712 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Corps IT. S. A. Washington: Government 

 Printing-Office. 1878. Pp. 115. 



On a New Base. By E. F. Smith. From 

 " American Chemical Journal." Pp. 8. 



The Tornado of April 14, 1879, By J. L. R. 

 Wadsworth, M. D., and F. E. Nipher. From 

 "Transactions St. Louis Academy of Science." 



Thevetia Iccotli and its Glucoside. By D. 

 Cerna, M. D. From "Philadelphia Medical 

 Times." Pp. 6. 



Annual Announcement of the Stevens Insti- 

 tute of Technology. Pp.104. 



Report of the Work of the Agricultural Ex- 

 periment Station at Middletown, Conn. Hart- 

 ford : Case, Lockwood & Brainard Company 

 print. Pp. 174. 



On a Foundation for a Religion. Boston : G. 

 H. Ellis print. Pp. 48. 



Geological Formations crossed by the Syra- 

 cuse and Chenango Valley Railroad. By L. M. 

 Underwood. Syracuse : " Standard " print. 

 Pp. 18. 



Wandering Oainidse, or the Ancient Nomads. 

 By M. Kempe, M. D. Louisville, Ky. : Morton & 

 Co. print. Pp. 41. 25 cents. 



POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



American and European Archaeology. 



A marked difference is observable between 

 Europe and America with respect to the or- 

 der of succession of the different prehistoric 

 human " periods " to one another. In fact 

 the succession is in the one exactly the re- 

 verse of what it is in the other. This dif- 

 ference is clearly expressed by the Rev. Ste- 

 phen D. Peet in an article on " The Archaeolo- 

 gy of Europe and America." " In Europe,'' 

 he says, " the cave-hunter, who used bone 

 implements, first departed ; the fisherman 

 of the kitchen-midden next passed away ; 

 the builder of the earth-mounds followed 

 with his rude weapons, and the inhabitants 

 of the palafitte next disappeared; and last 

 of all the Etruscan, the builder of the rude 

 stone monuments. Thus Esquimau, Basque 

 Briton, Belgian, Celt, Saxon and Etruscan 

 [?], are the successors to one another, 

 while on this continent Quiches, Toltec, 

 Aztec, Mound-builders, Red Indians, and 

 Esquimaux are the silent throng who have 

 reversed the column of departure. The Es- 

 quimau was ruder than the Basque, and 

 the Basque than the Briton, and so the or- 

 der of departure gave place to a higher cul- 

 ture. In America the most civilized was 

 the soonest removed, and the rudest re- 

 mained the longest. The ancient city was de- 

 serted, but the pueblo remained ; the pueblo 

 itself changed inhabitants, but the Mound- 

 builder remained; the Mound-builder was 



driven away, but the Red Indian continued ; 

 the Red Indian has disappeared, but the 

 Esquimau abides. The palaces of Palenque 

 and Uxmal and the seven cities of Cibola 

 are monuments of a civilization more an- 

 cient than the Mound-builders. The mounds 

 of the Mississippi "Valley were doubtless 

 erected by a more ancient race than the 

 people who occupied at the time of their 

 discovery. The Red Indians held an un- 

 bounded dominion more ancient than the 

 villages which they inhabited, and the Es- 

 quimaux may possibly have once covered 

 the whole land where all of these tribes so 

 lately roamed, but the last survivor of all is 

 now the rudest and wildest." 



Division and Distribution of the Electric 

 Light. A method of dividing electric light 

 (not the electric current, but the light itself) 

 has been devised by two engineers of San 

 Francisco, E. J. Molera and J. C. Cebrian. 

 The scheme looks plausible, but the public 

 can afford to wait till it has been put to a 

 practical test. We give the inventors' own de- 

 scription of the modus operandi of their sys- 

 tem : " We take," they say, " the most pow- 

 erful source of light attainable, and place 

 it in a closed chamber (the chamber of light). 

 Every wall of this box is a condensing lens, 

 which will shape the light into a beam of 

 parallel rays. In this way we reduce our 

 source of light to several beams of parallel 

 rays. If we intercept one of these beams 

 of parallel rays of light by a reflector, the 

 light will be bent or reflected according to 

 the position of the reflector ; and it may 

 thus be sent into any desired direction, hori- 

 zontal, vertical, or any way inclined. When 

 the reflector intersects the whole beam of 

 light, this latter one will be bent totally ; 

 if only one fraction of the sectional area of 

 said beam is intersected, then the corre- 

 sponding fractional part of the beam will be 

 bent, leaving the other fraction thereof to 

 follow its former direction. Therefore, if 

 one of said beams of light is intersected at 

 different points of its length, by different 

 reflectors, intersecting different fractional 

 parts of its section, said beam will be di- 

 vided into a great number of secondary 

 beams, going in any desired direction, and 

 if these secondary beams are treated in 

 the same way, the main beam can be di- 



