POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



567 



the color and quality, and the ornamented 

 cloths are held as fancy articles, without hav- 

 ing a fixed price. Of the colored goods, a 

 dark-gray material is commonly worn by the 

 Witchweri wizards ; a dark-red is fashion- 

 able among well-to-do people; and a tan- 

 colored ground with stripes and figures in 

 black, called mtone, was formerly worn only 

 in royal families, and is still much affected 

 by the nobles in Unyoro and Ruhama, while 

 it has been to a considerable extent sup- 

 planted in Uganda by goods from Zanzibar. 

 It can not be bought in the market, but any 

 one who wishes to get a pattern of it must 

 go to one of the great chiefs and give him 

 ample satisfaction in return-presents. The 

 other goods may be bought at their price in 

 cows or cowries. The skins of cattle, goats, 

 sheep and antelopes are also worn in parts 

 of Africa, while the skins of leopards, monk- 

 eys, and cats are worn only by privileged 

 persons of royal or noble families. 



Private Encouragement of Research. 



The fact that the recent proceedings of the 

 Royal Institution acknowledge the gift of 

 100 by Mr. Warren De La Rue and 50 by 

 Sir Frederick Bramwell to the fund for the 

 promotion of experimental research supports 

 the view that matters of this kind might 

 be trusted to prosper as well under the en- 

 couragement of private interest and enter- 

 prise as when quartered upon the Govern- 

 ment for subsidy. Liberal gifts are seldom 

 wanting to anything that proves worthy of 

 them ; and in the former case research will be 

 supported in proportion as it is industriously 

 prosecuted and is of value ; while under the 

 Government plan, although enough show of 

 work may be made to draw the pensions, 

 it is by no means sure that so much pains 

 will be taken to make the genuineness and 

 value of the work demonstrable. 



Eskimos in Ancient New Jersey. Mr. 



A. S. Packard, who has been investigating 

 the history of the Labrador Eskimos, has 

 come to the conclusion that those people 

 formerly had a more or less permanent 

 foothold on the northern shores of the Gulf 

 of St. Lawrence. If this was so, it seems 

 not improbable that they may have made, 

 in very early times, expeditions farther 

 6outh, to Nova Scotia and New England. 



This thought leads the author to Dr. Ab- 

 bott's theory, that the Eskimos inhabited 

 the coast of New Jersey during the river- 

 terrace epoch, which he was at first dis- 

 posed to reject. Examination, however, has 

 led him to look with more favor upon it, 

 and to think it not improbable that, long 

 after the close of the glacial period, or 

 after the ice had disappeared, and during 

 the terrace epoch, when the reindeer and 

 walrus lived as far south as New Jersey, 

 the Eskimos, being perhaps the remnants of 

 the palaeolithic people of Europe, extended 

 as far as a region defined by the edge of 

 the great moraine ; and, as the climate as- 

 sumed its present features, moved north- 

 ward. This view presented itself while he 

 was collecting the material for his notes, 

 and was confirmed by Mr. Tylor's remarks 

 at the British Association. 



The King Country and the Maories. 



The " King Country " is a district of about 

 ten thousand square miles in extent in the 

 northern Island of New Zealand, to which 

 the mass of the wild native population of 

 the country have retired so as to be out of 

 the way of the whites, and over which they 

 claim and exercise exclusive jurisdiction to 

 the extent of having, till very recently, held 

 it tapu against white men. Mr. J. H. Kerry 

 Nicholls, who lately succeeded in making 

 a running exploration of it, describes it as 

 one of the best-watered parts of the island, 

 with many beauties, and offering many natu- 

 ral advantages for European settlement. In 

 the west it has an extensive coast-line, and 

 a capacious harbor. Dense forests cover a 

 large part of its southern area, and extend 

 northward to the mountains. Westward of 

 this division is a considerable area of open 

 country, while there are vast open table- 

 lands near the snow-clad mountains in the 

 south, and other extensive open plains west 

 of the great Lake Taupo and north of 

 Titiraupenga. The King Country possesses 

 all the rock formations in which gold, coal, 

 iron, and other minerals are found, while 

 its extensive forests are rich in timber of 

 the most varied and valuable kind. Geysers 

 and thermal springs, possessing wonderful 

 medicinal properties, are found in the vi- 

 cinity of its many extinct craters ; and, 

 while it possesses one of the largest active 



