688 > TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTELY. 



ward for the seventh, time his theory, based on the legend of Quet- 

 zalcoatl, of a pre-Columbian settlement of America by the Irish. 

 The Marqnis de Nadaillac presented the evidence in favor of the 

 population of America in the diluvial period. The Abbe Petitot, 

 long a missionary in British North America, controverted him, 

 affirming that the land was then in the bed of the sea. The Cana- 

 dian Indians, he said, had a tradition of the world having been 

 overwhelmed by snow. The abbe" also told of the creation-myths 

 of the Chiglit Eskimos of the mouth of Mackenzie River, who 

 trace their origin to a giant beaver, living on an island in the 

 western sea. He had two sons. One went eastward to America. 

 From him are derived the Chiglits who wear sticks in their lips. 

 The other went west, to Asia. From him are descended the west- 

 ern Eskimos, called blowers, and, as the Chiglits believe, the 

 Europeans. The island of the tradition was believed to be Bobro- 

 via, or Castor Island, in Bering Sea. The abbe" showed a num- 

 ber of utensils of the Mackenzie River tribes and the western 

 Eskimos, which went to confirm, by their resemblance, the tradi- 

 tion of a common origin. M. Raymond Pilet gave some illustra- 

 tions of the music of the Guatemalan Indians. Not much can be 

 said of their vocal music. For instruments they have a drum and 

 a flute or flageolet, and the marimba, which was introduced by 

 the negroes, and can not be called native. Their melodies, as 

 played by the speaker on the piano, had a pleasant sound. 



Dr. Deniker gave an account of the results of the French sci- 

 entific mission to Cape Horn of himself and Dr. Hyades, during 

 which they had spent several years in Tierra del Fuego. They 

 had examined members of three tribes as to their physical pecul- 

 iarities and differences. Photographs had been brought home of 

 living persons, and prepared specimens of the dead ; their dwell- 

 ings had been photographed, and collections made of their uten- 

 sils, and the way of using them had been represented as well as 

 possible. These results would all be published in a few months. 

 Dr. Deniker spoke of the voyages, hitherto little known, of 

 Frenchmen to Tierra del Fuego, accounts of which are preserved 

 in the Bibliotheque Nationale. They are those of M. de Beau- 

 chesne, about the end of the seventeenth century ; of the engi- 

 neers De Sabat and Du Plessis, who made hydrographic surveys in 

 the Strait of Magellan and along the west coast of South Amer- 

 ica about the same time; and of the filibuster Jouan dela Gui]- 

 baudiere, who was shipwrecked in the Strait of Magellan in 1795 

 and compelled to spend eleven months with the savages. He com- 

 piled a vocabulary of more than three hundred words, which is of 

 interest, because it is the earliest collection of Fuegian words we 

 possess. Seiior de la Rada y Delgado spoke of the two Maya 

 manuscripts in the Madrid Museum, the Codex Troano and the 



