, where everything is made to depend 

 on examinations, the winning of honors at 

 exhibitions, or on prizes and competitions. 



Troubles of a Transfusionist in the Olden 

 Time. The " Union Medicale " quotes from 

 an old book a curious story of the troubles 

 which beset a physician who experimented 

 in transfusion of blood in the seventeenth 

 century. A Dr. Denys, of Rheims, a strong 

 believer in transfusion, tried that remedy, 

 using calf's blood, with great success, upon 

 a young man whom he found mad in the 

 streets. The patient recovered, and con- 

 tinued well for two months, when he re- 

 lapsed into dementia. A second experiment 

 worked improvement, but not a cure. The 

 young man soon lost his senses entirely, and 

 his wife brought him again to Denys. A 

 new operation only increased the patient's 

 pains, and he died in a few hours. The 

 widow then brought suit against Denys for 

 killing her husband, and the doctor brought 

 a counter-action against the woman for try- 

 ing to poison him. The suit went in favor 

 of the woman, but was afterward carried, 

 through a course of appeals, to the Parlia- 

 ment. The case seems ultimately to have 

 been discharged, but an edict was issued 

 forbidding the practice of transfusion, under 

 pain of corporal punishment. 



Fertilizers and Savages. " To what ex- 

 tent is the use of agricultural fertilizers 

 known among uncivilized people ? " is one 

 of the questions raised in a paper by Mr. 

 G. Browne Goode, on " The Uses of Agri- 

 cultural Fertilizers by the American Indians 



and the Early English Colonists." Mr. Goode 

 finds clear evidence in his historical read- 

 ings that the Indians of New England used 

 and taught the early settlers to use the men- 

 haden as a manure. The aboriginal name, 

 munnawhattcaug, whence our menhaden is 

 derived, means fertilizer, and another name, 

 paghaden, is derived from a verb which 

 means to enrich the land. Governor Brad- 

 ford tells, in his " History of Plimouth Plan- 

 tation," how the Indian Squanto taught the 

 colonists in planting their corn, that, " ex- 

 cepte they got fish, and set with it (in these 

 old grounds), it would come to nothing." 

 George Mourt, in a journal published in 

 1622, in speaking of the planting, says, "Ac- 

 cording to the manner of Indians, we ma- 

 nured our ground with herrings, or rather 

 shads." No other direct reference to its use 

 by Indians is quoted, but several instances 

 are found in which the employment by the 

 colonists of fish for manure is mentioned. 

 Dr. Rau has met with but one allusion to 

 the use of fertilizers by uncivilized races. 

 It is in the writings of Garcilasso de Vega, 

 who mentions the use of guano by the Pe- 

 ruvians. Mr. H. n. Bancroft has found in 

 a translation of the Quiche MS., by Brasseur 

 de Bourbourg, a notice of the Maya custom 

 of cutting and burning the growth on the 

 corn-fields, and allowing the ashes to remain 

 as manure. This, however, was accidental 

 rather than intentional fertilization, as the 

 main object of the burning was to clear away 

 rubbish. Professor Atwater has learned 

 that the Indians of the north shore of Lake 

 Superior use white-fish and lake-trout in 

 manuring their fields, and Mr. Dall says that 

 the Indians of Alaska have learned a rude 

 system of agriculture from the Russians. 



NOTES. 



H. C. Lewis and G. F. Wright have 

 made a detailed study of the southern bound- 

 ary of the glaciated area of Ohio, which they 

 find to be sharply defined, though not every- 

 where marked by such a relative excess of 

 moraine accumulation as in Long Island, 

 New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. The line 

 enters the State from the east in Columbiana 

 County twelve miles north of the Ohio River, 

 runs nearly west into Stark County, where it 

 turns more to the south, and, continuing so 

 to Knox County, it turns then at right an- 

 gles to the south ; thence south and south- 



