858 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



northern India, called the Dardes, ants ex- 

 tract gold from mines, and adds that " metal 

 which they have extracted during the winter, 

 the Indians steal from them in summer when 

 they have retired to their holes to escape the 

 heat." The American ant {Pogonomyrmex 

 occidentaRs\ which was studied by McCook 

 in 1881, betrayed a similar disposition. When 

 the colony have built their hill as a dome 

 over their galleries, they cover the whole 

 with small stones — fragments of rocks, fos- 

 sils, minerals, etc., well fitted together in the 

 style of mosaic, for which they go down, 

 after the fashion of miners, to the depth of 

 more than a yard below the surface. Now, 

 as gold sometimes occurs in the region in- 

 habited by these ants, we can easily suppose 

 that their roofs will sometimes glisten with 

 bits of that metal, which the natives might 

 discover and take from them. The curious 

 fact about the matter is, that these American 

 ants are the only species known that correspond 

 with Pliny's description. Had Pliny heard 

 of them, and consequently of America ; or did 

 they once inhabit Asia also, and afterward 

 disappear so completely as to be no longer 

 known there ? Or did Pliny repeat a trav- 

 eler's tale, that has waited till this time for 

 verification ? 



Mediscval Instrnments of Torture. — A 



curious exhibition was held in London last 

 fall of instruments of torture from the royal 

 castle at Nuremberg which had been bought 

 by the Earl of Shrewsbury and Talbot. With 

 one or two exceptions, such as the " scav- 

 enger's daughter," no mediasval instrument 

 of torture appeared to be unrepresented. 

 The principal object of interest was the 

 " iron maiden " {ciserne Jungfrau), which is 

 pi'obably the most terrible instrument of 

 torture ever invented. It is the figure of a 

 woman made of strong wood, bound with 

 iron bands, opening with two doors to allow 

 the prisoner to be placed inside. The in- 

 terior is fitted with long, sharp iron spikes, 

 which, when the doors are pressed to, forced 

 their way into various parts of the victim's 

 body and inflicted inexpressible agonies up- 

 on him till he died a lingering death. A 

 trap-door was then opened in the base, and 

 the body was allowed to fall into the moat 

 or river below. The Scotch "maiden" of 

 the sixteenth century was different from 



this, and was not an instrument of torture, 

 but a kind of guillotine. Other objects were 

 the racks ; the " Spanish donkey," which 

 cut the body into halves ; the wheel on whicli 

 malefactors were broken alive ; the small 

 lever with a sharp-toothed thumb and fin- 

 ger screw ; the ducking-cage for bakers de- 

 tected in giving short weight ; the iron 

 tongue-tearer, in the shape of a pair of tongs 

 with screw; the Spanish "mouth-pear" or 

 gag ; and the yoke in which couples found 

 guilty of acts of immorality were pilloried 

 in the market-place. Of a different kind of 

 interest are the copper mask worn by the 

 judge of the Vehmgericht, the " drunkard's 

 cloak and helmet," and carvings of Satan 

 that were supposed to have been worshiped 

 by witches. There were also manacles, body- 

 rings, hand -screws, scourges, branding-irons, 

 pillories, stretching-gallows, garters for tor- 

 turing the legs, spiked collars, heavy chains 

 for fastening prisoners to the wall, " mouth- 

 openers" for slitting the tongues of blas- 

 phemers, sieves through which boiling water 

 was poured on to the body, iron rings for 

 fastening up criminals in public places, 

 masks for the punishment of scolds and 

 others, crucifixes which condemned crimi- 

 nals carried on their way to execution, iron 

 mail chain gloves that were made hot before 

 being put on, settles belonging to a torture- 

 chamber, and many other things. A num- 

 ber of old prints accompanying the collec- 

 tion illustrated the application of some of 

 these instruments. 



Religions Ideas of Savages. — Having re- 

 marked that the conception of the Great 

 Spirit of the North American Indians has 

 been found not to be original with them, but 

 suggested by the early Christian mission- 

 aries. Dr. E. B. Tylor proceeded, in a paper 

 before the Anthropological Institute, to show 

 that the mistaken attribution to barbaric 

 races of beliefs really belonging to the cul- 

 tivated world, as well as their development 

 among these races under civilized influence, 

 are due to several causes. Among them are 

 direct adoption from foreign teachers ; the 

 exaggeration of genuine native deities of a 

 lower order into a god or devil ; the conver- 

 sion of native words, denoting a whole class 

 of minor spiritual beings, such as ghosts or 

 demons, into individual names, alleged to be 



