FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



861 



rock increases in width from five miles at 

 the north to thirty-six miles near the south- 

 ern line. There are three chief areas with 

 intermediate deposits. In the northern or 

 Blue Rapids area the gypsum occurs as a 

 gray, mottled rock, with sugary texture, cov- 

 ered at the top with a layer of white selenite 

 needles forming satin spar, from one fourth 

 of an inch to an inch and a quarter thick. 

 The manufacture of plaster of Paris in Kan- 

 sas was begun at this place in 1872, with an 

 iron kettle holding about five barrels, heated 

 by a stove. In the Gypsum City area, the 

 lower portion of the bed is dotted with ellip- 

 tical crystals of yellowish- brown selenite, 

 nearly an inch long and half an inch wide, 

 which give it an appearance somewhat like 

 "bird's-eye limestone." Near Medicine 

 Lodge the red clays and shales below the 

 gypsum contain an interlacing network of 

 selenite and satin-spar layers, which have 

 been dissolved out of the solid stratum and 

 carried down by circulating water. In the 

 western part of the area solution has carved 

 out caves and underground channels, leaving 

 in many places natural bridges of gypsum. 

 The rock is snowy white. Many of the 

 plaster mills use earthy gypsum deposits, 

 which are common, furnishing what is called 

 "gypsum dirt." This is directly calcined, 

 with small labor and expense. These beds, 

 which lie in low, swampy ground, were prob- 

 ably formed by deposits from springs, aided 

 by wash from the hillsides, and are recent. 

 The rock gypsums were deposited in arms 

 of the sea. Eleven mills are engaged in the 

 manufacture of plaster. 



Mythological Correspondences. An at- 

 tempt has been made by Dr. E. B. Tylor to 

 use correspondence in culture as a means of 

 tracing lines of connection and intercourse 

 between ancient and modern peoples. Good 

 evidence of this class is furnished by myth- 

 ical beliefs notwithstanding their lack of ob 

 jective value. The conception of weighing 

 in a spiritual balance the judgment of the 

 dead, first appearing in Egypt, is traced 

 thence in a series of variants from Eastern 

 Buddhism to Western Christendom. The 

 associated doctrine of the Bridge of the 

 Dead, which separates the good passing over 

 from the wicked who fall into the abyss, of 

 the ancient Persian religion, reaches like- 



wise to the extremities of Asia and Europe. 

 Historical ties are practically constituted by 

 these mythical beliefs, which connect the 

 great religions of the world and serve as 

 lines along which their interdependence can 

 be followed. Similar evidences exist of Asi- 

 atic influences under which the pre-Colum- 

 bian civilization of America took shape. In 

 the religion of old Mexico four great scenes 

 in the journey of the soul in the land of the 

 dead are mentioned by early Spanish writers, 

 and are depicted in the Aztec Vatican Codex. 

 They are the crossing of the river, the fearful 

 passage of the soul between two mountains 

 that clash together, the soul's climbing up the 

 mountain set with sharp obsidian knives, and 

 the dangers of the wind carrying such knives 

 in its blast. These pictures correspond with 

 scenes from Buddhist hells or purgatories as 

 depicted on the Japanese temple scrolls. So 

 close and complete analogies of Buddhist 

 ideas in Mexico constitute a correspondence 

 that precludes any explanation except direct 

 transmission from one religion to another. 

 All these and other analogies support the 

 view that the natives of America reached 

 their level of civilization. 



A Versatile Man. A remarkably versa- 

 tile man, nearly equally eminent as a diplo- 

 matist, naturalist, and ethnologist, was Brian 

 Houghton Hodgson, a British officer in the 

 India service, who died in 1894, ninety- four 

 years old. An attack of fever while he was 

 studying at Calcutta sent him to the hill 

 country of Kumaon, where as assessor of 

 the little farms he had to traverse precipi- 

 tous mountain paths, crossing dangerous 

 rivers with the help of men swimming on 

 gourds or by bridges which were only lad- 

 ders suspended from cables, became friends 

 with the people, and imbibed a taste for 

 natural history. Next, as assistant in Ne- 

 paul, he began the collections of manu- 

 scripts, texts, and religious tracts with which 

 he endowed the libraries of Europe and 

 Asia, hunting them up in the archives of 

 Buddhist monasteries and buying them from 

 traffickers and monks. The Buddhist col- 

 lections of seven of the most famous Orien- 

 talist libraries began with these gifts, and 

 Eugene Burnouf, who was indebted to one 

 of these collections for the materials of his 

 great work on the History of Buddhism, 



