1848.] 



39 



which I have treated on the principles ahove stated. I have heard of deaths 

 fronn these causes, hut none have fallen within my observation. One case, that 

 of a colonist, nearly proved fatal, hut I supposed it was from the time the poison 

 had to act in the system before he came under treatment. He was a sawyer, 

 and was in the act of preparing a log for the saw, when he was bitten by a 

 snake which he observed retreating. Being intent upon his work at the time, he 

 did not get a good view of it, but said it presented a green aspect, probably another 

 species. He had but one companion, who carried him on his back for two or 

 three hours, when he reached my premises. The wound was in the foot ; this 

 was greatly swollen, as vias also the leg as high as the knee. He seemed to 

 be greatly prostrated and in great pain ; vomited several times a light-coloured 

 watery fluid. I immediately administered, in large doses, strong rum and 

 sulphate of morphine, and made a free incision over the wound. So reduced 

 was the vitality of the parts that scarcely any blood flowed at first, but a 

 passive hemorrhage came on subsequently, to stop which the blood vessels 

 had to be taken np and tied. The whole limb up to the groin, became 

 enormously swollen ; a bad sore followed from the incision, and the cuticle of 

 the leg, to a great extent, came off. He recovered at the end of three weeks. 



The statement is made in works on Natural History, and by travellers, that 

 the centipedes and scorpions of tropical climates are deadly poisonous. But in 

 respect to those of West Africa, it is incorrect. Many stings from both have 

 come within my notice, and have proved no more than the stings of bees and 

 wasps." 



Dr. Morton offered the following remarks on the ancient Peruvian 

 crania from Pisco, deposited by him this evening. 



He pointed out the fact that all the crania in his collection from this locality, 

 upwards of seventy in number, have been modified by pressure into artificial 

 forms, in one of which the head is extended or elongated in the upward direction, 

 though in very different degrees, while in another class, the pressure has been so 

 applied, as to flatten the forehead, and to widen and elongate the whole structure, 

 in the manner yet practised by the Indian tribes of Oregon. Dr. Morton read 

 translations from the works of several of the earliest travellers and historians of 

 Peru, — Cieza, Torquanda and Garciloso de la Vega, containing descriptions of 

 these very forms of the head, and the artificial processes that were then in use to 

 produce them. 



Dr. M. concluded by remarking, that if no other evidence had descended to us 

 than the statements of these authors, the facts would never have been believed • 

 but we have now abundant proof of their correctness, in the multitudes of desiccated 

 bodies that yet remain in the Peruvian cemeteries, and which, in that dry climate, 

 have resisted the ravages of time and temperature for hundreds, and perhaps 

 for thousands of years. 



.^pril I8t/i, 1848. 



Vice President Morton in the Chair, 



A letter was read from William C. Redfifld, Esq., dated New York, 

 April 17th, 1848, expressing his thanks and those of Professor Agassiz, 



