56 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



with tlie greatest reverence. If he happens to be a negrito of 

 the Bayou Goula, Bayou St. Martins, or Bayou la Toche neigh- 

 borhood, or if he be one of those little people who dwell among 

 the morasses and swamps of central Florida, his corpse is wrapped 

 in bark, securely corded about with strips of hide, and hidden 

 away in some secret place in the almost impenetrable forest. 

 His ghost is supposed to linger in the neighborhood of his body ; 

 hence no negrito will ever approach the vicinity of his grave for 

 fear of giving offense, and thereby incurring the enmity of the 

 dead man, which would entail untold and unmentionable horrors. 



These little men make splendid hunters, for they seem to have 

 regained (if they have ever lost, which I greatly doubt) that 

 acuteness of sight, smell, and hearing which makes their proto- 

 types in India the very best of shikaris. There is no animal in 

 all the woods their equal in cunning; there is no fish in any 

 landlocked bayou or swiftly running stream which can avoid 

 their rude but cunningly set nets and traps. 



With their return to savagery these pygmies of the United 

 States seem to have lost all desire for the comforts and refine- 

 ments of civilization. Their huts among the moss-covered trees 

 lining the bayous of Louisiana, or their still more miserable 

 hutches in the Everglades of Florida, remind one very much of 

 the pictured burrows of the Akka, their kinsmen, who dwell in 

 the vast forest solitudes of Central Africa. Like that remnant 

 of the Seminoles also living among the labyrinthine fastnesses of 

 that vast waste of swamp, brake, and forest — the Everglades — 

 these black manikins shun the haunts of men, and when discuss- 

 ing them one quotes almost involuntarily the thoughts of Stan- 

 ley when he first saw the pygmy of Avatiko. When the wave of 

 immigration turns southward, which it will eventually do, these 

 little people will lose forever their individuality and become 

 merged into the general population. Crossing will finally oblit- 

 erate the pure type, but we will still continue to find, for an in- 

 definite length of time, among our colored population, individu- 

 als with round heads and undersized bodies who will serve to 

 show that once the pygmies dwelt among us. 



Some great advantages are claimed for the metal glucinum which may 

 eventually give it a considerable ])ositioii in electrical iiidnstrv. Its resist- 

 ance to traction is greater than that of iron, and its electrical conductivity 

 is equivalent to that of silvei". It should tliei'efore have a greater mechan- 

 ical resistance than iron, be a better conductor than copper, and, having a 

 specific gravity of only 2, be lighter than aluminum; and these qualities, 

 according to the Journal des Inventeurs, have been verified by experiment. 

 Its commercial value is given as equivalent to aboiit one hundred and sixty 

 times less per volume and ten times less by weight than that of i)latinum. 



