RECORDS OF MEETINGS OF 1908 471 



demonstrating the paragenesis of certain mixed sulphide ores, of silver 

 ores from Cobalt, Ont., of the Butte copper ores, of typical "enrichment 

 zones." The constitution of so-called nickeUferous pyrrhotites and of 

 certain complex opaque minerals was shown. Many lantern slides were 

 used to illustrate the paper. 

 The Section then adjourned. 



William Campbell, 



Secretary. 



SECTION OF ANTHROPOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY. 



March 23, 1908. 



Section met at 8:15 P. M., in conjunction with the American Ethno- 

 logical Society, at the American Museum of Natural History, General J. G. 

 Wilson presiding. 



The following program was offered: 



Arthur 0. Lovejoy, Fire Cults: their Distribution and Ch.a.rac- 



TERisTic Features, with an Hypothesis Re- 

 specting their Origin and Meaning. 



Robert H. Lowie, The Psychology of Dreams. 



Summary of Papers. 



Professor Lovejoy said in abstract: While the most wide-spread of the 

 observances relating to the sacred fire is the custom of maintaining, either 

 upon the domestic hearth or in a communal shrine, a fire that, except upon 

 periodic ceremonial occasions, is never permitted to go out — a practise 

 which by itself might be regarded as a mere convenience or necessity, 

 invested in the course of time with supernatural or magical import — there 

 are other fire-observances, occurring usually among the same peoples, 

 which also have a bearing on the significance of the fire-cult. Especially 

 significant is the annual or cyclic ceremony of extinguishing the old fire and 

 kindling new by some archaic method, as the central and most solemn rite 

 in the transition to a new year, e. g., at the planting of the first seed or 

 the first eating of the new crop (Rome, Celtic Ireland, Eskimos, Iroquois, 

 Muskoki, Aztecs, Ouichuas and others). Widely diffused are also the 



