688 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the presence of the names referred to conld be explained hy 

 assuming that a few Basques had occasionally reached Canada in 

 Spanish ships. Senor Fabid announced that the Spanish Govern- 

 ment was contemplating the full publication, on the approaching 

 four-hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America,, of the 

 manuscripts in its archives by and concerning Columbus. 



The antiquities of Mexico and South America were the fore- 

 most subjects for discussion at the second session. The relics 

 called agripearls were the occasion of a long debate. They were 

 formerly regarded as peculiar to the Old World, particularly to 

 Africa, but they had recently been found in all parts of America. 

 According to Tischler's researches, the technic of the colored 

 glass pearls corresponded exactly with that of the Venetian Mille- 

 fiori glasses, and was so essentially different from that of the an- 

 cient Roman glasses that they must be ascribed to the beginning 

 of the Renaissance. M. de la Espada agreed as to the European 

 origin of the pearls, and that they had been used in America as 

 ornaments for horses but not for men. Some ancient Mexican 

 mosaic decorations upon human bones were described by M. An- 

 dr^e as showing a high development of technic and taste. Only 

 eighteen pieces of this kind are known, which have been placed 

 in European collections. Some of them are masks worked out of 

 real skulls or of wood, and others are figures of animals, etc. The 

 mosaic is composed of small pieces of turquoise, malachite, or mus- 

 sel-shell, pressed into a foundation of pitch, and forming a care- 

 fully elaborated design, or representing in colored shadings the 

 forms of the human face. The Berlin Museum possesses a skull- 

 mask of this kind, a head of a puma, and a figure composed of the 

 fore-parts of two animals. 



Prof. Morse presented a paper by Mr. Gushing, on the ob- 

 ject and methods of the Hemenway Archaeological Expedition 

 into southwestern Central America. The exhibition arranged by 

 the Berlin Museum contains the results of the excavations made 

 by Mrs. Hemenway on the Rio Salado in Arizona. It has been 

 shown that the desert which now exists in that territory was for- 

 merly a richly populated and cultivated region. The remains of 

 seven cities and of extensive canals for conducting the waters of 

 the Salado and another river over the land have been discovered. 

 The condition of the ruins indicates that this ancient, pre-Colum- 

 bian civilization was destroyed by an earthquake, after \,hich the 

 inhabitants probably emigrated to Mexico. 



Senhor Netto, of Brazil, had examined a series of mounds of 

 elliptical ground-plan, with a head-shaped annex, in which were 

 found relics of a people who might be distinguished from the 

 present Indians chiefly by the prominence of female influence 

 among them. All the vases and urns, some of which were quite 



