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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the opinion of the author, the principal cause 

 in hastening geyser-action. It tends to cause 

 the steam to be retained within the basin, 

 and, when the temperature stands at or above 

 the boiling-point, explosive liberation must 

 follow. All alkaline solutions exhibit, by 

 reason of this viscosity, a tendency to bump 

 and boil irregularly. Viscosity in the hot 

 springs must also tend to the formation of 

 bubbles and foam when the steam rises to 

 the surface, and this in turn aids to bring 

 about the explosive action, followed by a 

 relief of pressure, and thus to hasten the 

 final and more powerful display. The prac- 

 tice of casting in soap is regarded as detri- 

 mental to the preservation of the geysers, 

 and as a proper object of restriction. 



The Nature of Poisoned Arrows. — The 



word poison, as applied to the poisoned arrows 

 used in the Solomon Islands, Santa Cruz, the 

 Banks Islands, and the New Hebrides, should 

 be understood, according to the Rev. Dr. R. H. 

 Codington, in a peculiar sense. The practice 

 of administering poison in food was com- 

 mon among the natives, but it was doubtful 

 whether what was used had much power of 

 doing harm. The deadly effect was expected 

 to follow from the incantations with which 

 the poison was prepared. In the same way 

 the deadly quality of the poisoned arrows 

 was never thought by the natives to be due 

 to poison in our sense of the word, though 

 what was used might be, and was meant to 

 be, injurious and active in inflaming the 

 wound. It was the supernatural power that 

 belonged to the human bone of which the 

 arrow-head was made on which they chiefly 

 relied, and with that the magical power of 

 the incantations with which it was fastened 

 to the shaft. The bone of any dead man 

 will give efficacy in the native belief to the 

 arrow, because any ghost may have power 

 to work on the wounded man ; but the bone 

 of one who was powerful when alive is more 

 valued. In Lepers' Island, a young man, 

 out of affection for his dead brother, took 

 up his bones and made them into arrows. 

 He carried these about him, and did not 

 speak of himself as " I," but as " we two " — 

 his brother and himself — and he was much 

 feared; all the supernatural power of the 

 dead brother was with the living. Although 

 it is the human bone that gives the deadly 



quality to the arrow, the bone must be pre- 

 pared with certain incantations which add 

 supernatural power. The poison is an addi- 

 tion to the power of the bone. The native 

 did not much consider, if at all, the natural 

 power to hurt, of either bone or poison. A 

 dead man's bone made the wound, the power 

 of the ghost was brought by incantation to the 

 arrow, and therefore the wounded man would 

 die. Euphorbia-juice is hot and inflaming; 

 it is smeared on the bone with an incanta- 

 tion which calls in the power of a dead 

 man's ghost ; when the wound is given, the 

 ghost will make it inflame. The cure of the 

 wounded man is conducted on the same prin- 

 ciple. If the arrow-head, or a part of it, 

 can be recovered, it is kept in a damp place 

 or on cool leaves ; the inflammation of the 

 wound is little, or subsides. Shells are kept 

 rattling over the house where the man lives, 

 to keep off the hostile ghost. In the same 

 way the enemy who has inflicted the wound, 

 and his friends, will drink hot and burning 

 juices, and chew irritating leaves ; pungent 

 and bitter herbs will be burned to make an 

 irritating smoke, and will be tied upon the 

 bow that sent the arrow ; the arrow-head, if 

 recovered, will be put into the fire. The 

 bow will be kept near the fire, and its string 

 kept taut and occasionally pulled, to bring 

 on tension of the nerves and the spasms of 

 tetanus. Prof. Victor Horsley has suggested 

 that the value of the human bone tipping the 

 arrow was first made evident by the employ- 

 ment of a bone from a corpse recently dead, 

 in the decomposing tissues of which the 

 septicsemic virus would consequently be flour- 

 ishing. 



The Mesozoie Atlantic Coast Region. — In 



his address before the Geological Section of 

 the American Association, Prof. Charles E. 

 "White, defining the Mesozoie formations of 

 North America, said that the rocks of the 

 Triassic age are found from Prince Edward 

 Island to the Carolinas. They rest on for- 

 mations, from the Archaean to the Carbon- 

 iferous, inclusive. Verv few invertebrate 

 fossils have been found in the Trias of the 

 Atlantic coast region, and these are of little 

 value for indicating the age of the strata 

 that contained them. Intermediate between 

 the Triassic beds and the undisputed Creta- 

 ceous deposits of this region is a series of 



