862 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



plateau, and at points within the same, 

 capped by the covering of lava and ash. 

 The explorations of Yucatan did not lend 

 support to the supposition that the banks 

 have been built up through simple organic 

 accretion. The evidences of recent uplift 

 were abundant, and it further appeared that 

 a gradual subsidence followed the elevation. 



Geometry of Aboriginal Mounds. — In his 



paper on the Circular, Square, and Octagonal 

 Earthworks of Ohio, Mr. Cyrus Thomas gives 

 the results of recent survevs of those works, 

 and corrects the errors into which Squier and 

 Davis fell in exaggerating the geometrical 

 accuracy of the structures. The close ap- 

 proximation to such regularity in certain of 

 the square and circular works is admitted 

 as beyond question ; but none of them are 

 perfect, while the octagons are less regular. 

 Their characteristics are pronounced essen- 

 tially aboriginal. There is nothing in them or 

 connected with them contradictory to the 

 theory of their Indian origin except it be the 

 single fact that a few of them approached 

 very nearly to true geometrical figures. It 

 is admitted both that Indians can lay out true 

 circles of moderate size, and that they are 

 less able now to perform many things which 

 necessity formerly compelled them to prac- 

 tice. No valid reason can be presented why 

 Indians taught by necessity and practice could 

 not lay off by the eye and by means at hand 

 figures with which they were familiar more 

 correctly than the white man without instru- 

 ments. 



An Indian Ball-Player's Training. — As 



described by Mr. James Mooney, the train- 

 ing of the Cherokee ball-players includes a 

 course of precautionary measures. "They 

 bathe their limbs with a decoction of Te- 

 phrosia Virginiana, or catgut, in order to 

 render their muscles tough like the roots of 

 that plant. They bathe themselves with a 

 decoction of the small rush (Juneus tenuis), 

 which grows by the roadside, because its 

 stalks are always erect and will not lie flat 

 upon the ground, however much they may 

 be stamped and trodden upon. In the same 

 way they bathe with a decoction of the wild 

 crab-apple, or the iron-wood, because the 

 trunks of these trees, even when thrown 

 down, are supported and kept from the 



ground by their spreading tops. To make 

 themselves more supple, they whip themselves 

 with the tough stalks of the wdtaku, or 

 star-grass, or with switches made from the 

 bark of a hickory sapling which has grown 

 up from a log that has fallen across it, the 

 bark being taken from the bend thus pro- 

 duced in the sapling. After the first scratch- 

 ing the player renders himself an object of 

 terror to his opponent by eating a rattlesnake 

 which has been killed and cooked by the 

 shaman. He rubs himself with an eel-skin 

 to make himself slippery like the eel, and 

 rubs each limb down once with the fore and 

 hind leg of a turtle, because the legs of that 

 animal are remarkably stout. He applies 

 to the shaman to conjure a dangerous oppo- 

 nent so that he may be unable to see the 

 ball in its flight, or may dislocate a wrist 

 or break a leg. Sometimes the shaman 

 draws upon the ground an armless figure of 

 his rival with a hole where the heart should 

 be. Into this bole he drops two black beads, 

 covers them with earth, and stamps upon 

 them, and thus the dreaded rival is doomed, 

 unless (and this is always the saving clause) 

 his own shaman has taken precautions against 

 such a result, or the one in whose behalf the 

 charm is made has rendered the incantation 

 unavailing by a violation of some one of the 

 interminable rules of the gaktunta" 



NOTES. 



Prof. Hcxley was the recipient of the 

 Linnaean medal at the anniversary meeting of 

 the Linnaean Society on Saturday, May 24th. 

 This medal was instituted three years since, 

 with a view of conferring honor on distin- 

 guished biologists. In replying to the presi- 

 dent, Prof. Huxley said the aim of his life 

 had been in the words of the motto of the 

 society: "Naturae discere mores "(to learn 

 the ways of nature). He had endeavored to 

 show the fundamental unity of plant life 

 and of animal life ; to make use of hypothe- 

 ses as ladders or scaffoldings to be dis- 

 carded, perhaps somewhat ungratefully, when 

 no longer of use; and to pursue truth re- 

 gardless of incidental consequences. 



In order to investigate their botanical 

 and medical knowledge, and the theories 

 on which their practice is based, Mr. James 

 Mooney spent several weeks in intimate 

 association with the Cherokee doctors. 

 He concluded that the aggregate botanical 

 knowledge of the whole profession is rep- 

 resented by about eight hundred species ; 



