120 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



V Atlantique Septentrional et project d'un Service Telegraphique In- 

 ternational relatif a cet Ocean, Copenhagen, 1880 (Study of the 

 Storms of the Northern Atlantic, and Project for an International 

 Telegraphic Service relative to that Ocean) ; " and up to the very 

 last/' says Nature, " he never ceased to use his utmost efforts for 

 the establishment of a meteorological telegraphic service with 

 America, via the Faroes and Iceland/' 



Besides enjoying the honors and positions already named, 

 Hoff meyer was Secretary of the International Polar Commission ; 

 an honorary member of the Royal Meteorological Society of Lon- 

 don ; and Danish Commissioner to the Fisheries Exhibition, in 

 London, in the summer of 1883. While performing the duties of 

 the last position, he complained of great weakness of the heart. 

 He had suffered from occasional attacks of rheumatic fever ; was 

 ill for some time in December of the same year ; and was finally 

 attacked in January, 1884. He continued to work at the duties 

 of his position, whenever he was able, till the last. His biog- 

 rapher, in Nature, says that, " to all who knew him, the memory 

 of his eager readiness to assist fellow-workers, the urbanity of 

 his manner, his joyous nature, and the unusual warmth of his 

 friendship, can not but awaken the keenest feelings of regret 

 for his early death." 



Dr. J. Walter Fewkes exhibited to the National Academy of Sciences, at its 

 recent meeting in New York, specimen reproductions of Indian sounds and mnsic 

 obtained by means of the phonograph. Some of the Indian languages are becom- 

 ing extinct ; the sounds of some can not be satisfactorily represented by any sys- 

 tem of transliteration. The phonograph affords the only good means of preserv- 

 ing these. Cylinders were displayed containing records which the author had 

 obtained last summer among the Passamaquoddy Indians of Maine and the Zufiis of 

 New Mexico. From the former he had got sacred songs, religious rituals, folk- 

 lore, and counting-out rhymes. Many of these will perish with this generation, 

 for they are known to a few only of the older men. From the Zufiis he obtained 

 in the phonograph their ancient religious rituals and formulas, their prayers, their 

 songs at the corn-dance and other festivals, and their war-cry, which were repro- 

 duced for the benefit of the Academy. A difference was noticeable in the repro- 

 duction of the songs of the Passamaquoddys and of the Zufiis. Major Powell and 

 Prof. E. S. Morse were of the opinion that the former was the music of one who 

 had come in contact with civilization, while the latter was that of the aboriginal 

 savage. The difference was in the intervals. It appeared by Dr. Fewkes's state- 

 ment that the Maine Indians had been to a school and had learned from some 

 " Sisters." The scale of Indian music, like that of the Zufiis, Major Powell said, 

 can not be reproduced on our common staff, for they have intervals of one 

 tenth, and even one twentieth. The Zufii music had a sort of monotonous basis, 

 broken by a succession of sharp sounds. Sometimes the movement was rapid, 

 sometimes it was slower, but the essential characteristic was the monotone with 

 lugubrious and unearthly variations. 



