7i6 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



grouping by these weapons, a separation 

 of forms according to specific marks of 

 structure, is possible for the study of the 

 tribes. The featheiing, which seems to 

 be capable of unlimited variation, is of 

 great importance. A great deal of care 

 may be bestowed on the fastening of the 

 feather, on the wrapping of the shaft 

 with thread, or upon the manner of fit- 

 ting the feather. The Avrapping of the 

 feathered end or shaftmcnt offers excel- 

 lent opportunity to preserve certain tex- 

 tile patterns, perhaps the one remaining 

 survival of the old tribal peculiarity. 

 The fastening of the point to the shaft 

 or to the foreshaft also afl'ords a safe 

 datum for discriminating, and the shape 

 of the point furnishes a guide for differ- 

 entiations. 



An Aztec Pictorial Record. — The 



forty-four paintings of the Mapa de 

 Cuauhtlantzinco were executed in oil 

 colors on European paper by an artist 

 named Tepozetecatl, and are of high im- 

 portance in the history of the conquest 

 of Mexico. The Pueblo of San Juan de 

 Cuauhtlantzinco, to which they belong, 

 is situated between the cities of Pueblo 

 and Cholula, and is inhabited by about 

 fifteen hundred people, who still speak 

 the Aztec language. The pictures, each 

 about sixteen by twelve inches in size, 

 were discovered about thirty years ago 

 by Padre D. Jose Vicente Campos, who, 

 to save them from decay, had them 

 pasted on cotton sheeting and mounted 

 in two frames. They contain scenes from 

 the conquest — not badly executed — and 

 portraits of aborigines. Each bears a 

 text in Nahuatl, Avhich Padre Campos 

 translated into Spanish and appended 

 the translation to the original. Another 

 series of ancient paintings somewhat 

 like these was preserved for a long time 

 at Tlaxcala, but, according to Prof. Fred- 

 erick Starr, they were less personal and 

 less local. They are called the JAcnzo 

 de Tlaxcala, and picture all the impor- 

 tant events of conquest from the time 

 when Cortes came into contact with the 

 Tlascalans till the city of Mexico was 

 captured. The Mapa de Cuauhtlantzinco 

 deals with but little space; perhaps 

 Texculco and Chalco and Quimistlan de- 

 Bcribe its limits. The pictures and the 

 texts in Spanish and English have been 

 copied by Professor Starr, who publishes 

 them for their ethnological interest, in 



that they illustrate a practice, common 

 at the time of the conquest, of painting 

 representations of important matters; 

 that they in many cases present success- 

 ful portraits; that they are, in concep- 

 tion and execution, truly native works 

 of art; that they give considerable infor- 

 mation relative to daily life and cus- 

 toms; and that they are psychically in- 

 teresting in showing the feelings of the 

 natives shortly after the conquest to- 

 ward their conquerors and toward the 

 newly introduced religion. The to^vn of 

 Cuauhtlantzinco appears to have been 

 settled between 1519 and 1528 by refu- 

 gees from Cholula, who were driven 

 away because they had gone to Tlaxcala 

 to visit Cortes and invite him to come to 

 their pueblo. 



Permanence of the Fish Supply. 

 — A Scottish fish commission has been 

 for fifteen years conducting an experi- 

 mental research on the capacity of the 

 sea to bear the drain upon its resources 

 made by the growing industry of trawl 

 fishing along shore. Some first-ciass fish- 

 ing grounds along the coast were closed 

 for several years, in the anticipation that 

 the fish, freed from molestation, would 

 breed and multiply in them. The conclu- 

 sion reached from examination of the re- 

 sults has been that fishing or no fishing 

 makes no difference whatever. " On the 

 preserved grounds there are no more fish, 

 and no less, than when the trawls were 

 daily dragged across the bottoms of the 

 bays. For the rest of the areas frequent- 

 ed by trawlers beyond the three-mile 

 limit the happy conclusion is that there 

 are as many fish in the sea as ever, and 

 that the supply does not diminish, in 

 spite of the increased and increasing 

 number of ships engaged in the fisheries 

 and their fine equipment." The equip- 

 ment of steam trawlers for the North 

 Sea and the open ocean has become an 

 immense industry in the east of Eng- 

 land. Never have so much capital and 

 labor been spent in harrying the fish 

 since the fishing began. " Yet the take 

 steadily increases as the boats increase. 

 ' The great labor and expenditure of the 

 last ten years prove that the balance of 

 Nature in llie neighboring seas is stead- 

 ily maintained, and that there is no need 

 for anxictj' concerning the continuance 

 of every species of good fish.' ... It is 

 now clear that life in the sea is not de- 



