P OP ULAR MIS CELL ANT 



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go away alone into some solitary part of the 

 country, where they would often remain for 

 three or four months. They might hunt or 

 trap, but must avoid contact with other peo- 

 ple and keep away from habitations. Oc- 

 casionally a young man thus engaged would 

 clear a course in the woods or arrange bars 

 for running or for jumping, and thus en- 

 deavor to increase his strength and endur- 

 ance. They also meditated and dreamed 

 dreams till each discovered his particular 

 guardian spirit. Young women, at the time 

 of reaching maturity, and thereafter at re- 

 current periods, were accustomed to wander 

 forth alone after dark for considerable dis- 

 tances, breaking small branches from the 

 trees as they went, and scattering them about 

 or suspending them upon the limbs of other 

 trees. Young fir trees, a few feet in height, 

 were thus often split and torn apart for sev- 

 eral feet, or the branches or growing tops 

 were tied in knots. This custom still pre- 

 vails, and the tokens of it may often be ob- 

 served near Indian camps. No explanation 

 of its meaning can be offered. An Indian 

 who invited another to go hunting with him, 

 gave to his friend the first deer, if several 

 were killed. If but one was killed, it was 

 divided, but the skin belonged to the friend 

 in any case. If a man was hunting beyond 

 the border of the recognized territory of his 

 people, and one of the men holding claims to 

 the region upon which he had thus trespassed 

 heard him shoot, the owner of the locality 

 would head for the place, and on arriving 

 there expect to be feasted on the game ob- 

 tained by the hunter. 



Origin of the Jardin des Plantes. Ac- 

 cording to M. Germain Bapst, in the Revue 

 des Deux Mondes, the Jardin des Plantes, in 

 Paris, was till the middle of the eighteenth 

 century simply a botanical institution which 

 had been created by Louis XIII in favor of 

 his Doctor Herouard, under the name of 

 Jardin des plantes medicinales et polageres. 

 When Buffon was appointed steward of the 

 garden by Louis XV, he augmented its 

 service, founded a course of lectures and a 

 museum of zoology, and continued the col- 

 lection of miniatures of the Duke of Orleans. 

 On his death, in 1*788, the Museum of Nat- 

 ural History was far less important than it 

 is now ; the rapid growth which has made it 



the most complete and extensive establish- 

 ment of its kind in the world, began during 

 the Revolution : First, the Royal Menagerie, 

 which had been kept in the garden of the 

 Chateau at Versailles, was sent to the mem- 

 bers of the Commune in Paris, in 1792. 

 They, not knowing what to do with their new 

 charges, sent them to the Jardin des Plantes, 

 with orders to the steward to accommodate 

 them there. That was the beginning of the 

 menagerie. The other collections originated 

 in the custom of the princes and great lords 

 of the eighteenth century of interesting 

 themselves in natural history and collecting 

 objects of different kinds. Then, when the 

 confiscation of the estates of absconders was 

 decreed during the Revolution, there were 

 found in them various collections of this 

 kind. These were turned over to the state 

 and were deposited in the public storing- 

 places, especially in the Jardin des Plantes. 

 The French conquests throughout Europe 

 gave them possession of numerous museums 

 which their generals removed to Paris and 

 placed in the national establishments. Thus 

 the collections of the Stadtholder of Holland, 

 and that of the Prince of Conde, kept at 

 Chantilly, came to constitute the physical 

 and mineralogical departments of the mu- 

 seum. 



Variety of Motions in the Atmosphere. 



Espy's convection theory of storms assumes 

 that the latent heat of vapor is the main- 

 taining power, while the original ascent of 

 the moist, warm air is due to conditions of 

 density. Therefore, we could have no cy- 

 clonic motion without ascending moisture 

 and clouds. The studies of other investiga- 

 tors have satisfied Prof. Cleveland Abbe that 

 another important cause exists in the slow 

 cooling by radiation and descending of the 

 upper air flowing northward from the equa- 

 tor as a return trade. It eventually reaches 

 the earth here and there in spots which are 

 small areas of clear sky in the tropical re- 

 gions, but are large areas of cold, dry air and 

 high pressure in northern latitudes. " If the 

 air is cooled by radiation faster than it is 

 warmed up by the compression of its slow 

 descent, then it reaches us as clear, cold, and 

 dry air ; and only after reaching the earth's 

 surface does it begin to warm up in the day- 

 time faster than it can cool again at night 



