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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



which his experience, his scientific knowl- 

 edge, and the great worlds of this kind he 

 has undertaken and always succeeded in, 

 naturally pointed him out beforehand as my 

 assistant. That is the whole story. So, it 

 is the future tide-level ship-canal at Panama 

 that will continue to be dug ; it will be laid 

 out in a way to accommodate the traffic of 

 the world, and be continued and completed 

 much sooner than is supposed, although the 

 traflSc of seven and a half million tons cal- 

 culated by the International Congress is 

 actually more than ten million tons. The 

 profits will soon be gi'cat enough to enable 

 the canal to be finally completed with little 

 delay, and at no further expense, as it will 

 pay for itself." 



Opiuions aboat the Monnd-Bailders.— 



In explaining the metiiods of the Bureau of 

 Ethnology in mound-exploring, Dr. Cyrus 

 Thomas mentions three plans on which the 

 work might be done that are worthy of 

 consideration. The first is the systematic 

 plan, under which all the ancient works 

 should be surveyed and mapped, and then 

 thoroughly explored and investigated ; the 

 second is the local plan, which begins with 

 a lunited locality and confines operations to 

 it until the investigation of it is completed ; 

 and the third is the comprehensive plan, or 

 plan of general study, in which the chief 

 objects are to search for and study the vari- 

 ous forms and types of the works and minor 

 vestiges of art, and to mark out the different 

 archajologlcal districts as disclosed by in- 

 vestigation. This plan permits the carrying 

 on of operations at various points simul- 

 taneously, or removal from place to place as 

 the types and forms of a section are satis- 

 factorily determined. The first of these plans 

 is regarded as the most systematic and scien- 

 tific, and the second as next so. Yet circum- 

 stances have made it expedient for the Bu- 

 reau to adopt the third, which promised to 

 yield the results that were most immediately 

 demanded, more expeditiously and at less 

 cost than the others. The question most 

 prominently kept in view was that whether 

 the mound -builders were Indians. From 

 the data so far obtained, the conclusions 

 appear to be justified that the mound-build- 

 ers, in the area to which especial at'ention 

 has been given, consisted of a number of 



tribes or pooples bearing about the same 

 relation to one another and occupying the 

 same culture status as the Indian tribes in- 

 habiting the country when it was first vis- 

 ited by Europeans ; that nothing trustwor- 

 thy has been discovered to indicate that 

 these tribes belonged to a highly civil- 

 ized race, or that they were a peojile who 

 l;ad attained a higher culture status than the 

 Indians ; that the links discovered directly 

 connecting the Indians and mound-builders 

 are so numerous and well established that 

 there should be no longer any hesitancy in 

 accepting the theory that the two are one 

 and the same people ; that the statements 

 of the early navigators and explorers as to 

 the habits, customs, circumstances, etc., of 

 the Indians when first visited by Europeans, 

 are largely confirmed by what has been dis- 

 covered in the mounds and other ancient 

 works of our country ; that the evidence ob- 

 tained appears to be sufficient to justify the 

 conclusion that particular works and the 

 works in certain localities are to be attrib- 

 uted to particular tribes known to history ; 

 that the testimony of the mounds is very 

 decidedly against the theory that their build- 

 ers were Mayas or Mexicans ; and that evi- 

 dences of contact with Europeans are fre- 

 quent and authentic enough to make it pro)>- 

 able that a goodly number of the mound* 

 were built subsequently to the discovery of 

 the continent by Europeans. 



Some Advantages of a Fr nit-Diet. — 



"Fruit and Fruit -Culture, as related to 

 Health," was the subject of an address by 

 Professor II. W. Parker before the Iowa 

 State Ilorticultural Society, in which work- 

 ing among fruit and living with it arc com- 

 mended to a population who btcome bilious 

 on excess of meat. In temperate zones, the 

 author says, " the dire experience of almost 

 universal disease, and the evidence of those 

 who have freely used fruit, point to this as 

 a most needful article of diet ; and when we 

 come to the tropics we find that men must 

 confine themselves mostly to fruit-diet, a 

 practice that should be largely followed in 

 our long, hot summers ; yes, with our pres- 

 ent habits of unwholesome living, especially 

 in respect to confined air and cooking, must 

 be observed in w inter as well. In the warm 

 temperate climates there are enough exam- 



