714 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



ances of their friends by watching the mouth. 

 The requisites to the art of speech-reading 

 are, an eye trained to distinguish quickly 

 those movements of the vocal organs that 

 are visible (independently of the meaning of 

 the words uttered) ; a knowledge of these 

 words that present the same appearance to 

 the eye ; and sufficient familiarity with the 

 English language to enable the speech-read- 

 er to judge by context which word of a ho- 

 mophenous group (like-seeming) is the word 

 intended by the speaker. We should, there- 

 fore, teach deaf children to think in Eng- 

 lish, by using English in their presence in a 

 clearly visible form ; teach them to speak, 

 by giving them instruction in the use of 

 their vocal organs ; teach them the use of 

 the eye as a substitute for the ear in under- 

 standing the utterances of their friends ; 

 give them instruction in the ordinary 

 branches of education by means of the 

 English language ; and banish the sign- 

 language from our schools. 



Bogus American Antiques. — According 

 to the sixteenth report of the Peabody Mu- 

 seum, the manufacture of false American 

 antiquities is becoming an industry of our 

 country. The museum has been offered an 

 " ancient " child carved from stone, duly in- 

 crusted with cement, said to have been dug 

 up in Arkansas, the workmanship of which, 

 and the presence of undecayed grass-leaves 

 and yellow printing-paper in the incrusta- 

 tion, showed it to be a near relative of the 

 Cardiff giant. This, however, is only one 

 of many fraudulent specimens that are on 

 sale. Pipes, tubes, dishes, and ceremonial 

 and other objects, are regularly manufact- 

 ured in Philadelphia, and have found their 

 way into American and foreign collections 

 as genuine antiquities, dug up in such or 

 such a locality. A manufacturer in Indi- 

 ana gives his attention chiefly to "mound- 

 builders' pipes," which are carved in stone 

 and offered in a systematic manner to col- 

 lectors. In Ohio a large business has been 

 done in the so-called gorgets, cut from slate, 

 and in hematite celts. In Southern Illinois, 

 a few years ago, specimens of pottery were 

 made till the demand fell oif, so that one 

 manufacturer aclcnowlcdged that the busi- 

 ness no longer p:>id. On the whole, says 

 Professor Putnam, "the demand for 'an- 



tiquities' is considerable in this country, 

 and we are not behind the Old World in 

 keeping up the supply." 



The Nettle as an Economical Plant. — 



The nettle, which is now only rarely culti- 

 vated, was held in high honor as a useful 

 plant not more than two hundred years ago.' 

 In a medical treatise of the fifteenth cent- 

 ury, several pages are occupied with the de- 

 scription of its healing properties. It is 

 said to have been turned to account for food 

 during the Irish famine. In Eussia, Swe- 

 den, and Holland, it is mowed and made 

 into fodder for cows, with profit in the in- 

 crease in quantity and improvement in qual- 

 ity of the milk, although the animals will 

 not venture to eat it while it is green. Cords 

 arc made from it in Kamchatka, paper in 

 France, and grass-cloth in China and India. 

 It has been made into linen in various coun- 

 tries, a fact of which the German name for 

 muslin, Nesseltuch (nettle-cloth), is a stand- 

 ing testimony. When cotton came into gen- 

 eral use for textile fabrics the nettle went 

 out, and was nearly forgotten till attention 

 was called to it anew by Professor Reuleaux 

 after our Centennial Exhibition. Frau Ross- 

 ler-Lade took the matter up and showed how 

 easily the plant could be cultivated and how 

 well adapted it was to spinning. Numerous 

 persons have since engaged in the cultiva- 

 tion of the native species, and of the Chi- 

 nese nettle, which is considered a little sii- 

 perior, in Germany and other countries. A 

 company has been formed in Holland for 

 the cultivation of the nettle in Java, with a 

 capital of about three million guildei's. 



Correlations of the Seasons. — The uni- 

 versal mildness of the past winter in North- 

 ern Europe has caused attention to be direct- 

 ed to the inquiry whether there is a corre- 

 lation in character between that and other 

 seasons of the year. Mild winters are by 

 no means rare in that quarter of the world : 

 several may be cited in the last half-cent- 

 ury, particularly that of 184'2-'43, when 

 the fields around St. Petersburg were bright 

 with flowers in December and violets gath- 

 ered in the woods were sold in Stockholm in 

 January. Herr G. Ilellman has made a 

 special study of the mild winters in Berlin 

 since 1720. He counts thirty-four seasons 



