ee eee ore Live a 
Miscellaneous Intelligence. 307 
The other custom relates to the disposal of their dead. With most 
barbarous tribes, as well as civilized nations, the natural repugnance to 
the presence of a corpse is shown in the desire to put it away as soon 
as possible ‘out of their sight.” The Polynesians have little or none 
of this feeling. In some islands, as in Tahiti and Nukuhiva, the bodies 
of the dead are (or were) exposed on stages near the dwellings of the . 
living; in others, as at the Navigator and Sandwich Islands, they are 
buried either near or in the houses of their friends, and the skulls, and 
sometimes other bones, are afterward taken up and preserved as relics. 
At New Zealand, the body is placed on the ground in a sitting or 
crouching posture, and enclosed within the two halves of a canoe ; this 
is set in the midst of their villages, which are often made unapproacha- 
ble to a foreigner by the scent of putrefaction. 
To a people like this, in whom the salutary awe of death is so com- 
pletely extinct, who are naturally of a bloodthirsty disposition, and 
whose religious belief has nothing of a moral or elevating tendency, 
there is evidently no restraint but that of custom to deter them from 
cannibalism. * The practice may have commenced in some excess of 
revenge, or in a season of famine; but it is now continued purely for 
the gratification of a depraved appetite. On this point the testimony 
of the natives themselves is distinct and positive ; and as they are aware 
of the abhorrence with which the act is regarded by the whites, there 
can be no good reason for disbelieving them 
Of the four Oceanic races, the Viieuesinne and Melanesians are, 
generally speaking, addicted to cannibalism; while among the natives 
of Australia and Micronesia it is, so far as we are informed, unknown. 
5. Antarctic Continent—The Pagoda, despatched from England 
under the command of Lieut. Moore, to explore the Antarctic regions, 
between the meridian of Greenwich and 120° E., has found proof 
throughout of the existence of the Antarctic Continent, which they 
called Victoria’s Land. The magnetic observations commenced by 
the Erebus and Terror have been completed, and the position of the 
magnetic pole exactly ascertained. 
6. Potato-disease.—According to information received by Boussin- 
gault from M. Joachim Acosta, of Bogota, the potato-disease is well 
known on the plateau of Bogota, and prevails especially in rainy years, 
or in damp places. It is well known that the potato is indigenous to 
that OE The people use the tainted potatoes, after removing the 
—— 
Asai diate to Siberia, (L’Institut, November, 1845, No. 619, 
page 397.)—The Siberian Commission have recommended a new 
expedition into Siberia and the Frozen Seas of the North, with 
special reference to the mean temperature of the regions, and 
