POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



277 



cosmical cause, not to anything local or even 

 telluric. The question here passes from 

 the geologist, and must be addressed to the 

 astronomer." In another paper, on " The 

 Eroding Power of Ice," Professor Newberry 

 reiterated these views, and maintained, be- 

 sides, in answer to objections, that " ice has 

 a great, though unmeasured and perhaps 

 immeasurable, eroding power ; and that, in 

 regions which they have occupied, glaciers 

 have been always important and often pre- 

 ponderating agents in effecting geological 

 changes." He supported his views with 

 citations from his own extended studies of 

 glacial action in the Alps and in many dif- 

 ferent regions of the United States and 

 Canada. G. F. Wright, of Oberlin, Ohio, 

 pointed out, in a paper on the " Result of 

 Explorations of the Glacial Boundary be- 

 tween New Jersey and Illinois," that " the 

 signs of glaciation cease where there is no 

 barrier to account for their cessation, and 

 where no barrier ever could have existed, 

 such as must be supposed if the so-called 

 glacial phenomena are the product of float- 

 To the question, Why is the bound- 



ing ice 



ary of the glacial area so crooked ? the au- 

 thor replied, assigning, as a principal cause, 

 aside from differences of level, the proba- 

 bility that unequal amounts of snow fell 

 over different regions of the north, and this 

 snow became very unevenly extended in 

 its subsequent flow over the surface. A 

 little reflection, he added, " will show that 

 the glacial theory will not make extravagant 

 suppositions as to the amount of ice re- 

 quired." In the general discussions of the 

 subject, Dr. Dawson objected to the loose 

 significance with which the term "moraine" 

 has been used, and especially to the defini- 

 tion of it as " detrital matter heaped up by 

 the forcible mechanical action of ice " ; and 

 pointed out that such a definition would cer- 

 tainly include work which was not per- 

 formed by land-glaciers. Major Powell 

 called attention to the fact that wholly dif- 

 ferent agencies,, each acting in its own way, 

 produced a class of geological features that 

 wentr under the general name of " terraces." 

 We have sea-beach terraces, lake-shore ter- 

 races, and yet another class of terraces ex- 

 ceedingly common in the Rocky and Cascade 

 Mountains, due to a different cause from 

 the others. 



Parental Rights and the Gens among 

 the Omahas. Alice C. Fletcher, of New 

 York, gave, at the recent meeting of the 

 American Association, a paper on the laws 

 and privileges of the gens, among the Oma- 

 ha Indians. A child who has lost its fa- 

 ther or mother is considered an orphan. 

 Its particular place is gone, and it passes 

 into the gens. If it is the father who dies, 

 the mother loses all maternal rights. Each 

 child, unless of very tender age, will be sep- 

 arated from the mother, and will go into 

 the family of some one of the father's rela- 

 tives. It may thereafter be claimed as his 

 own child by the male head of the family 

 to which it has been allotted. This separa- 

 tion of her children from a widow is per- 

 manent. She usually marries again, and in 

 that event is not burdened with her off- 

 spring by previous husbands ; but, if she 

 remains unmarried, she is expected to work 

 for the family that has adopted her chil- 

 dren, rather than for the children them- 

 selves. The women are not wanting in af- 

 fection for the children of whom they are 

 bereft ; but the separation is looked upon 

 as a matter of course, and none of the in- 

 terested parties regard it as a grievance, or 

 even as a hardship. 



Tarantula-Bites and the Dancing-Cnre 



The tarantula, that gigantic spider of sup- 

 posed very poisonous qualities, is native in 

 Italy, and in the neighborhood of Tarento, 

 whence its name is derived. Its bite and 

 sting have been supposed to be extremely 

 painful, and to produce a periodical de- 

 rangement, manifesting itself in various 

 ways. The affected persons were fabled to 

 be attacked with a kind of compulsion to 

 dance, which was called, after its cause, 

 tarantismus ; and real benefit, in the shape 

 of a dilution of the poison, and a weakening 

 of its effects, was supposed to accrue from 

 subjecting the bitten person to a violent 

 exercise of dancing. The doctors regarded 

 the tarantismus as a kind of hypochondria, 

 to which the women of Southern Italy were 

 peculiarly subject, and some had prescrip- 

 tions of particular kinds of music and spe- 

 cial dances for its cure. Some held that 

 different kinds of music should be pre- 

 scribed to different persons, according to 

 their character and temperament. Possi- 



