POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



135 



Twenty-four prescriptions for hair-washes, 

 oils, depilatories, and dyes are given. Among 

 them is one "to stimulate the growth of 

 hair, prepared for Sesh, the mother of his 

 Majesty King of Upper and Lower Egypt, 

 Teta the blessed," which carries us back to 

 the beginning of histori c time, for Teta was 

 the second king of the first dynasty, and his 

 mother, Sesh, may have been the queen of 

 Menes, the founder of the empire. Under 

 the heading of " The Beginning of the Mys- 

 tery of Medicine, Knowledge of the Motions 

 of the Heart, and Knowledge of the Heart," 

 are described the vessels " from it [the heart] 

 to all parts " ; " and it is the beginning of 

 the vessels to each organ." Concerning the 

 animal spirits, we are told that these vital 

 spirits "enter one nostril, and penetrate to 

 the heart through the tube which carries 

 them into the body-cavity " ; and " there are 

 four vessels going to the two ears together, 

 two on the right side, two on the left side, 

 carrying the vital spirit into the one right 

 ear, the breath of death into the left ear ; 

 that is, it enters on the right side, the breath 

 of death enters on the left side." 



Preglacial Caye-Men in Wales. — Dr. H. 



Hicks read in the British Association ac- 

 counts of some explorations which he had 

 carried on in certain Welsh caves as afford- 

 ing evidence of occupation by pleistocene 

 men and animals before the glacial beds 

 which occur in the area had been deposited. 

 It was found that, although the caverns are 

 now four hundred feet above the level of 

 the sea, the materials within them had been 

 disturbed by marine action since the ple- 

 istocene animals and man had occupied them. 

 At Stet Cave a small, well-worked flint flake 

 had been discovered beneath twenty feet of 

 glacial beds. It seemed clear that the con- 

 tents of the cavern must have been washed 

 out by marine action during the great sub- 

 mergence in mid-glacial times, and then cov- 

 ered by marine sand and an upper bowlder- 

 clay. The author believed that the flint 

 implements, lance-heads, and scrapers found 

 in the caverns were also of the same age as 

 the flint flake ; hence they must all have 

 been the work of preglacial man. Prof. 

 Boyd Dawkins accepted the evidence of the 

 antiquity of man, and fully agreed with Dr. 

 Eicks's conclusions. To Mr. W. Pengelly 



this was a "delicious discovery," inasmuch 

 as he had long stood to a great extent alone 

 in the opinion that the nodule flint tools in 

 Kent's cavern were of preglacial make. The 

 explorations are to be continued. 



Subjects for Indnstrial Training. — Mrs. 

 Laura Osborne Talbot thus described to the 

 American Association her experiences of 

 the effects of a little industrial teaching 

 upon thirty vagrant boys whom she, with 

 some other ladies, had induced to attend for 

 three years an industrial class at Howard 

 University one morning in the week : " We 

 were limited in every way, but we found 

 these children of the lowest kind were de- 

 lighted to work with tools, and some of them 

 have set up little carpenter-shops of their 

 own, and support themselves in that way. 

 The moral uplifting was the best result of 

 all, and it is not likely that these boys will 

 become members of our criminal class. Each 

 boy as he entered the class was taught in 

 the tailor-shop to mend his clothes, and in 

 the shoe-shop to mend his shoes. One lame 

 colored boy from the orphan asylum became 

 so skillful in shoemaking that he could not 

 only make his own shoes, but could cut up 

 the larger, half-worn shoes and make them 

 over for baby feet. All of this I term the 

 best kind of economy, especially in a city 

 like Washington. 



Contents of a North Carolina Monnd. — 



Mr. J. M. Spainhour has described, in the 

 Elisha Mitchel Scientific Society, some relics 

 that were discovered in the excavation of a 

 mound in Caldwell County, N. C. Within 

 the mound was found a skeleton lying upon 

 its face, with the head resting in a large sea- 

 shell, the inner surface of which was carved 

 with hieroglyphics. Around the neck were 

 large beads made of sea-shells. The arms 

 were extended and bent at the elbows, so as 

 to bring the hands within about a foot of 

 the head. Around each wrist was a brace- 

 let, composed of copper and shell beads, al- 

 ternating. The copper beads appeared to 

 have been hammered into thin sheets and 

 rolled around the string, a part of which 

 was preserved. Near the right hand was an 

 iron implement like a chisel or punch, not 

 sharp-pointed, but smaller at the end away 

 from the handle. The left hand was resting 



