POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



571 



supernatural power or influence called tnana, 

 which shows itself in physical force, or in 

 any kind of excellence which a man may 

 possess. " This mana is not fixed in any- 

 thing, and can be conveyed in almost every- 

 thing ; but spirits, whether disembodied 

 souls or supernatural beings, have it and 

 can impart it ; and it essentially belongs to 

 personal beings to originate it, though it 

 may act through the medium of water or a 

 stone or a bone. All Melanesian religion 

 consists, in fact, in ' getting this mana for 

 one's self, or getting it used for one's bene- 

 fit — all religion, that is, as far as religious 

 practices go, prayers and sacrifices." The 

 sacrifices are different in different places. 

 In the western islands the offerings are 

 made to ghosts, and are consumed by fire as 

 well as eaten ; in the eastern islands they 

 are made to spirits, and there is no sacrifi- 

 cial fire or meal. In the former, nothing is 

 offered but food ; in the latter money has a 

 conspicuous place. Notwithstanding our as- 

 sociation of idolatry with these people. Dr. 

 Codington gives it no place in his account of 

 their religion. Their belief is all in ghosts. 

 There are land-ghosts and sea ghosts, of 

 which the latter have the more important 

 place. At Wango, in the Solomon Islands, 

 there was a canoe-house full of carvings and 

 paintings representing native life, among 

 them a canoe attacked by ghosts that haunt 

 the seas. Two of them are composed as 

 much as possible of forms of fishes — their 

 spears and arrows long-bodied gar-fish and 

 flying-fish. Even sharks have ghosts. In 

 the volcanic islands it is generally believed 

 that the souls of the dead ascend the mount- 

 ain and are received within the craters by 

 the ghosts which assemble to welcome the 

 new-comer. 



The " Rare Earths " in America. — 31 r. 



Waldron Shapleigh exhibited at a recent 

 meeting of the Franklin Institute some forty 

 specimens of salts of what are called the 

 rare earths, with minerals from which they 

 are obtained, viz. : samarskite, zircon crys- 

 tals, and monazite sand from North Caro- 

 lina, monazite sand from Brazil, gadolinite 

 from Texas, and allanite from Virginia. 

 This was the first time the salts of praseo- 

 dymium and neodymium have been shown 

 and probably separated in this country ; the 



separation of these elements is long and 

 tedious. The specimens shown had under- 

 gone nearly 400 fractional distillations, and 

 had been in a state of constant preparation 

 since early in 1888. Tons of cerite and 

 monazite sand had been used, and tons of 

 the salts of cerium and lanthanum obtained, 

 but the yield of praseodjnnium was only a 

 few kilogrammes. The percentage of neo- 

 dymium was much higher. Zirconium, lan- 

 thanum, and cerium should no longer be 

 classed among rare earths, as hundreds of 

 tons of ores from which they are obtained 

 have been located in North Carolina, and 

 there seems no end to the deposits of mona- 

 zite sand, one of the richest ores, and con- 

 taining most of the rare earths. In Brazil 

 it does not have to be mined, as it is in the 

 form of river-sand. In North Carolina it is 

 found in washing for gold. Should the arts, 

 trades, or manufactures create a demand for 

 these so-called rare earths. Nature could 

 readily supply it from these two localities. 

 Thorium and yttrium minerals are not so 

 easy to obtain, but they have recently been 

 found in quantity in North Carolina and 

 Texas. 



Cultivation of the Poppy. — The poppy is 

 cultivated for opium in a region of India 

 about six hundred miles long and two hun- 

 dred miles wide. The plants come into full 

 flower in February, when they are some 

 three or four feet high. Each stem pro- 

 duces from two to five capsules, about the 

 size of a duck's egg. Previous to piercing 

 these capsules, the petals of the flower, now 

 beginning to fall off, are carefully collected. 

 They are formed into circular cakes from 

 ten to fourteen inches in diameter, and put 

 into shallow earthen vessels which are 

 heated over a slow fire, and are eventually 

 used as shells or coverings for the drug. 

 When the capsules have reached their high- 

 est development, the ryot visits his poppy- 

 field in the afternoon and scarifies each 

 capsule from top to bottom, adding some- 

 times a horizontal cutting. The juice at 

 once begins to exude ; milky white at first, 

 but afterward taking on a pinkish tinge. 

 The exudation continues during the night. 

 If there is no wind and abundance of dew, 

 the return is favorable. A westerly wind 

 and cloudy atmosphere diminish the yield. 



