122 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



general, Italian men of science are without affectation in their 

 manners, although they lack grace and dignity." Arago draws a 

 somewhat more favorable portrait of him, saying, "Volta was 

 tall, and had noble and regular features like those of an ancient 

 statue; a broad forehead, which laborious thought had deeply 

 furrowed, a face on which were painted alike calmness of soul and 

 a penetrating intellect. . . . His manners always retained traces 

 of rustic habits contracted during his youth. Many persons 

 recollect having seen Volta, when in Paris, going daily to the 

 bake-shop, and afterward eating in the streets the bread he had 

 bought there, without imagining that he was an object of re- 

 mark. . . . Strong and quick intelligence, large and just ideas, 

 and an affectionate and sincere character were his dominant 

 qualities. Ambition, the thirst for gold, the spirit of rivalry, dic- 

 tated none of his actions. With him the love of learning, the 

 only passion which he had experienced, continued free from all 

 worldly alliance." 



A collection of Volta's writings, drawn from the journals and 

 periodical transactions in which they first appeared, was pub- 

 lished at Florence in 1816, in five volumes. It is pronounced 

 valuable by M. Biot, on account of the fidelity with which we 

 may trace in it the succession of his ideas on the most important 

 subjects in which he was interested during his long career. 



There are still natives in the Melanesian Islands, Dr. Codrington relates in his 

 studies of their anthropology and folk lore, who remember when a white man 

 was first seen and what he was taken to be. When Bishop Patteson landed at 

 Mota, for instance, he entered an empty house, the owner of which had lately 

 died. This settled the question : he was the ghost of the late householder. The 

 visitor, especially if he is a whaler, is soon discovered by his behavior not to be a 

 ghost, but he can not be a living man, for in that case he would be black ; he is, 

 therefore, probably a mischievous spirit, bringing disease and disaster. Shooting 

 at these spirits could not do them much harm, they not being men, but might 

 drive them away. Consequently, in this belief, the Santa Cruz people shot at 

 Bishop Patteson's party in 1864. 



Mr. Jones's report in the British Association on the Elbolton Cave, near Skip- 

 ton, was of unusual interest. Long-headed human skulls were found with burned 

 bones and charcoal in the upper stratum, associated with domestic animals and 

 pottery ornamented with diamond and herring-bone patterns ; while at a much 

 lower level from thirteen to fifteen feet below the floor there were round 

 skulls, much more decayed, in connection with ruder and thicker pottery than 

 has been found in any other part of the cave. No flints or metal have been found, 

 and bone pins and other worked bone are the only human implements hitherto 

 discovered. The remains of bear and hare have been found in cave-earth below 

 this level. 



