NOTES, 



287 



agency, in Oregon, the population of which 

 is made up of a consolidation of more than 

 twenty tribes. The Indians are all more or 

 less civilized, some of them taking newspa- 

 pers, are very polite to strangers, and in 

 many respects resemble the Ainos. In their 

 language, the verb varies with the position 

 of the object. They can not say " that 

 man," but must say " that man walking," or 

 sitting, or standing, etc. There are three 

 sets of cardinal numbers, human, inhuman, 

 and inanimate. All their villages have local 

 names, as " the people of the ash-trces," 

 " the people by the hill," " the people of the 

 canon," etc. A man must marry a woman 

 from another village, and his children be- 

 long to the village of their father. They 

 will not mention the names of the wild-cat, 

 field-mouse, and some other animals, before 

 their children, lest they bring sickness and 

 death upon them. Five is the mystic num- 

 ber among thern. 



Miss A. C. Fletcher described the sacred 

 war-tent of the Omahas, in which the sacred 

 and ritual objects are stored. These objects 

 are held in great reverence, and are under a 

 special keeper. Among them is the sacred 

 shell, a large Unio, which is contained in 

 several leathern pouches, one within the 

 other, and in which are placed strips of the 

 inner bark of the cedar, and a scalp. In 

 the tent are also the sacred wolf-skin, and 

 two bundles covered with tanned skins. One 

 of the bundles contains bird-skins; the other 

 contains various deadly poisons. There are 

 besides a staff of cedar and one of iron-wood, 

 a small pipe-stem, two war-pipes, tobacco, 

 and a scalp. The sacred shell must never 

 touch the ground, for, if it should, a devour- 

 ing fire would come from it. If any one 

 but the keeper touches any of the objects, 

 he will be afflicted with grievous sores, but 

 the evil may be averted by going through 

 certain ritual ablutions. All of these ob- 

 jects have been given, with the consent of 

 the chiefs, to the Peabody Museum of Ar- 

 chaeology. 



The <' Flight" of Flying-Fish.— The 



debate goes on as to whether flying-fish 

 actually fly or only appear to fly, under an 

 impulse which they have received while still 

 in the water. One of the most authoritative 

 opinions that has been expressed on the 



subject is probably that of Professor Mobius, 

 of Kiel, who declares that " flying-fish are 

 incapable of flying, for the simple reason 

 that the muscles of their pectoral fins are 

 not large enough to bear the weight of their 

 body aloft in the air." The average weight 

 of the muscles doing this work in birds is 

 one sixth that of the whole body, and that 

 of bats one thirteenth, while that of flying- 

 fishes is only one thirty-second. The im- 

 pulse to the propulsion of the flying-fish is 

 delivered while they are still in the water, 

 by the powerful masses of muscles on both 

 sides of their body, which are of much 

 greater breadth than in the case of the her- 

 ring or any other fish of their own size. 

 The visible flickering of the fins is only a 

 vibration akin to the flapping of a sail. 



NOTES. 



An extensive copper region is known to 

 exist in Texas, running westward of Red 

 River, from the line of the Indian Territory 

 through several counties. The Grand Belt 

 mines, fifty miles from Harrold, in Wil- 

 berger County, are operated by a company 

 which owns claims for sixty-five miles along 

 the ore-belt, and along which about sixty 

 openings have been made, of an average 

 depth of seven or eight feet. The ore is 

 found principally in shallow pockets, and 

 at the main point of taking out is said to 

 average about fifty-four or fifty-five per cent 

 of metallic copper. 



In section A of the American Associa- 

 tion, Professor Newton read a paper on 

 " The Effect of Small Bodies passing near a 

 Planet upon the Planet's Velocity" ; Profess- 

 or Ilarkness, of the U. S. Naval Observatory, 

 on the flexure of transit instruments ; Pro- 

 fessor Hough, of the Dearborn Observatory, 

 Chicago, presented a description of some im- 

 provements recently introduced in the print- 

 ing chronograph devised by him. Professor 

 J. Burkitt Webb described a new method of 

 using polar co-ordinates ; Mr. C. H. Rockwell, 

 of Tarrytown, New York, presented some 

 results of his observations for time and lati- 

 tude, with a new instrument called the almu- 

 cantar, which promises to be a very valuable 

 addition to scientific apparatus. 



M. GciLLEMiN has formed a number of al- 

 loys of cobalt and copper. They are all red, 

 have a fine fracture, and are much more te- 

 nacious than copper — even as high as from 

 fifty to one hundred per cent more so, ac- 

 cording to the proportion of cobalt. Five 

 per cent of cobalt is enough to give an alloy 

 of great resistance. 



I 



