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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



stories " have to do mainly with animals, 

 while the characters in the fairy tales are 

 generally human beings. The "Brer" of 

 Uncle Remus, or the " Buh " of Charles C. 

 Jones, is among the Bahama negroes con- 

 tracted to B', which, connected with the name 

 of the animal, personifies it. The habit of 

 mixing together the parts of several tales 

 in order to make one, as is seen in some of 

 the fairy stories, gives us an odd and gen- 

 erally more or less obscure resultant tale. 

 Prof. Crane, in his review of Uncle Remus 

 (Popular Science Monthly, vol. xviii, p. 824), 

 gives a number of parallel stories from the 

 folk lore of other races, especially compar- 

 ing the tales of the Southern negroes with 

 those of the natives of South America, 

 which illustrates the negro origin of the 

 Indian tales, and points out their wide diffu- 

 sion. 



The First Ship that tacked The Brit- 

 ish sixteenth-century war-ship Great Harry, 

 a supposed model of which was shown at 

 the Naval Exhibition at Chelsea, possessed 

 a great historical interest, because she was 

 the first war-ship to sail on the wind. Naval 

 architecture, says Nature, " as a science, 

 was not founded until it was discovered that 

 ships could be, otherwise than by the aid of 

 oars, taken to the quarter from which the 

 wind was blowing. It must have seemed a 

 great feat in those days little less than 

 necromancy. Fortunately for the timid in- 

 tellects of our ancestors, the revelation broke 

 upon them gently, for the rounded hulls, 

 high topsides, and curiously rigged craft 

 could not have sailed more than a point or 

 two to windward. Still, it was the Great 

 Harry, or one of her contemporaries, by 

 means of which this new feature in seaman- 

 ship was inaugurated a feature by which 

 the middle period in the world's history of 

 naval warfare was created, and which en- 

 abled the sailors of those times to make a 

 distinct advance upon the lessons taught 

 them by their ancestors in the art of ship- 

 craft." 



The Kibanga Calendar. According to 

 the Algerian missionary, Father Vyncke, the 

 negroes of Kibanga, on the western shore 

 of the Tanganyika Lake, although the sun 

 passes twice a year perpendicularly over 



their heads, take no account of its march, 

 and have no idea of the solar year. But the 

 moon plays an important part in their lives. 

 They celebrate its reappearance with drum- 

 beatings, gunshots, and cries of joy. The 

 new moon is celebrated with general dancing 

 by most of the African tribes ; and ta keep 

 the run of its age they have a bundle of 

 twenty-eight or thirty sticks, from which 

 they take one every day. The stars are con- 

 sulted for the determination of the seasons, 

 and to know when it is time for work in the 

 fields, fishing, etc. The rising of the Plei- 

 ades marks seed-sowing time and is cele- 

 brated by feasts in honor of the dead, and 

 the constellation is given a name, Kiti, sig- 

 nificant of the fact. The milky way is des- 

 ignated by a name signifying the line be- 

 tween the dry and the rainy seasons, because 

 when it rises at sunset the rainy season be- 

 gins. The rising of Orion's belt determines 

 the beginning of an important fishery. 

 When another star, not named by Father 

 Vyncke, reaches the zenith, the women begin 

 to pound manioc. Aldebaran is the Northern, 

 and Sirius the Southern Jewel. The Centaur, 

 the Southern Cross, and the Ship, with the 

 star Canopus, all invisible in the North, are 

 called by the natives " paths " and " tens," 

 because they are on the road to the south 

 pole and are composed of many stars. 



Ancient Mining on Lake Superior. A 



paper by T. n. Lewis shows that the Lake 

 Superior copper regions afford abundant 

 evidences that an active mining industry was 

 carried on there by the prehistoric aborigines. 

 By inquiry among old miners, managers, ex- 

 plorers, and prospectors, the author ascer- 

 tained that the ancient pits extended along 

 the whole copper range from the extremity 

 of Keeweenaw Point to and beyond the 

 northwestern end of Gogebic Lake, a dis- 

 tance of fully one hundred and twenty miles. 

 They are found also on the ranges to the 

 north and to the south, as well as on the 

 central range. Ancient pits are found, too, 

 along the copper range in northern Wiscon- 

 sin, and in the region northwest of Lake 

 Superior, in Minnesota, and on the Canadian 

 side of the international boundary line. The 

 copper implements met with within the lim- 

 its of Wisconsin, the author remarks, prob- 

 ably exceed in number those found in all the 



