SORGHUM AS A SOURCE OF SUGAR. 627 



blood ; and they shoot arrows into the sky to drive away the dog. 

 Charlevoix gives a similar account of the Guarani, except that with 

 them a tiger takes the place of the dog ; and in the language of the 

 Tupis the literal translation of the word for an eclipse is, " The jaguar 

 has eaten the sun." So, in Asia, the Tunguses believe an evil spirit 

 has swallowed the earth's satellites, and they try to frighten it away 

 by shots at the darkened disk. In Sumatra and Malacca the fear is 

 aroused that a great snake will swallow the sun or the moon ; and the 

 Nagas of Assam set up a great drum-beating, as if in battle, to frighten 

 away the devouring monster. Among the American tribes are some 

 who believe that eclipses are a warning of the approaching disap- 

 pearance of the sun and the fall of the moon at the end of the world. 

 The Pottawattamies tell of a demon in the shape of an old woman, sit- 

 ting in the moon weaving a basket, on the completion of which the 

 world will be destroyed. A dog contends with the woman, tearing 

 the basket to pieces every once in a while, and then an eclipse* of the 

 moon takes place ; others imagine that the Moon is hungry, sick, or 

 dying at these times ; while the Alfuras of Ceram think he is asleep, 

 and make a great uproar to awake him. 



These superstitions are not so remote as they may seem at first 

 sight from the impressions which the heavenly phenomena make upon 

 many persons who consider themselves civilized. Circles may be found 

 in nearly every nation upon whom the appearance of anything unusual 

 in the sky carries an apprehension that something dreadful is about 

 to happen ; and by whom even the most ordinary phenomena are in- 

 vested with occult influence upon things that we know have no con- 

 nection with them ; and it is only two or three centuries since the dire 

 portents of comets and eclipses were prayed against in all the churches. 

 In strange contrast with the impressiveness of the peoples whose names 

 we have mentioned so often, and with the lingering European super- 

 stitions, stands the indifference of the stolid African tribes mentioned 

 by Cameron and Paul Richard, who paid no attention to the eclipse, 

 or thought it was only caused by passing clouds. — Translated for the 

 Popular Science Monthly from Daa Ausland. 



SORGHUM AS A SOURCE OF SUGAR. 



Br HENRY B. PARSONS. 



THE important part which sugar plays in our natiomal and domes- 

 tic affairs is, probably, not fully appreciated, except by those 

 who have given the subject special study. Accustomed as we have 

 become to hearing of the enormous output of our mines, it is at first 

 somewhat difficult to realize that, in 1881, the people of the United 

 States paid for foreign sugar, and imposts thereon, over fifty-seven 



