LITERARY NOTICES. 



711 



or suggested on the general subject and in 

 mechanics, heat, light, and electricity. A 

 necrology and bibliography supplement the 

 text. Prof. H. Carrington Bolton, in the 

 Account of Progress in Chemistry, gives 

 similarly clear notices of papers, discoveries, 

 and experiments in chemistry, with necrolo- 

 gy and bibliography. The Progress of Min- 

 eralogy is described by Edward S. Dana 

 under the heads of " General Works " on 

 the subject, " Crystallography and Physical 

 Mineralogy," " Chemical Mineralogy," " New 

 Mineral Occurrences in the United States 

 and Elsewhere," and " New Minerals." The 

 bibliography includes brief references to 

 papers upon mineral species. As character- 

 istic of Progress in Zoology, Mr. Theodore 

 Gill observes that more and more attention 

 is being paid to histology and embryology, 

 perhaps at an undue expense to sytematic 

 zoology, and regrets the tendency as hurtful 

 to the welfare of the science, but hopes that 

 in due time it will be corrected. The sub- 

 ject is reviewed in the order of zoological 

 classification, and a necrology is supplied. 

 In the account of Progress of Anthropology, 

 Prof. Otis T. Mason draws attention to com- 

 prehensive summaries, courses of lectures, 

 and descriptions of instrumentalities. The 

 heads are, " Archaeology," " Biology," " Psy- 

 chology," " Ethnology," " Comparative Phi- 

 lology," and "Mythology and Folk Lore." 

 Clear ideas of the principal papers are given 

 in the abstracts. A bibliography is added. 



Mr. Otis T. Mason gives in the papers of 

 the United States National Museum a valu- 

 able contribution to anthropology in the 

 shape of an illustrated paper on the Cradles 

 of the American Aborigines. The author 

 finds that in both Americas the majority of 

 aboriginal children are confined in a sort of 

 cradle from their birth till they are able to 

 walk about. During this period the cradle 

 serves many purpose's as a mere nest for 

 the helpless infant, as a bed so constructed 

 and manipulated as to permit sleep in either 

 a vertical or horizontal position, as a vehicle 

 for carrying the child suspended on the moth- 

 er's back or from the saddle-bow, as, indeed, 

 a cradle to be hung on the limbs of trees to 

 rock, as a playhouse and baby-jumper, and 

 as a kind of training school whence the 

 child emerges little by little till it leaves it 

 altogether. These various uses are exhibited 



in the accounts which follow of the cradle 

 systems of the different tribes. Methods of 

 strapping the limbs and treating the head 

 and their effects on the form, also enter 

 into consideration. Mr. Walter Rongji's pa- 

 per On the Preservation of Museum Speci- 

 mens from Insects and the Effects of Damp- 

 ness considers the virtues and defects of 

 various poisonous preparations, and supplies 

 directions for accomplishing the objects im- 

 plied in the title. Ethno - Conchology : A 

 Study of Primitive Money, by Robert E. C. 

 Stearns, describes the many kinds of shells 

 that have been applied by primitive people 

 in all parts of the world to the purposes of 

 a currency, the methods of preparing and 

 using them, more particularly the wampum 

 belts of our Eastern Indians, and the shell 

 money of the Pacific coast. The text is 

 illustrated by nine plates and many inserted 

 cuts, and some dozen other papers are cited 

 in the bibliography. Dr. J. H. Porter's 

 Notes on the Artificial Deformation of Chil- 

 dren among Savages and Civilized Peoples is 

 also published in connection with Prof. Ma- 

 son's Cradles, to which it bears a close rela- 

 tion, as it is in the cradles that the deforma- 

 tions are started. The subject is considered 

 by Dr. Porter from a broad philosophical 

 point of view, without much reference to 

 special methods of deformation. These are 

 mentioned in a summary of " General Notes 

 on Deformition," which is at the same time 

 a bibliography. Prof. Mason's The Human 

 Beast of Burden is of a piece in value and 

 interest with his paper on " Cradles." The 

 author is set by the sight of an express 

 train to reflecting on the long and tiresome 

 experiences through which the human mind 

 has passed upward to that climax of inven- 

 tion. At the lower end of this line " we 

 come at last to the primitive common carrier, 

 the pack-man himself, and also the pack- 

 woman, for men and women were the first 

 beasts of burden." This person, with his 

 load and his method of attaching and man- 

 aging it, are considered under the aspects 

 they present or have presented in different 

 countries and ages ; and the whole is made 

 plain by means of pertinent illustrations. 



Further contributions by Dr. R. W. 

 Shufeldt to the study of the bone-structures 

 of birds include Observations upon the Oste- 

 ology of the Order Tubinares and Stegano- 



