86o 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



They are still an uncorrupted, hospitable, 

 frank, natural people. Their principal weap- 

 on is the blow-pipe, discharging poisoned ar- 

 rows. The most important nation on the Fu- 

 nis are the Ipurinas, or Cangiti, who dwell 

 in numerous hordes, under different names, 

 in the head- water regions. They are a proud, 

 warlike race, of vindictive disposition, cun- 

 ning, and treacherous. They are still part- 

 ly anthropophagous. Domestic animals are 

 rarely kept among them ; tobacco is taken 

 as snuff ; and poisoned weapons are gener- 

 ally used. In the region of the source of 

 the Rio Acre other Indian races of great in- 

 terest to ethnologists dwell, possessing richly 

 carved huts for ceremonies, stone figures, and 

 idols. The caoutchouc trade, with its reck- 

 less gains, exercises a most disastrous effect 

 upon the Indians ; nevertheless, that element 

 might become of the highest importance to 

 the immense but thinly peopled province of 

 the Amazon, if only a judicious and consci- 

 entious treatment was adopted as the means 

 of bringing the aborigines within the bounds 

 of civilization. 



The Pallas Cormorant. — Pallas's Cormo- 

 rant, or the great spectacled cormorant (Pha- 

 lacrocorax perspicillatas\ has gone to keep 

 company with the great auk, as a bird that 

 has become extinct within the last forty or 

 fifty years. It is so rare in collections that 

 only four specimens are known to exist in 

 museums, no one has its eggs, and no bones 

 had been found or preserved till Mr. Leon- 

 hard Stejneger collected a few of them some 

 years ago on the Commander Islands. It 

 was reported very abundant on Bering Island 

 by Steller in 1741, and the only material for 

 Pallas's description of it was derived from his 

 observations. The specimens in the British, 

 St. Petersburg, and Leyden Museums were 

 obtained from a governor of Sitka, and these 

 are all that are known to be in existence. 

 Several pictures of the bird have been pub- 

 lished. Mr. Stejneger was informed by the 

 natives of Bering Island that the meat of 

 this species was more palatable than that of 

 its congeners, and was used as food in pref- 

 erence to any other. According to Steller, 

 the weight of the cormorant varied from 

 twelve to fourteen pounds, so that one bird 

 was sufficient for three starving men of nis 

 shipwrecked crew. The value of the cormo- 



rant as food, and its sluggishness, contributed 

 to its extermination. The bones found bv 

 Mr. Stejneger have been examined and de- 

 scribed by Mr. Frederick A. Lucas ; and a 

 full account of them, with the history of the 

 bird, is given in a reprint from the proceed- 

 ings of the National Museum. 



Relative Abundance of the Chemical Ele- 

 ments. — An estimate of the relative abun- 

 dance of the chemical elements in the atmos- 

 phere, ocean, and that part of the crust of 

 the earth which is accessible, has been made 

 by Prof. F. W. Clarke. Separate calcula- 

 tions are made for the atmosphere and the 

 ocean. The estimate of the constitution of 

 the crust is made from the means of 880 

 analyses of volcanic and crystalline rocks 

 from different places of the United States 

 and Europe. Averaging the whole, the au- 

 thor finds oxygen constituting 49*98 per 

 cent ; silicon, 25*30 per cent ; aluminum, 

 7*26 per cent ; iron, 5*08 per cent ; calcium, 

 3*57 per cent ; and after these, in order, 

 magnesium, sodium, potassium, hydrogen, 

 titanium, carbon, chlorine, bromine, phos- 

 phorus, manganese, sulphur, barium, nitro- 

 gen, and chromium. Other substances are 

 supposed to be present in less proportions 

 than five one-hundredths of one per cent. 

 The most surprising feature in the estimate 

 is the relative abundance of titanium, which 

 is placed before phosphorus, manganese, and 

 sulphur. It is, however, rarely absent from 

 the older rocks ; is almost universally pres- 

 ent in soils and clays ; and is often concen- 

 trated in great quantities in beds of iron 

 ore. Having no very striking characteris- 

 tics and but little commercial importance, it 

 is easily overlooked, and so has a popular 

 reputation for scarcity which it does not de- 

 serve. 



The Summit of Kilima-njaro.— The as- 

 cent to the summit of Kilima-njaro, the high- 

 est mountain in Africa, was accomplished 

 by Dr. Hans Meyer in October, 1S89. The 

 base of the ice-cap of Kibo was reached at 

 18,270 feet above the sea. The upper part 

 of this ascent was extremely toilsome, as the 

 surface of the ice became increasingly cor- 

 roded, taking the form which Gussfeldt, on 

 Aconcagua, in Chili, called nieve penitente ; 

 honeycombed to a depth of over six feet, 



