NOTES. 



719 



regards as post-Pliocene, and which may be 

 compared with the Cro-Magnon and Steeten 

 skulls, is in the geological collection of this 

 city. Mantegazza has founded an anthro- 

 pological and ethnological museum in Flor- 

 ence, with Miloni in charge of the Etruscan 

 and Schiaparelli of the archaeological de- 

 partments. Perugia, too, has Etruscan an- 

 tiquities, and Belluci is collecting prehistoric 

 stone implements there. Pigorini has estab- 

 lished a prehistorical and ethnological mu- 

 seum at Rome, where Michael St. de Rossi 

 has won much honor by his researches. 

 Nicolucci, who has founded an anthropo- 

 logical collection at the University of Na- 

 ples, has examined about a hundred skulls, 

 and has found them to be meso-cephalic 

 Grecian skulls, very like those still typical 

 in the region. 



Two East African Tribes. Some inter- 

 esting information respecting East African 

 tribes has been obtained by the London Geo- 

 graphical Society from the notes of the Rev. 

 T. Wakefield, missionary at Ribe, near Mom- 

 basa. Kavirondo appears to be the most 

 important country on the eastern shore of 

 the Victoria Nyanza, and is described as a 

 great grass-clad plain, with a few detached 

 hills and clumps of trees, but altogether 

 without forests. The people are tall and 

 powerfully built, of a deep black, and with 

 thick lips and flat noses. They wear their 

 hair short, or dress it elaborately, or shave 

 it all off but a tuft on the crown, or shave 

 half the head, or a few patches only, ac- 

 cording to their taste. The women tattoo 

 the stomach and the back, but the men do 

 so only rarely. Dress is almost unknown. 

 The women are content with a string worn 

 round the waist, to which they attach a tail- 

 like appendage made of bark. They wear 

 no ornaments, but smear themselves with 

 disagreeable (to whites) substances. The 

 men wear iron bracelets on their fore-arms, 

 and above their elbows. Their spears are 

 long and have short blades, and their shields 

 are made of buffalo-hides. Neither swords 

 nor knives are in use. Both sexes work in 

 the fields. Millet, beans, bananas, and large 

 crops of sweet-potatoes are grown, and two 

 harvests are gathered in the year. A thick 

 porridge, on festive occasions, made with 

 milk, constitutes the staple food, and is eaten 

 with the hands. Cattle, sheep, and goats 



are raised. The huts are circular and roomy, 

 and high enough for a man to stand upright 

 within them. Another people, the Wa-Uka- 

 ra, are likewise tall and muscular, and have 

 a similar variety of tastes about their hair, 

 They paint their bodies red, with clay mixed 

 in oil, and their arms and legs with white ; 

 tattoo their stomachs and upper arms and 

 have few ornaments. Women wear kilts of 

 bark-cloth and skins, and men a longer gar- 

 ment of like material. They live in circular 

 huts, built over pits three feet deep, and 

 covered with conical roofs. They marry 

 only when full-grown, and pay the dowry 

 for their wives in cattle and goats. They 

 grow a variety of crops, and pound their 

 corn or millet in a wooden mortar, or grind 

 it on a flat stone, beneath which a cowhide 

 is spread out to receive the flour. Their do- 

 mestic animals are cattle, goats, sheep of a 

 superior kind, dogs, and fowls, but cats are 

 not known. Their blacksmiths manufacture 

 hoes, axes, and spears ; and they produce 

 cooking-pots of clay and baskets of wicker- 

 work. Ukara contains a large number of 

 populous villages. 



NOTES. 



Near Mandan, in the neighborhood of 

 the junction of the Hart and Missouri Riv- 

 ers, are what appear to be two large ceme- 

 teries of an ancient race. One of them is 

 composed of what are described as trenches 

 filled with bones of man and beast, and cov- 

 ered with several feet of earth so as to 

 form considerable mounds. With the bones 

 are associated broken pottery, vases of flint, 

 and agates. The pottery is described as 

 being of a dark material, handsomely deco- 

 rated, delicate in finish, and very light, 

 pointing to the existence of a considerable 

 degree of civilization. 



The death has been announced of Mr. 

 Robert B. Tolles, of Boston, the distin- 

 guished maker of American microscopes 

 and telescopes of great powers. 



Dr. Grassi is said to have made the im- 

 portant discovery that flies are active agents 

 in the propagation of disease. They take 

 the ova of parasitical worms into their 

 mouths and discharge them unchanged in 

 convenient places, often upon substances to 

 be used as human food. Dr. Grassi is so 

 deeply impressed with the magnitude and 

 seriousness of the consequences that he 

 hopes some effectual means may soon be 

 found of destroying flies. Science Monthly. 



