697 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Tools 

 Traditions 



and moved steadily in a continuous direc- 

 tion. RUSSELL Glaciers of North America, 

 int., p. 20. (G. &Co., 1897.) 



3449. TRACTS, DEFINITE, IN 

 BRAIN, FOR SPECIAL SERVICE Loss of 



the Power of Speech and of Writing Other 

 Faculties May Remain Unimpaired. Vic- 

 tims of motor aphasia generally have other 

 disorders. One which interests us in this 

 connection has been called agraphia: they 

 have lost the power to write. They can read 

 writing and understand it ; but either cannot 

 use the pen at all or make egregious mis- 

 takes with it. ... The symptom may 

 exist when there is little or no disability 

 in the hand for other uses. If it does not 

 get well, the patient usually . . . learns 

 to write with his left hand. In other cases 

 . . . the patient can write both spon- 

 taneously and at dictation, but cannot read 

 even what he has himself written ! All these 

 phenomena are now quite clearly explained 

 by separate brain-centers for the various 

 feelings and movements, and tracts for as- 

 sociating these together. JAMES Psychol- 

 ogy, vol. i, ch. 2, p. 40. (H. H. & Co., 1899.) 



3450. TRADE, PRIMITIVE, EVI- 

 DENCES OF Stone and Metal Bartered over 

 Thousands of Miles. Till 1884 no European 

 locality of jade or nephrite was known, and 

 tho it has now been discovered in Silesia, 

 and described by Traube, yet, as he points 

 out, the Eurepean implements do not be- 

 long to the same variety, and were not there- 

 fore derived from that locality . . . ; 

 they must therefore have passed from tribe 

 to tribe by a sort of barter. . . . 



Other facts of a similar nature are on 

 record. Thus Messrs. Squier and Davis tell 

 us that in the tumuli of the Mississippi Val- 

 ley we find " side by side, in the same 

 mounds, native copper from Lake Superior, 

 mica from the Alleghanies, shells from the 

 Gulf, and obsidian (perhaps porphyry) from 

 Mexico." Fair representations of the sea- 

 cow or manatee are found a thousand miles 

 from the shores inhabited by that animal, 

 and shells f the large tropical Pyrula per- 

 versa are met with in the tumuli round the 

 great lakes, two thousand miles from home. 

 AVERITRY Prehistoric Times, ch. 4, p. 76. 

 (A., 1900.) 



3451. TRADITION OFTEN A 

 TRUTHFUL MEMORIAL Chiefs Stone 

 Seat Found as Related A Treasured Staff 

 of Office. There are still peoples left whose 

 whole history is the tradition of their an- 

 cestors. Thus the South Sea Islanders, who 

 till quite lately had no writing, were in- 

 telligent barbarians, much given to handing 

 down recollections of bygone days, and in 

 one or two cases, which it has been possible 

 to test among them, it seems as tho memory 

 may really keep a historical record long 

 and correctly. It is related by Mr. Whit- 

 mee, the missionary, that in the island of 

 Rotuma there was a very old tree, under 



which, according to tradition, the stone seat 

 of a famous chief had been buried; this tree 

 was lately blown down, and, sure enough, 

 there was a stone seat under its roots, which 

 must have been out of sight for centuries. 

 In the Ellice group, the natives declared 

 that their ancestors came from a valley in 

 the distant island of Samoa generations be- 

 fore, and they preserved "an old worm-eaten 

 staff, pieced to hold it together, which in 

 their assemblies the orator held in his hand 

 as the sign of having the right to speak; 

 this staff was lately taken to Samoa, and 

 proved to be made of wood that grew there, 

 while the people of the valley in question 

 had a tradition of a great party going out 

 to sea exploring, who never came back. 

 TYLOR Anthropology, ch. 15, p. 374. (A., 

 1899.) 



3452. TRADITION, PERUVIAN, OF 



DELUGE Parallel to Story of Genesis. All 

 authentic accounts cease when we ascend 

 to the era of the conquest of Peru by the 

 Spaniards. The ancient Peruvians, altho 

 far removed from barbarism, were without 

 written annals, and therefore unable to pre- 

 serve a distinct recollection of a long series 

 of natural events. They had, however, ac- 

 cording to Antonio de Herrera, who, in the 

 beginning of the seventeenth century, inves- 

 tigated their antiquities, a tradition, " that 

 many years before the reign of the Incas, 

 at a time when the country was very popu- 

 lous, there happened a great flood; the sea 

 breaking out beyond its bounds, so that the 

 land was covered with water and all the 

 people perished. To this the Guacas, inhab- 

 iting the vale of Xausca, and the natives 

 of Chiquito, in the province of Callao, add 

 that some persons remained in the hollows 

 and caves of the highest mountains, who 

 again peopled the land. Others of the moun- 

 tain people affirm that all perished in the 

 deluge, only six persons being saved on a 

 float, from whom descended all the inhabit- 

 ants of that country." LYELL Principles of 

 Geology, bk. ii, ch. 29, p. 502. (A., 1854.) 



3453. TRADITION UNTRUSTWOR- 

 THY Tasman and De Soto Forgotten in Lands 

 They Discovered. Tradition [will not] sup- 

 ply the place of history. At best it is un- 

 trustworthy and short lived. Thus in 1770 

 the New Zealanders had no recollection of 

 Tasman's visit. Yet this took place in 1643, 

 less than 130 years before, and must have 

 been to them an event of the greatest pos- 

 sible importance and interest. In the same 

 way the North-American Indians soon lost 

 all tradition of De Soto's- expedition, altho 

 " by its striking incidents it was so well 

 suited to impress the Indian mind." AVE- 

 BURY Prehistoric Times, ch. 13, p. 404. (A., 

 1900.) 



3454. TRADITIONS OF ANCIENT 

 DELUGES China's Flood Perhaps a Local 

 Inundation. The great flood of the Chinese, 

 which their traditions carry back to the 



