POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



283 



tentions of Mr. Shaw, its founder, have 

 prepared a plan of garden scholarships, 

 providing for the instruction of a limited 

 number of pupils in practical horticulture. 

 The classes are intended to consist of six 

 pupils, who will be taught for not more 

 than six years each. They will be regarded 

 as apprentices in the Botanical Garden, and 

 required to work in it under the direction 

 of the head gardener, performing the duties 

 of garden hands, and being advanced gradu- 

 ally from simpler to more responsible tasks. 

 After the first year their working hours will 

 be reduced to five a day, that they may de- 

 vote the rest of the time to study, in which 

 they will enjoy free the privileges of the 

 tuition of the School of Botany at Washing- 

 ton University. For their services in the 

 garden they will be paid from two hundred 

 to three hundred dollars a year, with con- 

 veniently situated lodgings. Applicants for 

 scholarships will be examined in the upper 

 grammar-school branches ; and, in case of 

 an excess of them, will be subjected to com- 

 petitive examination, in which other branches 

 will be brought in. The studies will be, for the 

 first year, in practical duties ; for the second 

 year, vegetable and flower gardening, small- 

 fruit culture, and orchard culture; for the 

 third year, readings in forestry, elementary 

 botany, landscape gardening, and the rudi- 

 ments of surveying and draining; for the 

 fourth year, botany of weeds, garden vege- 

 tables, and fruits ; for the fifth year, vege- 

 table physiology, economic entomology, and 

 fungi ; for the sixth year, botany of garden 

 and greenhouse plants, ferns, and trees in 

 their winter condition, with the theoretical 

 part of some branch of special gardening. 

 Pupils will also be trained in legal forms 

 and in keeping accounts. Two of the six 

 scholarships are at the disposal of local hor- 

 ticultural societies, provided their candidates 

 pass the examinations. 



Museum of the University of Pennsyl- 

 vania. — The Archaeological Museum of the 

 University of Pennsylvania, begun in Decem- 

 ber, 1889, by the purchase of a small collec- 

 tion of stone implements, has grown in the 

 few months since, till it includes ten thousand 

 objects from all the United States, Mexico, 

 Central America, and parts of South America. 

 It is intended to make it representative of 



the early civilization of the Americas, and 

 to exhibit as far as possible the implements 

 used by the Indians, in their warfare, agri- 

 culture, and domestic life, before the advent 

 of Columbus. It is intended hereafter to 

 build up the collection mainly by explora- 

 tions, and to this end all parts of the coun- 

 try will be thoroughly searched. In addi- 

 tion to the American specimens, the museum 

 contains a fine collection of flints, bronze 

 implements, and pottery from Europe, and 

 objects from Asia, Africa, and the South 

 Sea islands. Preparations are making by 

 Prof. Rothrock for the establishment in the 

 university of a Museum of Economic Bot- 

 any, to consist of all kinds of woods, vege- 

 table fibers, grains, and drugs, arranged so 

 as to illustrate the processes of manufacture 

 from the raw product, and the various uses 

 to which each material may be put. It is 

 expected to make this department of practi- 

 cal use to manufacturers and wood-workers, 

 who may be guided by its aid to the selec- 

 tion of suitable material, and learn where it 

 can be got. 



Coffin-IVails. — Baring-Gould has contrib- 

 uted to The Gentleman's Magazine an arti- 

 cle full of curious lore on this sepulchral 

 subject. He says that the studding of a cof- 

 fin with nails — which has evidently not ceased 

 to be common in England — is a curious sur- 

 vival. The nails are no longer of any use, 

 for the lid is fastened down with screws, but 

 even when stone coffins were used — sar- 

 cophagi — the nails were not omitted. Iron 

 was from the first regarded with supersti- 

 tious reverence. In Egypt iron was the 

 symbol of victory over death — of the power 

 of resurrection given to man. The Romans 

 also had a reverence for iron, and attributed 

 to it mysterious powers. By drawing a cir- 

 cle on the ground or in the air, with an iron 

 point, thrice round a person, they believed 

 all noxious influences were banished. An iron 

 spike applied lightly to a wounded part would 

 relieve its pain. Rust for curative and pro- 

 tective purposes might be had from old 

 nails, from which it must be removed with 

 moistened iron. The nail was specially used 

 because it was a symbol of fate. On the 

 Ides of September every year the highest in 

 authority in Rome drove a nail into the wall 

 of the Temple of Jupiter. That day was the 



