FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



715 



of the Interior Department are engajjed 

 in irrigation work, and the census has 

 published a report on the subject, while 

 the report of a board appointed to ex- 

 amine into the matter shows that eight 

 bureaus of the Interior and Agriculture 

 Departments must co-operate in order to 

 accomplish any thorough work on the 

 great problem of irrigation. The statis- 

 tics of the natural resources and the 

 products of the country, of exports and 

 imports, of populations, schools, etc., are 

 collected and compiled by eight or ten 

 different agencies in five or six different 

 departments. Mr. Dabney's remedy for 

 this condition is the consolidation of all 

 the scientific work under a single de- 

 partment, to constitute a National De- 

 partment of Science. This seems hardly 

 necessary. The scientific work of the 

 departments has grown under the pres- 

 sure of their necessities, relating chiefly 

 to the examination of an unsettled and 

 unexplored country. So long and so far 

 as such work is essential to the legiti- 

 mate work of the department it Avill 

 have to be done within it. All work be- 

 yond this can be left to the Smithsonian 

 Institution, the universities and scien- 

 tific academies, and individual effort. 

 The Government of the United States is 

 not a scientific body. 



American Indians and Mongoli- 

 ans. — In answer to Major Powell's the- 

 ory, recently expressed anew, that while 

 there may be a unity of species in the 

 ancient physical man, the civilization, 

 arts, industries, institutions, languages, 

 and opinions of the American tribes 

 were autochthonous, and owed noth- 

 ing to Old-AVorld influences; Mr. James 

 Wiekersham, of Tacoma, Washington, 

 maintains that our Indians are con- 

 nected in blood with the Mongolian 

 stock of East Asia and none other, and 

 that their arts, etc., were derived thence 

 in comparatively recent times. In the 

 comparison he makes, for argument, be- 

 tween the two races he finds a consider- 

 able number of featui'es that were com- 

 mon and peculiar to both. Of both, the 

 Chino-Japanese and the Americans, he 

 says: "The most civilized tribes spoke 

 a monosyllabic language, others spoke 

 an agglutinative tongue; their writing 

 was ideographic and written from right 

 to left, from top to bottom ; their sys- 

 tems of numeration were based upon the 



digital count, and their old numerals up 

 to nineteen were practically identical ; 

 tlieir calendar systems were alike in prin- 

 ciple, and nearly so in details; both 

 divided time into cjx-les and quarters 

 thereof; the solar year in both regions 

 began at the winter solstice, and the sol- 

 stices were celebrated in both lands on 

 the same day by the same national fes- 

 tivals; both prepared almanacs on paper 

 of national manufacture; the good or 

 evil power of every day was fixed by the 

 priest-astronomer, and each almanac also 

 contained medical receipts and astro- 

 logical formulae and a table of religious 

 festivals; the same elements, colors, vis- 

 cera, birds, seasons, and planets were as- 

 signed in the same general scheme to the 

 cardinal points." Like similarities are 

 traced in constitutions, laws, ecclesias- 

 tical institutions, monastic orders, and 

 physical aspects. 



The Teaching of Bows and Ar- 

 rows. — What the study of so simple a 

 subject as bows and arrows may reveal 

 is illustrated by Mr. Herman Meyer's 

 paper in the Smithsonian Report for 1896 

 on Bows and Arrows in Central Brazil; 

 an introduction giving a general outline 

 of a contemplated larger work which in- 

 tended to set forth for the circumscribed 

 region of the ]Matto-Grosso,how, through 

 the harmonizing of different tribal 

 groups, ethnographic types arise; what 

 share the several associated tribes have 

 had in this creation of groups; and, on 

 the other hand, what ethnographic de- 

 velopment within the group each tribe 

 has undergone. While the South Ameri- 

 can Indian tribes have different special 

 methods of capturing wild animals, they 

 all have as the chief weapon the bow and 

 arrow, which even the gun can not sup- 

 plant. The tribes that are now seden- 

 tary, which practice hunting along with 

 agriculture only for amusement, exer- 

 cise still the greatest care upon the prep- 

 aration of this weapon, and know how to 

 use it with skill. In their sagas the bow 

 and arrow still play an important part. 

 They are regarded almost as sacred, and 

 are frequently used as cult objects. 

 When bows and arrows are exchanged 

 for other weapons the children keep up 

 the old reminiscences, and hold on to 

 the bow and arrow as playthings. The 

 South American Indian is accustomed 

 to recognize the tribe by its ariow. A 



