POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



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and January. At Antibes, in particular, 

 the water-level sunk considerably, falling 

 about a foot during the first fortnight in 

 January, and laying bare bottoms over 

 which small boats had previously sailed 

 with ease. A similar depression was noticed 

 on the coasts of Italy, particularly at Fiu- 

 micino. A French savant, M. Daussy, has 

 estimated the amount of this influence, and 

 calculated that it is equal to the product 

 of the excess of height over the normal by 

 the density of mercury. The action of at- 

 mospheric pressure is so manifest at other 

 points in the Mediterranean, according to 

 Dr. Niepce, of Nice, that it almost alone 

 constitutes the tidal force. The fact is con- 

 firmed in a paper on the climate of Venice, 

 which has recently been published by M. 

 Tono, of the Meteorological Observatory in 

 that city, which shows the closest corre- 

 spondence between the changes in atmos- 

 pheric pressure and the rise and fall of the 

 waters. 



The Monnd-Builders and the Southern 

 Indians. Dr. Daniel G. Brinton has sought 

 to answer the question, Who were the mound- 

 builders ? by inquiring whether and to what 

 extent the tribes who inhabited the Missis- 

 sippi Valley and the Atlantic slope were 

 accustomed to make works similar to the 

 mounds. It is clear, from several accounts, 

 that the Iroquois were accustomed to con- 

 struct burial-mounds, and their neighbors, 

 the various Algonquin tribes, occasionally 

 raised heaps of soil. The Cherokees do not 

 appear to have been real mound-builders, 

 but they appreciated the convenience of 

 mounds, and put their more important build- 

 ings upon thenrwhen they had them at hand. 

 The tribes among whom we can look for 

 the descendants of the mound-builders with 

 the greatest probability of success are the 

 tribes of the great Chahta-Muskokee family, 

 which includes the Choetaws, Chickasaws, 

 Creeks, Seminoles, and Natchez. They 

 " seem to have been a building race, and 

 to have reared tumuli not contemptible in 

 comparison even with the mightiest of the 

 Ohio Valley." Cabeza de Vaca, who accom- 

 panied the expedition of Pamfilo de Nar- 

 vaez in 1527, mentions a place where the 

 natives were accustomed to erect their 

 dwellings on a steep hifl, and dig a ditch 



around its base, as a means of defense. 

 All the accounts of those who participated 

 in Hernando de Soto's expedition describe 

 the Southern tribes as constructing artificial 

 mounds, using earthworks for defense, ex- 

 cavating ditches and canals, etc. Thus, 

 La Vega tells how the caciques in Florida 

 formed earth into a kind of platform " two 

 or three pikes in height, the summit of which 

 is large enough to give room for twelve, 

 fifteen, or twenty houses, to lodge the cacique 

 and his attendants. At the foot of this ele- 

 vation they mark oat a square place, accord- 

 ing to the size of the village, around which 

 the leading men have their houses." Bied- 

 ma says that the caciques of a certain re- 

 gion " were accustomed to erect near the 

 house very high mounds (tertrcs tres-elevees), 

 and there were some who placed their houses 

 on the top of these mounds." The Hugue- 

 nots who attempted to settle in Florida de- 

 scribed similar structures as marking the 

 sites of the houses of the chief. William 

 Bartram, the botanist, who visited the Creeks 

 in the last century, found that they had 

 " chunk-yards " surrounded by low mounds 

 of earth, at one end of which, sometimes 

 on a moderate artificial elevation, was the 

 chief's dwelling, and at the other end the 

 public council-house. Large burial-mounds 

 are also often spoken of as being made by 

 these tribes. Many of the mounds in the 

 Gulf States are very large. One in the 

 Etowah Valley, Georgia, has a capacity of 

 one million cubic feet. The Messier mound, 

 near the Chattahoochee River, contains about 

 seven hundred thousand cubic feet, and is 

 twice as large as the great mound near 

 Miamisburg, Ohio. Dr. Brinton's views are 

 parallel, if not identical, with those worked 

 out by the late Mr. Lewis H. Morgan, in his 

 " Houses and House-Life of the American 

 Aborigines." 



The Microbe of Malaria. M. Richard, a 

 French pathologist, announces that he has 

 discovered the parasite of malaria in a mi- 

 crobe which makes its special habitat in the 

 red globule of the blood, where it is devel- 

 oped in a similar manner with the weevil in 

 the bean, and whence it issues as soon as it 

 has reached the perfect state. When the 

 blood of a patient suffering from an attack 

 of fever is examined, red globules will be 



