150 



KNOAVLEDGE 



[Makch 1, 1886. 



the jar, a porous cup of a Bunseu or Daniell battery, is 

 dipped into the solution. A glass vessel f\ill of hydrogen, 



Fis. 11. 



or street ga.s, i.s inverted over it (Fig. 11). Tlie lighter 

 gas diffusing into the porous ve.s.sel blows a bubbh' from 

 the film. On removing tlie outer jar the reverse action 

 takes place, and the bubble collapses. 



Very pretty effects can be jsroduced by blowing bubbles 

 full of tobacco-smoke. By attaching the pipe stem by a 

 rubber tube to the gas fixture, they may be inflated with 

 gas, when they will rise like balloons. Many formulas 

 have been piiblished for making a good mixture. Plateau's 

 mixture is thus jire pared : one i^art of Marseilles soap is 

 dissolved in forty parts of water at a moderate heat. It 

 is filtered through very porous filter-paper after cooling, 

 and fifteen parts of the solution are mixed with eleven of 

 Price's glycerine. The mixture is thoroughly shaken, 

 and is allowed to stand for seven days in a room that is 

 not too cold (over 67° Fahr.). On the eighth day it is 

 cooled for six hours to a temperature of 37° Fahr., and 

 filtered. A bottle of ice should be kept in the funnel. 

 The first portions may need refiltering. Very porous 

 jiajier must he used. Halbrook's brown oil silk soap or 

 his Gallipoli soap and Scheering and Glatz's gl3-cerine 

 work verj- well. The second filtration may be omitted, 

 long standing and decantation from tlie sediment being- 

 used. After all the trouble the mixture may not give 

 very good results. 



To succeed in these experiments a little practice and 

 niceness of manipulation are required, together with a 

 good soap solution. 



INDIAN DEATH CUSTOMS, 



By Stella Occidens. 



HE primitive manners and customs of the 

 North American Indians are fast passing 

 away, and among these, their quaint 

 mortuary customs. This is a subject 

 full of interest, since every nation has 

 its own peculiar methods with regard to 

 burial ceremonies. In a few years all 

 trace of these will be lo.st, for fast- 

 spreading civilisation will soon make these customs a 

 matter of ancient history. 



Among the North Americanlndian tribes, there are seven 

 modes of burial, viz., by inliumation ; by emhalmment ; 

 by depositimi of remains in urns ; by surface burial (the 

 remains being placed in hollow trees or logs, pens, or 

 simply covered with earth, or bark, or rocks forming 

 cairns) : by cremation : by aerial stpuUure (the bodies 

 being left in lodges, houses, cabins, tents, deposited on 

 scaffolds or trees, in lioxes or canoes, sup|jorted on 

 scaffolds or posts, <ir placed on the ground), and by aquatic 

 burial beneath the water, or in canoes turned adrift, each 

 tribe follows its own course, according to the established 

 custom. The first form of burial, that is, of interment 

 in the ground, was customary among the Mohawks of 

 New York. Schoolcraft in his history of the Indian 

 tribes tells us that " the Mohawks of New York made a 

 large round hole in which the budy was placed upright, 

 or upon its haunches, after which it was covered with 

 timber, to support the earth which they lay over, and 

 thereby kept the body from being presse<l. They then 

 raised the earth in a round hill over it. They always 

 dressed the corpse in all its finery, and put wainpuiii and 

 other things into the grave with it : and the relations 

 suffered not grass nor any weed to grow upon the grave. 

 and frequently visited it and made lamentation.' * 



The same custom prevailed among the Indians formerly 

 inhabiting the Carolinas, but they placed the corpse in a 

 coffin made of woven reeds or hollow canes, tied fast at 

 both ends. After a time the body is taken up, the 

 bones cleaned and deposited in an ossuary, called the 

 Quiogozon.f 



The Creeks and Seminoles of Florida made the graves 

 of their dead as follows : — 



" When one of the family dies the relatives bury the 

 corpse about four feet deep in a round hole, directly 

 under the cabin or rock where he died. The corpse 

 is placed in the hole in a sitting posfnre, with a blanket 

 wrapped about it, and the legs bent under and tied to- 

 gether. If a warrior, he is painted, and his pipe, orna- 

 ment.s, and warlike appendages are deposited with him. 

 The grave is then covered with canes tied to a hoop 

 round the top of the hole, then a firm layer of clay, suffi- 

 cient to support the weight of a man. The relations 

 howl loudly and mourn publicly for four days. If the 

 deceased has been a man of eminent character, the family 

 immediately remove from the house in which he is 

 buried, and erect a new one, with a belief that where the 

 bones of their dead are deposited the place is always 

 attended by goblins and chimeras dire.'J 



The custom, of tying up the corpse likewise prevails 

 among the Yumanas of South America, who " bury their 

 dead bent double, with faces looking toward the heavenly 

 region of the sunrise, the home of their great good deity, 

 who they trust will take their souls with him to his 

 dwelling. On the other hand, the Peruvian custom was 

 to place the dead huddled up in a sitting posture, and 

 with face turned to the west."§ With regard to burying 

 in the ground, Tylor informs us that it is customary among 

 the Winnebagos of North America to bury a man 

 " sitting up to the breast in a hole in the ground, looking 

 westward ; or graves are dug east and west, and the 

 bodies laid in them with the head eastward, with the 

 motive that they may look towards the happy land in the 

 west."|| 



* Hist. Ind. Tribes of U.S., 18.53, Tt. Ill,, p. 103. 

 + First auDiial report of Bureau of Ethnology, 1879-80, p. 94, 

 Smithsonian Institution. 



I Sclioolcraft, " Hist. Ind. Tribes of U.S.," 185.5, Pt. V., p. 270, 

 <! Tylor, "Primitive Culture,'' vol. ii., p. 423. 

 |l Ibid., p. 422, vol. ii. 



