POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



855 



over smooth, hard-surfaced roads. By this 

 action the bicycle-riders show a readiness 

 to do their share toward securing improve- 

 ments that are important to all users of 

 roads. Competitors' blanks and particulars 

 will be sent by Isaac B. Potter, 278 Potter 

 Building, New York, or Charles L. Burdette, 

 Hartford, Conn. The competition closes 

 May 1, 1891. 



New Metric Standards. Prof. Menden- 

 hall exhibited at the last meeting of the 

 American Association exact copies of the 

 new metric standards received by the United 

 States Government from the International 

 Board of Weights and Measures. The stand- 

 ards, when received, were opened formally 

 in the presence of the President and Secre- 

 taries of State and the Treasury and sixteen 

 specially invited scientific men, and duly cer- 

 tified to, as was done with the standard troy 

 pound during the administration of John 

 Quincy Adams in 1828. The meter is a rod 

 with H cross-section, made of an alloy of 

 platinum and iridium. In making these 

 standards for the various governments, two 

 thirds of all the iridium known in the world 

 was used. The extreme delicacy and exact- 

 ness of the measurement work done upon 

 the standards was illustrated by saying that 

 when two of the standard kilogrammes were 

 balanced against two similar masses, if one 

 of the masses on one side of the balance was 

 placed on top of the other mass, the balance 

 would be destroyed. In other words, raising 

 the mass of one kilogramme through less 

 than two inches made a difference in the at- 

 traction of the earth readily observed. 



Some North Dakota Mounds. Mr. Henry 

 Montgomery, between 1883 and 1889, exca- 

 vated and explored thirty-nine ancient arti- 

 ficial mounds in North Dakota. They con- 

 sisted of one beacon mound, one well-marked 

 sacrificial mound and another not so well 

 marked, and thirty-six burial mounds. The 

 burial mounds were of two kinds. The or- 

 dinary burial mound consisted of a circular, 

 rounded, or conical heap of earth, mostly 

 rich, black soil from the prairie, clothed 

 with grass, and rising generally to a height 

 of several feet above the surrounding level. 

 One or more vaults occur in each, in which 

 human skeletons and various implements, 



ornaments, trinkets, etc., are found. A sin- 

 gle vault is near the center ; two or more 

 vaults are found eccentric in situation, and 

 at varying distances from one another. The 

 vault is a circular, well-like pit, having a 

 calcareous bottom and wall, and often also 

 a calcareous covering. In digging for the 

 vault which was done systematically, a foot 

 at a time, the level being carefully preserved 

 wood was found at the depth of about a 

 foot, consisting of poles or young trees, 

 varying in diameter from three to ten inches, 

 charred at their ends and over the greater 

 part of their surfaces. The skeleton was 

 generally found in a crouching posture, with 

 back against the wall and face toward the 

 center. The second kind of burial mound 

 is distinguished by having no wood and no 

 burial chambers, and in the bones being 

 broken and scattered. A third kind of 

 mound, containing a layer of clay that seems 

 to overlie many human skeletons, is hardly 

 distinctly enough defined to be constituted 

 a separate class. A well-defined sacrificial 

 mound was explored by the author on the 

 south side of Devil's Lake. Another mound, 

 somewhat resembling this, was opened near 

 Sweetwater Lake in July, 1889. A beacon 

 mound in Beacon County was explored in 

 September, 188*7. The mounds are situated 

 on high ridges and hills, composed often of 

 drift clays and bowlders, and sometimes of 

 gravel and sands. 



Prehistoric Traps. Some curious wood- 

 en machines fished up from European peat- 

 bogs were described by Dr. Robert Munro, 

 in the British Association, as probably pre- 

 historic otter and beaver traps. Two of 

 them, which were taken as typical, were 

 found in the great' Laybach Moor, in the 

 vicinity of the famous group of lake-dwell- 

 ings there under investigation. The more 

 perfect of the two was made of a solid piece 

 of oak thirty-two inches long, twelve inches 

 wide, and four inches thick. It tapered a lit- 

 tle at both ends, and contained a rectangular 

 hole in the middle, nine inches long and five 

 inches wide, for a valve, which was worked 

 by pivots projecting into corresponding holes 

 in the framework. The valves were freely 

 movable when pushed upward, but the mo- 

 tion was arrested a little short of the per- 

 pendicular by the slanting shape of their 



