POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



*39 



nomad, unacquainted with the use of met- 

 als, and protecting himself with the skins 

 of wild beasts from the inclemencies of the 

 climate." What his society was like, Pro- 

 fessor Schrader thinks may be gathered 

 from the remains left by the " pile-villagers " 

 of the Swiss lakes, whom he regards as Ar- 

 yans. Both Professor Penka and Profess- 

 or Schrader express the belief that Europe, 

 and not Asia, was the original home of the 

 Aryan family. Penka considers the start- 

 ing-point of Aryan emigration to have been 

 Scandinavia, while Schrader suggests the 

 northeastern lands of Europe generally as 

 the most probable locality. The evidence, 

 according to Professor Sayce, is now tend- 

 ing to show that the districts in the neigh- 

 borhood of the Baltic were those where the 

 race or races who spoke the Aryan lan- 

 guages originally dwelt, and that the Aryan 

 invaders of Northwestern India were only 

 a late and distant offshoot of the primitive 

 stock who were speedily absorbed into the 

 earlier population of the country as they 

 advanced southward. 



A Highway in the Himalayas. One of 



the native explorers of the Himalayan re- 

 gions of India lying beyond the British 

 boundary, says Sir J. H. Lefroy, in his Brit- 

 ish Association address, " describes a por- 

 tion of his track at the back of Mount 

 Everest as having been carried for a third 

 of a mile along the face of a precipice at 

 the height of fifteen hundred feet above 

 the Bhotia-kosi River upon iron pegs let 

 into the face of the rock, the path being 

 formed by bars of iron and slabs of stone 

 stretching from peg to peg, in no place more 

 than eighteen inches and often not more 

 than nine inches wide. Nevertheless, this 

 path is constantly used by men carrying 

 burdens." 



Currency of the Cannibal Isiands. Mr. 



Walter Coote has described some curious 

 monevs of the New Hebrides and the Solo- 

 mon Islands. On one of the islands he no- 

 ticed a neatly-kept house, which he was told 

 was the money-house. Entering it, he found 

 a number of mats hanging from the roof, 

 beneath which a fire was constantly kept 

 up, under the effect of which they became 

 covered with a black, glistening coating 



and adorned with festoons of soot. It was 

 a man's business to keep the fire always 

 burning, and so low as not to scorch the 

 mats. A well-colored mat is worth about 

 as much as a well-grown, vigorous boar. 

 This is the strangest of all kinds of money, 

 for it must never be taken from the money- 

 house, even when the title in it is trans- 

 ferred from one owner to another. The 

 inhabitants of Santa Cruz Island use for 

 money rope-ends, about an inch thick, and 

 ornamented with scarlet feathers, which are 

 worn about the waist. The traveler could 

 not obtain new coins of this kind, but found 

 them current everywhere. The specimens 

 he bought were already old, and the feath- 

 ers grown dingy. The money of the Solo- 

 mon Islands consists of neatly-worked pieces 

 of shell of about the size of our shirt-but- 

 tons. They are strung on strings about 

 four yards long, and are distinguished un- 

 der the names of red and white money. 

 Dog-teeth are of higher value, and compar- 

 able to our gold coins. They are usually 

 worn on a string around the neck. Mr. 

 Coote saw a necklace of this kind that was 

 valued at about a hundred dollars. Marble 

 rings are also worn on the breast for orna- 

 ments, and as valuable money. The cur- 

 rency-table of these islands would be about 

 as follows : 



10 cocoanuts=l string of white-money. 



10 strings of white-money = 1 string of 

 red-money, or 1 dog-tooth. 



10 strings of red-money = 1 isa, or 50 

 dolphins' teeth. 



10 isa = 1 fine woman. 



1 bahika, or marble ring = 1 head with 

 the head-antlers, or 1 good hog, or 1 useful 

 young man. 



Theory of Lubricants. In a British As- 

 sociation paper on the theory of lubricants, 

 Professor Osborne Reynolds referred to 

 some experiments by Mr. Tower, which 

 showed that, when the rotating journal with 

 its box was immersed in a bath of the lu- 

 bricant, the resistance was not more than 

 one tenth of its value in ordinary oiling, 

 and that the journal was less likely to heat 

 at higher than at lower speed ; and that if, 

 after running the journal for some time in 

 one direction, a reversal was made, great 

 heating would result. This was to be ex- 



