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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



driving out death. All the villagers bring 

 old clothes, rags, straw, sticks, and other 

 stuff of the kind, from which a dummy fig- 

 ure representing an old woman is made, and 

 painted as hideously as possible, to represent 

 death death being a woman in Slavic my- 

 thology. The figure is perched on a long 

 pole and carried by a peasant dressed in 

 what are left of the rags, etc., who is ac- 

 companied by a procession of the people 

 provided with everything with which they can 

 make a noise. The dummy is carried to the 

 nearest river or stream, and cast into the 

 water, or sometimes only ducked, and then 

 thrown upon the nearest piece of vacant 

 ground, or sometimes cast into the territory 

 of a neighboring village, when a quarrel 

 is likely to arise. On returning to the vil- 

 lage, more noisy instruments are collected, 

 and the men, women, and children run round 

 to drive out the evil spirits death is supposed 

 to have left behind. The faster the people 

 go, and the more noise they make, the more 

 effectually the place is supposed to be 

 cleared, and the greater will be the blessings 

 of the coming season. To make all sure, the 

 villagers camp out for the night, to wait for 

 the hour when the gates of heaven are sup- 

 posed to be opened, and special blessings 

 asked for are granted. All the trees are said 

 to bear golden fruits at that instant, and 

 whoever is lucky enough to grasp them just 

 then can keep them as his own. Unhappily, 

 the people are always too wearied with the 

 day's work and drinking to be alert enough 

 to seize the exact moment. 



The New Stone Age in Iceland. Accord- 

 ing to a lecture before the English Society 

 of Arts on Iceland, by Dr. Tempest Ander- 

 son, in the more remote parts of the country, 

 such as the Skaptadals, many articles of bone 

 and stone are still in use which in more ac- 

 cessible districts have been replaced by 

 metal or earthenware. A photograph ex- 

 hibited showed a wheelbarrow with a stone 

 wheel, a steelyard with a stone weight, a 

 hammer with a stone head, and a net with 

 bone sinkers. At the same farm a quern, or 

 stone hand-mill, was in use, and also horn 

 stirrups, and harness fastenings of bone in- 

 stead of metallic buckles, bone pins, and 

 rude bone dice. At a neighboring farm was 

 a basin formed of the cup joint of a basalt 



pillar. Truly we still have a survival of the 

 stone age. Less remote than this is the 

 meeting-place of the county council of the 

 district in a spacious cave in the lava. It 

 would be difficult to find anything more ap- 

 propriate in such a primitive land. Mr. E. 

 Magnusson, speaking on the author's address, 

 said that in some places the people, though 

 descended from those who had long left the 

 stone age behind, had found it necessary, be- 

 cause it was so difficult to procure iron, to 

 create a new stone age for themselves. They 

 were the creators of a new stone age, not the 

 followers of a tradition. 



Oxygen by the Brin Process. The man- 

 ufacture of oxygen on a commercial scale is 

 developing into a new and important branch 

 of business enterprise. The process em- 

 ployed, called the Brin process, depends 

 upon the property of barium monoxide of 

 absorbing oxygen from the atmosphere when 

 heated to about 1,000 F., and giving it off 

 again at about 1,700 F. Barium oxide 

 closely resembles lime, and is found com- 

 bined in nature as heavy spar and witherite. 

 The nitrate, commercially known as baryta, 

 is used. In the preparation of oxygen, air 

 is forced by pumps into retorts containing 

 baryta, where the oxygen is absorbed and 

 the nitrogen is allowed to escape. When suf- 

 ficient air has been pumped in, and after an 

 interval, the process is reversed, and the 

 oxygen yielded by the baryta is pumped into 

 a holder. It is sent out to consumers com- 

 pressed to a pressure of eighteen hundred 

 pounds to the square inch, in cylinders of 

 steel, ranging in size from three and a half 

 to five and a half inches in diameter, and 

 from one to eight feet in length. It is used 

 in laboratories, in various manufactures, in 

 medicine, as a disinfectant, and in the cal- 

 cium light. 



A Versatile Animal. Among the curious 

 animals of the pampas, described by Mr. W. 

 H. Hudson, in his Naturalist in La Plata, is a 

 hairy armadillo, an animal that will live on 

 almost everything, from grass to flesh ; that 

 catches mice and kills poisonous snakes, 

 " and having killed them, cuts them in pieces 

 and swallows as much as it needs. ... It is 

 much hunted for its flesh," says Mr. Hudson, 

 " dogs being trained for the purpose ; yet it 



