572 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



corded geological tree." But their ancestors 

 are supposed to have been pushed down by 

 the glaciers and left where the modern 

 forms are found. Almost anywhere in the 

 boreal flora Diapensia lapponica may be 

 found, whether in northern Asia, or Europe, 

 or America, or even on the mountains of 

 Labrador and in the Pyrenees, the Scotch 

 mountains, and our own White Mountains. 



The Academy dclla Crnsca. — " For three 

 hundred years," says a correspondent of the 

 London Athenaeum, "the learned body, the 

 Academy of la Crusca (the bran), Florence, 

 has been scrupulously sifting the Italian 

 tongue and producing successive editions of 

 its monumental dictionary. Its present seat 

 i?i in the monastery of St. Mark — Savonarola's 

 cloister — where it occupies the hall behind 

 the great library. When an associate is 

 promoted to full membership, his official re- 

 ception is still accompanied by the tradi- 

 tional rite. First, he is solemnly conducted 

 to the Cruscan museum, and left to solitary 

 meditation among shovel-backed chairs sur- 

 mounted by the symbolical sieve and book- 

 cases ingeniously fashioned in the likeness 

 of corn sacks. The walls are covered with 

 the names, crests, and mottoes of former 

 members, who in past times usually assumed 

 fantastic titles descriptive of the academy's 

 labors." Some of these printed inscriptions 

 nnd comical devices are more or less quaint. 

 Thus, Dr. Giulio Maxi in 1590 took the name 

 of II Fiorito, or the flowery one, with the 

 device of a basket of wheat in bloom and 

 the motto from Petrarch (translation) : 



"I enjoy the present and hope for better." 



In 1641 the Senator Vieri appeared as Le 

 Svanito, the evaporated, with an uncorked 

 wine flask, the stopper beside it, and the 

 motto : 



" Oh, how I long for the medicine ! " 



In 1660 the Marquis Malaskini adopted the 

 title of 11 Preservzto, the preserved, the de- 

 vice of olives packed in straw, and the motto 

 from Petrarch : 



" Keep the prize green." 

 In 1764, the Abbot Giuseppe Pelli, surnamed 

 11 Megliorato, the improved, took the device 

 of a newly invented sieve for the better sift- 

 ing of grain, with the Petrarchian motto : 



" Follow the few, and not the throng." 



In T7*70, Signor Domenico Manni assumed 

 the title of 11 Soffcrente, the sufferer, with a 

 straw chair as his device, and a motto from 

 Dante : 



" The master said that lying in a feather bed 

 One would not come to fame— nor under the 

 plowshare." 



In due time the new member is escorted to 

 the hall where the academy is assembled, and 

 the chief consul, head of the academy, greets 

 him with a speech, to which he has to make 

 a fitting reply. Historical Italian families 

 are numerously represented on the academy's 

 rolls, and among the foreign members are 

 the names of William Roscoe and Mr. Glad- 

 stone. 



Aboriginal Superstitions about Bones. — 



A very interesting archaeological site in 

 Mexico, visited by Carl Lumholtz and Ales 

 Hedlicka in the fall of 1896, is near Zacapu, 

 in the State of Michoacan. The region is 

 marked by many stone mounds on or near 

 the edge of the old flow of lava, extending 

 for several miles ; and directly above the 

 village stands a large stone fortress, called 

 El Palacio. Excavating near this fortress, 

 Mr. Lumholtz unearthed several skeletons, 

 which had been buried without any order, 

 and accompanied by " remarkably few ob- 

 jects," but some of these were well worthy 

 of study. The most curious things found 

 were some bones, strangely marked with 

 grooves across them, exhibiting a little va- 

 riety in arrangement, but all similarly exe- 

 cuted, and evidently after a carefully devised 

 system. This feature is so far unique in 

 archaeology, and its purpose can as yet be 

 only a matter of conjecture. Two ways are 

 proposed by the author of explaining it. The 

 marking may have been an operation under" 

 taken for the purpose of dispatching the 

 dead. Mr. Lumholtz is knowing to a belief 

 among the tribes of Mexico that the dead 

 are troublesome to the survivors for at least 

 one year, and certain ceremonies and feasts 

 in regard to them have to be observed in 

 order to prevent them from doing harm, and 

 to drive them away. The Tarahumares 

 guard their beer against them, and others 

 provide a special altar with food for the 

 dead on it at their rain-making feasts, else 

 the spirits would work some mischief. 

 Among many tiibes an offering is made to 



