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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



parents, he found that in the greater number 

 of cases causes of idiocy could be discovered 

 in addition to or independently of consanguin- 

 ity. This is in harmony with tlie conclusion 

 published by Dr. C. F. Withington, that 

 morbid inheritance rather than specific de- 

 generative tendency will account for all the 

 infirmities met with in the offspring of cous- 

 ins. We may therefore assume that "the 

 great danger in the intermarriage of cousins 

 lies in the circumstance that when there is 

 a neurotic inheritance, there are two certain 

 morbid factors to contend with rather than 

 a possible one." On the whole, " the bal- 

 ance of evidence would appear to be in favor 

 of the conclusion that where a close scrutiny 

 fails to discover any heritable weakness, 

 neurotic or otherwise, consanguineous mar- 

 riage per se is not necessarily a thing to be 

 prohibited." 



The Senses of Aaimals.— In a lecture on 

 " The Sense and Senses of Animals," Sir 

 John Lubbock, after relating his experi- 

 ments in teaching his dog to read, and 

 another experiment from which he con- 

 cluded that the dog could not distinguish 

 color, said that he had always felt a great 

 longing to know how the world appeared to 

 the lower animals. It was still a doubtful 

 point whether ants were able to hear. He 

 had concluded, from his experiments, that 

 they had not the power of addressing each 

 other. His impression, on the whole, was 

 that bees and ants were not deaf, but that 

 they heard sounds so shrill as to be beyond 

 our hearing. There was no doubt about in- 

 sects seeing. The colors of objects must 

 present a very different impression upon in- 

 sects from that on human beings. The 

 world to them might be full of music which 

 we could not hear, colors we could not see, 

 and sensations which we could not feel. 



The History of a New Britain Papnan.— 



The Rev. George Brown, a missionary, gave 

 in the British Association an account of the 

 life-history of a native of the island of New 

 Britain. When a child is born to the Pap- 

 uan people of the country, a warm banana- 

 leaf is wrapped around his body, and he is 

 fed with the expressed juice of the cocoa- 

 nut ; ever after which he is left to be 

 " dressed in pure sunshine." On the occa- 



sion of the marriage of the youth, there la 

 an interchange of goods and a distinct pay- 

 ment for the wife. Presents are also given 

 by the women to the bride, and by the men 

 to the husband — a broom to the former and 

 a spear to the latter — after which a stick is 

 given to the man. The spear means that 

 the husband must protect his wife, the broom 

 that with it she must do her household work, 

 and the stick is the symbol of the man's au- 

 thority. In case of a death, the dead person 

 is appealed to to come back, and is expostu- 

 lated with for having left his friends, and 

 entreated to say how his fiiends have of- 

 fended him. The people have a definite idea 

 of a future state, and of the punishment of 

 one offender, the niggardly man. When an 

 old man is about to die, he is placed upon a 

 litter and carried round to see the scenes 

 among which he has passed his life, and is 

 then taken back to wait his time. After 

 death the body is placed in a sitting posture 

 and taken into the public square, with the 

 man's weapons by his side, and the peo- 

 ple place offerings of goods and money be- 

 fore it. 



The Brazilian Barrancas, — Some of the 

 upland regions of Brazil, especially near the 

 city of Barbacena, are marked by the ap- 

 pearance of great rugged hollows in the 

 sides and slopes of many of the rolling, 

 grass - covered hills. They are land-slips, 

 caused by the existence of springs, and pre- 

 sent an appearance picturesque in the ex- 

 treme. Their sides are worn into every 

 imaginable shape, of pinnacles, domes, 

 pointed towers, buttresses, and cavities, with 

 ravines narrow, deep, and precipitous, or 

 wide, open spaces, surrounded by lofty per- 

 pendicular walls, riven by creeks, and ready 

 to fall. But their great charm lies in their 

 color. The prevailing tint is a deep Indian 

 red, which, combined with the green hills 

 and the blue sky, bearing its glistening 

 white clouds, constitutes a charming combi- 

 nation of tones. Any one of these barran- 

 cas, as they are called, offers excellent op- 

 portunities to the geologist. In many of 

 them are found lying upon beds of sand- 

 stone, near the floor of the hollow, extensive 

 deposits of fine laminated clays, varying in 

 thickness, but frequently divided into layers 

 like sheets of paper, with varieties of colors, 



