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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of the elements. B and P are alike, except- 

 ing that B has a vocal murmur, which is 

 wanting in P. The letters P and F present 

 another instance of physiological consist- 

 ency, the closed part of P being opened in 

 F, as if to indicate a sound of similar for- 

 mation without obstruction of the breath. 

 The letter C exhibits the outline of the 

 back of the tongue in pronouncing the hard 

 sound of the letter, and the kindred letter 

 G consistently shows an element of similar 

 formation, but with the addition of some- 

 thing that is lacking in C. The letter K, a 

 duplicate for the sound of C hard, consists 

 of a C, angular instead of rounded, in con- 

 tact with a posterior line, and thus very sug- 

 gestively denotes the action of the tongue 

 against the roof of the mouth. The letter 

 T, in the same way, appears to denote the 

 position of the tongue in pronouncing the 

 sound ; the roof of the mouth being denoted 

 by the horizontal line, while the vertical 

 line shows the upward direction of the 

 tongue to contact with the palate. 



Antiquity of Man in America. " The 



Geological Testimony to the Antiquity of 

 Man in America " was considered by Pro- 

 fessor Willis De Hass, in a carefully pre- 

 pared paper which he read at the American 

 Association. After referring to a skeleton 

 disinterred at Natchez, Mississippi, of very 

 uncertain antiquity, and the remains yielded 

 by the Trenton gravel formation, which he 

 was disposed to place at even a pre-glacial 

 period, the speaker mentioned the caverns 

 as constituting the best sources of informa- 

 tion as to human antiquities. They show 

 evidences of an existence of man on this 

 continent long antedating the mound period, 

 and would, he had no doubt, hereafter be- 

 come as celebrated for human antiquities as 

 were the caverns of Belgium and France. 

 He attributed the ancient copper-workings 

 of Lake Superior to a prehistoric race, and 

 asserted that a greater amount of labor had 

 been performed by its miners in a space of 

 less than two thousand acres than two thou- 

 sand men working twenty years could per- 

 form in our time. All the mines of the 

 Lake Superior region, he added, gave evi- 

 dence of having been wrought by a pre- 

 historic race. Professor De Hass did not, 

 however, consider that the mounds and mu- 



ral works of the West and South bore evi- 

 dence of a high antiquity or of more, per- 

 haps, than two thousand years. They might 

 be assigned to a people intermediate be- 

 tween the mound-builders and the Indians. 



Ancient Cults among the Berbers of 

 Morocco. Dr. Haliburton, of Ontario, has 

 taken advantage of a recent sojourn in Mo- 

 rocco to study the vestiges of ancient cults 

 of Europe and Asia which are still preserved 

 among the Berber tribes. Here he found 

 the crude stories of the twelve labors of 

 Hercules, of Apollo, of Minerva, of Isis and 

 Osiris, of Belus and Astarte. Numerous 

 observations indicated that here, too, must 

 have been the home of the myth of Saturn 

 and of the golden apples of the Hesperides. 

 A very interesting part of the paper on this 

 subject communicated to the American As- 

 sociation by Dr. Haliburton was the men- 

 tion of many names and stories connecting 

 these people with the Bible, such as those 

 of the gold of Ophir, the Queen of Sheba, 

 the land of Havilah, and of the vessels of 

 beaten gold and silver in the temples. On 

 the last point the speaker dwelt at length, 

 presenting numerous brass and silver works 

 and jewelry, made by the Shillooks in our 

 own day. The fables of Atlas and the At- 

 lantes were traced in the very cradle of the 

 people themselves. The fable of the head 

 of Medusa was traced to this place in ac- 

 cordance with the story of Herodotus, that 

 it arose from the custom of the people of a 

 certain region wearing leather trappings 

 on their heads. Dr. Haliburton showed a 

 leather ornament of a powder-horn with a 

 fringed leather border, like that on a Sioux 

 saddle-ornament, and similar to those de- 

 scribed by Herodotus. The whole paper 

 was full of allusions to classic mythology 

 and Biblical story. 



The American Indians and the Aryan 

 Race. " Have the Indians come from Eu- 

 rope ? " was the subject of a paper read by 

 Horatio Hale, of Clinton, Ontario, at the re- 

 eent meeting of the American Association. 

 After tracing the course of emigration of 

 the leading stocks of the Indian tribes, as 

 indicated by their languages, and the modi- 

 fications they seemed to have undergone, 

 the author remarked that the fact that the 



