484 



GEOGRAPHICAL AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXPLORATIONS. 



don, which had been stolen from a temple on 

 the river Pastaza. A second was obtained by a 

 baptized Indian from a Jivaro who had much 

 ill luck, by the representation that the idol 

 head was tired of its imprisonment, and unless 

 permitted to travel would continue to persecute 

 him. Since that time ten of these heads have 

 been sent to the United States, and two of them 

 are in the possession of Dr. Merritt of New 

 York. M. Bolliirt, who has spent much time in 

 Ecuador, thus describes the consecration of 

 these heads as idols : The bones of the head 

 are removed through the base, a heated stone 

 introduced, and this process repeated until com- 

 plete desiccation takes place, and the head (on 

 which the long hair is retained) is reduced to 

 about one fourth its original size ; the appear- 

 ance of the features being maintained, and the 

 desiccation having been so uniform that there 

 is no appearance of wrinkling in the skin. This 

 accomplished, a feast takes place, in which the 

 victor roundly abuses the head, which is made 

 to reply in terms of defiance, an Indian priest 

 acting as spokesman for it. Upon this the vic- 

 tor raises his lance, strikes and wounds the face 

 of his enemy, and then sews up the mouth, con- 

 demning it to silence except as an oracle ; and 

 it is only consulted when the inquirer is under 

 the influence of a narcotic (generally the coca). 

 A double string is attached to the top of the 

 head that it may be worn round the neck, and 

 from the closed lips twenty or thirty cords a 

 foot or more in length depend, the use of which 

 is uncertain. If repeatedly disappointed in the 

 results of their supplications to the idol head, 

 the Jivaro women cut off its hair and throw 

 it into the woods. 



The governors of French and Dutch Guiana 

 have sent out a joint scientific commissison to 

 explore the upper regions drained by the Maro- 

 ni river, which separates these two colonies, and 

 their report will probably be published during 

 the present year. 



Brazil has within the last two or three years 

 been very fully explored ; and during the past 

 year many of the results of the labors of the 

 geographers and naturalists who have pene- 

 trated into the interior of the empire have been 

 given to the public. A journal of physical sci- 

 ence, the Revista Trimensal, is published at 

 Rio Janeiro, and each number contains impor- 

 tant geographical papers. A German savant lias 

 published, during the past year, the results of 

 his explorations under the title Brasilianische 

 Zustande und Aussichten ; M. Biard, a French 

 painter and naturalist, has described the scenery 

 of the country in his Deux Ans au Bresil ; M. 

 Schultz, a German geographer, has described 

 the Sao Francisco basin in the Zeitschrift der 

 ErdTcunde, and Dr. H. Kiepert has illustrated it 

 with an excellent map. Doctor Moore, a citizen 

 of Brazil, and a geographer of high reputation, 

 has, in connection with the eminent French 

 geographer Malte Brun, published a geography 

 of the Brazilian empire in the Portuguese lan- 

 guage, and has described in the bulletin of the 



French Geographical Society his explorations 

 in the Paraguay basin. The region lying in the 

 vicinity of the yet undetermined boundary be- 

 tween Brazil and French Guiana has been very 

 fully described by the Chevalier J. C. de Silva, 

 in a work in two volumes entitled Oyapoc. Of 

 the interesting narrative of explorations of 

 the brothers Grandidier in South America in 

 1857-'9, published the past year by M. Ernest 

 Grandidier, the larger part is devoted to Brazil. 

 Lieutenant Ashe, an English officer, has given 

 in the Nautical Magazine an account of his jour- 

 ney across the Brazilian Andes. 



Dr. Burmeister published early the last year 

 the narrative of his travels in the Argentine 

 Confederation from 1857 to 1860, and M. Mar- 

 tin de Moussy, who is still occupied in the ex- 

 ploration of these States, has already given to 

 the public two volumes of his journeyings. Dr. 

 Demersay, a Paraguayan scholar, has in prog- 

 ress of publication an elaborate physical, econ- 

 omical, and political history of Paraguay. Gen. 

 Reyes has published within the past year a 

 treatise on the geography and history of Uru- 

 guay. The Argentine Confederation, aside from 

 its chronic condition of war with the State of 

 Buenos Ayres, which during the past year has 

 been terminated once more by a peace, has suf- 

 fered from severe earthquakes, though none 

 have been so terribly destructive as that which 

 in 1861 made the flourishing city of Mendoza a 

 heap of ruins. At Catamarca, in the northern 

 portion of the Argentine Confederacy, a rich 

 and extensive lode of silver has been discovered. 



In Chili, M. Pissis, the eminent Chilian geol- 

 ogist and astronomer, is still at the head of the 

 geodesic and geologic survey of the country 

 which is in progress. M. Baldomero Menendez 

 has published, the past year, a statistical and 

 geographical manual of the Chilian Republic, 

 and M. Philippi has continued his observations 

 on the Chilian Andes, describing in a recent 

 paper the formation of a new volcano near 

 Chilian in 1861. In the southern portion of 

 Chili, occupied by the independent and brave 

 Araucanos, an Indian tribe famous in history, 

 a Frenchman named Orelie Antoine de Tou- 

 nens, who had resided for many years among 

 the Araucanos, and who, as an educated man 

 and a graduate of the Polytechnic School of 

 Paris, had acquired a powerful influence among 

 them, persuaded them on the 17th of November, 

 1860, to recognize him as their king, under the 

 title of Orelie Antoine I, and to make the 

 throne hereditary in his family. The Chilian 

 Government were greatly displeased at this 

 movement, especially as they had been for some 

 time purposing to press the Araucanos farther 

 south, and had even taken possession of some 

 territory S. of the Biobio river, which had 

 hitherto been their boundary. The new king 

 determined to regain the lost territory and ad- 

 vanced with a considerable force toward the 

 Biobio, but, while yet some miles distant from 

 it and within his own acknowledged territory, 

 was surprised on the 4th of January, 1862, with 



