142 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



you were now in a good humor and it was 

 the time to get all he could from you. As 

 far as it could be seen, it appeared to be the 

 general belief that all property, especially in 

 the way of food, belonged to everybody in 

 common, and therefore, if you held more 

 than another, it was only because you and 

 your family were physically strong enough to 

 protect it. Few men would, of course, steal 

 from one another when food was plentiful, 

 and thereby make enemies for themselves ; 

 " but when food is scarce, might is right," 

 and all make note of the position of their 

 neighbors' caches before the winter snow cov- 

 ers them. The Eskimos are exceedingly free, 

 and never consider a man their superior un- 

 less he or his family are physically stronger 

 or are better hunters than they. These 

 superior men are treated with little defer- 

 ence, though they are usually sought for in 

 the settlement of difficulties, and act as pub- 

 lic executioners. 



Ccn!ral Asian Plienomena. — M. Gabriel 

 Bonvaldt and the Prince Henri of Orleans 

 were received by the Geographical Society of 

 Paris on the last day of January, on the 

 occasion of their return from a journey 

 through the heart of central Asia from the 

 frontiers of Russian Turkistan to Tonquin. 

 They claim to have discovered ranges of 

 mountains, lakes, extinct volcanoes, geysers, 

 and a pass at a height of 6,000 metres, 

 never before explored. Yaks, antelopes, 

 wild horses, and other animals were numer- 

 ous below 5,000 metres, but birds had disap- 

 peared, and there was no vegetation. The 

 travelers and their men and animals suffered 

 greatly from " mountain-sickness." The par- 

 ty went by what is called " the little road " 

 from Thibet to China, which they believed 

 had never been explored. They found well- 

 wooded valleys full of game — meeting twen- 

 ty-one bears in three days — and often well 

 cultivated and studded with villages ; and 

 they crossed the upper waters of several of 

 the rivers of eastern Asia, including, as they 

 supposed, the Yang-tse-kiang. Among the 

 more important features of the country was 

 a hitherto unknown volcanic region. Two 

 isolated volcanoes were named the Pic de 

 Paris and Mont Reclus. A group of other 

 volcanoes gave them reminders of the craters 

 of Auvergne, appearing like tunnels with a 



small cone in the center. Lava-blocks were 

 numerous, some of them being two cubic 

 metres in dimension. From a distance they 

 might have been taken for yaks. Hot sulphur 

 springs and frozen geysers were numerous. 

 Many minerals were found, including iron 

 and lead. Curious gray monkeys with long 

 hair and short tails were found living among 

 the rocks at the foot of Mont Duplex, but 

 nowhere else. 



The Fntnre of the Lobster-fishery. — 



The experiments begun a few years ago for 

 improving the lobster and cod fisheries of 

 the coasts of Newfoundland promise to 

 be successful. Besides 15,000,000 lobsters 

 hatched and placed in the waters at the 

 Dildo hatchery, 432 floating incubators have 

 been established, at which more than 390,- 

 000 lobsters have been hatched. All these 

 would have been lost except for these oper- 

 ations. Lobsters arrive at maturity in five 

 years ; and if the useful work now going 

 on is continued year after year, it is evi- 

 dent that the threatened destruction of the 

 lobster can be averted, and the stock in 

 the waters maintained and extended. The 

 cod-hatchery has not been quite so success- 

 ful, but still the results have been very sat- 

 isfactory. Fishermen in the neighborhood 

 of Trinity Bay are said to have recently 

 observed large shoals of small cod, which 

 they have not noticed before, from one to 

 two inches long ; and this, it is claimed, 

 would be the present size of the fry placed 

 in the waters in June and July last. 



NOTES. 



A REMARKABLE metcof, fouud in Arizona, 

 was described by Prof. A. E. Foote, in the 

 Geological Section of the American Associa- 

 tion. It was extraordinarily hard, so that a 

 number of chisels were destroyed in cutting 

 it, and the emery wheel used in polishing it 

 was ruined. Cavities were reached in cut- 

 ting it, which were found to contain dia- 

 monds, small and black, and of little com- 

 mercial value, but of the greatest mineral- 

 ogical interest. Granules of amorphous 

 carbon were found within the cavity, in 

 which a minute white diamond was revealed 

 by treatment with acid. The general mass 

 of the stone contained three per cent of 

 nickel. Diamonds were previously observed 

 in a meteorite by two Russian mineralogists 

 in ISST. 



