POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



715 



Mr. Andrews therefore entitles his meth- 

 od "The Ideological Method in Philology." 

 His paper, which was long and elaborate, 

 was listened to with the closest attention 

 by the association throughout. 



An Ironless Civilization. Mr. A. Woei- 

 kof, in a narrative of his travels in Yucatan 

 and the southeastern States of Mexico, pub- 

 lished in " Petermann's Mittheilungen," in- 

 troduces us to a so-called " civilized " people, 

 who are practically unacquainted with the 

 uses of iron. Writing about the northern 

 portion of the State of Chiapas, he says that 

 the inhabitants employ iron only in the 

 shape of axes and machetes, which are im- 

 ported from the United States. For the 

 distance of one hundred kilometres round 

 about Palenque not one blacksmith is to 

 be found. Not a single nail is to be seen 

 in their houses ; everything is held together 

 with cords or with vines. Even in the prep- 

 aration of their usual article of food tor- 

 tillas the apparatus they employ is equally 

 primitive, though in this respect they follow 

 the custom which is universal throughout all 

 Mexico and Central America. The grains 

 of maize are crushed between two stones, 

 one of which, the nether one, is rather large, 

 with a sloping upper surface. A woman 

 kneels by this stone and strews upon it some 

 grains of maize, over which she works to 

 and fro another stone of cylindrical form, 

 so grinding the maize. The coarse meal so 

 obtained is baked into flat tortilla-cakes in 

 the ashes. This is exactly the mode of pre- 

 paring meal in vogue in Central and South 

 Africa ; the African negroes, however, show 

 a higher grade of culture, inasmuch as they 

 understand the working of iron. Our author 

 caustically remarks hereupon that " the in- 

 troduction even of hand-mills would be, for 

 this country, a step of progress of far more 

 value than many a high-sounding political 

 prerogative, which can never be of any ad- 

 vantage to a population living in so low a 

 grade of civilization." 



A Two-Headed Snake. H. Semler gives, 

 in " Die Natur," an account of a living two- 

 headed snake, found on the line of railroad 

 from San Jos6 to Santa Cruz, and now on 

 exhibition in the museum of the Woodward 

 Garden in San Francisco. It is a gopher- 



snake (Pelicophis Wilksei), a species which 

 lives on gophers, rats, mice, and small birds. 

 The gopher-snake is a perfectly harmless 

 reptile, like all the other snakes of Califor- 

 nia except the rattlesnake. The two-head- 

 ed snake is twenty-two inches in length ; 

 its age can not be determined, but is not 

 over two or three months ; the full-grown 

 snake is seven to eight feet in length. Its 

 color is a dirty yellowish-white, with a dou- 

 ble row of chestnut-brown spots along the 

 back ; these spots are nearly square and sev- 

 enty-five in number. On each side is a row 

 of smaller spots of the same color' and 

 shape. On both of the necks up to the 

 heads are also several small spots. From 

 the point where the necks fork to the ex- 

 tremities of the jaws is one inch and a half. 

 The heads and necks are perfectly separate 

 and about one inch apart; each head and 

 each neck is fully formed and in every re- 

 spect symmetrical. Each of the heads has 

 two large eyes. The animal can put out 

 each of the two forked tongues separately 

 or together. The two jaws open into one 

 throat. As each neck is perfectly flexible, 

 the snake can turn each of its heads in any 

 direction at pleasure. It oftentimes lays its 

 two heads close together ; often it spreads 

 them as far apart as possible, or re3ts one 

 upon the other. It takes its food through 

 either mouth indifferently, and both jaws 

 seem to possess the same power. Some 

 years ago a Missouri farmer, in plowing, 

 found a rattlesnake which in like manner 

 had two fully-formed heads, and a merchant 

 of San Francisco avers that he observed a 

 similar lusus natures in a Java snake. 



The Color-Sense in Savages. In order 

 to determine the capacity possessed by un- 

 cultivated races for distinguishing different 

 colors and shades of color, Mr. Albert S. 

 Gatschet prepared a series of colored paper 

 slips, twenty in number, insensibly blend- 

 ing into each other, and by personal in- 

 quiry ascertained the names employed by 

 various tribes of American Indians for des- 

 ignating these differences. The result, pub- 

 lished in the "American Naturalist," does 

 not throw much light on the question of 

 color-blindness in uncivilized men, for we 

 have here not a statement of what' these 

 Indians see in the way of color, but only of 



