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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



mal sacrifices are offered, and the heads of 

 the slaughtered creatures are eagerly scram- 

 bled for. Women walk naked to the temple 

 in fulfillment of vows, under the shelter of 

 leaves and boughs of trees. If, Mr. Gomme 

 argues, there is a strong line of parallel be- 

 tween these Indian ceremonies, which are 

 demonstrably non-Aryan, and ceremonies 

 formerly and even still observed in Europe, 

 must not such ceremonies have been in their 

 origin non- Aryan in Europe ? 



Buddhistic Carved Figures. — At a recent 

 meeting of the English Anthropological In- 

 stitute, Major R. C. Temple illustrated a 

 paper on the Developments of Buddhist Sym- 

 bolism and Architecture as revealed in Cave 

 Explorations, by exhibiting photographs of 

 life-size figures in wood carved by an artist 

 of Maulmain, of the " four sights " shown 

 to Buddha as Prince Siddhartha on his first 

 visits to the outer world — viz., the old man, 

 the sick man, the dead man, and the priest ; 

 and some wooden representations from Ran- 

 goon, of Buddha in his standing and recum- 

 bent postures, with his begging bowl, and 

 seated as King Jambopati, surrounded by 

 priests and other worshipers. He next 

 showed a set of gilt wooden images from 

 the platform of the great Shnedagon pagoda 

 at Rangoon, of various spirits believed in by 

 the Burmese, seated on the steps of a lofty 

 post, on the top of which is always perched the 

 figure of the sacred goose, which apparently 

 protects pagodas in some way. Some large 

 glazed bricks or tiles from Pegu, at least five 

 hundred years old, which formed the orna- 

 mentation of the procession paths round a 

 ruined pagoda, represent the march, battle, 

 and flight of a foreign army, depicted with 

 elephants', monkeys', and other animal faces, 

 with some of the figures clad in the Siamese 

 or Cambodian fashion. A huge figure of a 

 recumbent Buddha, of the fifteenth century, 

 is a hundred and eighty-one feet long and 

 forty-six feet high at the shoulder. Its his- 

 tory is lost, and so was the image itself, till 

 it was accidentally discovered in the jungle 

 by a railway contractor in 1881. Views of 

 the Kawgun Cave were shown, exhibiting the 

 wonderful extent of its decoration by a vast 

 number of terra cotta tablets and images in 

 wood, alabaster, and stone, and the extraor- 

 dinary variety and multitude of objects of 



Buddhistic worship found in it. This cave is 

 the richest of those which Major Temple vis- 

 ited ; but he had examined half a dozen others 

 in the district, and had gathered information 

 of the existence of about forty. Many of 

 these are hardly inferior to Kawgun in rich- 

 ness of Buddhistic remains, and several are 

 said to contain besides ancient manuscripts 

 which must now be of inestimable value. A 

 few such manuscripts have been found. 



NOTES. 



White bread and fine flour are named by 

 Sir James Crichton Browne as one of the 

 causes of the increase of dental caries. Fail- 

 ing to eat as large proportions of bran as 

 our ancestors did, we are deprived to a large 

 degree of the fluorine which they contain. 

 The enamel of the teeth has more fluorine, in 

 the form of fluoride of calcium, than any 

 other part of the body. Fluorine might, in- 

 deed, be regarded as the characteristic chem- 

 ical constituent of this structure, the hardest 

 of all animal tissue ; hence a supply of flu- 

 orine, while the development of the teeth is 

 proceeding, is essential to the proper forma- 

 tion of the enamel, and any deficiency in 

 this respect must result in thin and inferior 

 enamel. 



On the reopening of an old mine at Ban- 

 gor, Cal., a few months ago, flies were found 

 in a dry slope connecting two shafts, all 

 white except the eyes, which were red, and 

 a white rattlesnake was killed. The animals 

 had lived in the dry passages, where they 

 had been supplied with air but not with 

 light. A few of the flies, exposed to light 

 in a glass case, recovered their proper color 

 within a week. 



A large dirigible balloon, intended to 

 make headway against air currents of twenty- 

 eight miles an hour, is being made in France. 

 It will be similar in form to the La France of 

 1884-'85, but larger — two hundred and thirty 

 feet in length and forty-three feet in its great- 

 est diameter. It will weigh sixty-six pounds 

 per horse power, and will be propelled by a 

 screw in front with a rudder behind. 



From various experiments respecting a 

 connection between thunderstorms and the 

 souring of milk, Prof. H. W. Conn draws 

 the conclusion that electricity is not of it- 

 self capable of souring milk or even of ma- 

 terially hastening the process ; nor can the 

 ozone developed during the thunderstorm 

 be looked upon as of any great importance. 

 It seems probable that the connection be- 

 tween the thunderstorm and the souring of 

 milk is one of a different character. Bac- 

 teria grow most rapidly in the warm, sultry 

 conditions which usually precede a thunder- 



