690 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ancient Peruvians, observed that the subject was scientifically 

 important, because all the other peoples of ancient America were 

 very poor in this kind of property as compared with the Peru- 

 vians and Bolivians and some of the Central American peoples ; 

 and, secondly, because the influence of domestication on the 

 formation of races could be better followed on these animals than 

 on those of the Old World. We are concerned in Peru espe- 

 cially with the dog, llama, alpaca, and guinea-pig. The speaker 

 had examined eighteen dog-mummies from ancient Peruvian 

 graves, and had determined that they belonged to three differ- 

 ent races — a shepherd's dog, a Dachshund, and a bull-dog or pug. 

 He believed that the "Inca-dog" was derived, not from other 

 South American CanidcB, but from the Mexican wolf {Lupus occi- 

 dentalis), perhaps through the feebler Texan variety; and that 

 several races had been formed from it in Peru through domes- 

 tication. In this Herr Nehring dissents from and contradicts 

 Von Tschudi's opinion that the varieties had arisen from cross- 

 ing with European dogs. As the dog and likewise the llama and 

 alpaca are undoubtedly of America, so also, in the speaker's 

 opinion, is the guinea-pig, notwithstanding B. Hensel and other 

 authors believe that it was introduced from Europe. The fact 

 that no remains of guinea-pigs of prehistoric age had ever been 

 found in Europe told against the latter view. A short discus- 

 sion ensued upon the cropping or amputation of the ears of 

 ancient American dogs, of which Seler had observed evidences 

 in Mexican pictures, and Nehring had found that it had been 

 practiced on Inca-dogs. 



Herr Wittmack presented a paper upon the useful plants of 

 the Peruvians, which was based chiefly upon traces found in their 

 graves. Their bread -plant was maize, which their sculptured 

 works and the ornamentation of the pillars of their temples and 

 palaces show was held in high esteem among them. Three va- 

 rieties of this plant have been distinguished — Indian corn, the 

 pointed - grained, and the umbilicated. Besides maize, a kind 

 of lamb's quarters (the seeds of Chenopodium quinoa) and two 

 kinds of pulse were utilized, and the speaker inferred that our 

 bean was derived from America. Small tubers like potatoes, but 

 which could not be determined, and fruits of the anotto, had been 

 observed in the graves. 



Concerning the inhabitants of Mexico at the time of the con- 

 quest, Herr Hartmann remarked that the reports of the conqui- 

 stadores left us in the dark, and we were therefore sent to the 

 ancient representations. His own researches indicated that Mon- 

 tezuma's people had the same physical race characteristics as are 

 exhibited by the present Dakotas, Pawnees, Comanches, etc. The 

 Araucanians, Patagonians, and Fuegians might likewise be re- 



