1893.] ■ dZb [Brinton. 



charged outdonrs or into the chimney may be determined by household 

 construction. That it should not be allowed to carry its effluvia into the 

 kitchen is certain. Owing to the position in wliich cooking ranges are 

 usually placed, it would, as a general rule, be most convenient for the air 

 to find its way into a flue to the chimney. But its finding exit there has 

 no especial advantage, physically speaking, over the other mode of exit, 

 for the movement of air at any season of the year, dependent upon the 

 differences of density between the air outdoors and that in the oven, 

 would always afford superabundant volume, to be regulated by the 

 damper, without adding to its updraught the great radiation up the 

 chimney. 



I have heretofore confined myself, as in duty bound, to the elucidation 

 of the theme represented by the title of my paper. But it should not be in- 

 ferred from my omitting discussion of anything beyond it, thai I limit the 

 good effect of the presence of ample oxygen in cooking to the preparation 

 of meat for the table. On the contrary, I believe, as the result of observa- 

 tion, not experiment, that some vegetables, and therefore, I conclude, all, 

 are so affected, and cook better in free air than elsewhere. In a qualified 

 sense observation, however, is experiment, where work is done to the hand 

 of one who has not opportunity to do it for himself, but seizes it in observ- 

 ing eflfects casually offered by that of others, and then combines the facts 

 in conclusions. 



A Vocabulary of the Nanticoke Dialect. 



By Daniel G. Brinton, M. D. 



{Bead before the American Philosophical Society, Nov. 3, 1898.) 



Among the valuable MSS. in the library of the American 

 Philosophical Society is one, now a little over one hundred 

 years old, which contains the only known vocabulary of any 

 length of the Nanticoke dialect or language, once spoken in 

 Maryland, on what is called the '' Eastern shore," the region be- 

 tween Chesapeake baj^ and the Atlantic. Several requests have 

 reached me from time to time to prepare this vocabulary for 

 publication, and it seems to be a duty which the Society owes 

 the republic of letters to make it available for purposes of study 

 and comparison. 



The vocabulary was collected at the request of a former Presi- 

 dent of this Society and of our country, Mr. Thomas Jefferson, 

 by Mr. William Vans Murray, from an old woman called Mrs. 



