B46: 0c a EN A TUR Tee ee 
sy he 
= 
man ; and before its ‘councils’ in the years 1844, 5, and 6, he 
read a number of papers on the Iroquois, which, under the nome 
de plume of ‘Skenandoah,’ were published, as letters addressed 
to Albert Gallatin, in Cotton’s American Quarterly Review, in 
1847. From this source they were reprinted by Neville B, 
Craig, of Pittsburgh, in his monthly Olden Time (1848), and 
five years ago once more saw the light in Robert Clarke and 
Co.’s reprint of the latter periodical. This work at once put 
Mr. Morgan in the front rank of Indian authorities, A profes- 
sional visit to Lake Superior led him to observe an animal closely — 
associated with the aborigines, and toward the close of 1867 he 
produced the ‘American Beaver and his Works,’ an exhaustive 
but highly readable monograph, in which, to use the words of 
the late Jeffries Wyman (Nation, February 27, 1868), Mr. Mor- 
gan, ‘with a zeal and patience worthy of Réaumur, the Hubers, 
or of Darwin, re-examined the whole subject and largely in- 
creased our knowledge,’ and which ‘justly entitled him to an 
honourable place in the higher ranks of original observers.’ The 
year following, in an article on the ‘Seven Cities of Cibola,” 
in the Worth American Review (April, 1869), he struck a blow | 
at the whole fabric of the theory of Indian civilisation handed 
down by the Spaniards and embalmed by Prescott, and laid the 
foundations of the prevailing conception of the meaning of that 
communal architecture which was for centuries regarded as royal 
and palatial. In 1873 appeared among the Smithsonian Insti- 
tution’s Contributions to Science a quarto volume of 700 pages, 
entitled ‘Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human 
Family.’ This was the first fruit of Mr. Morgan’s discovery, 
while on his excursion to Lake Superior, that the system of 
marriage and relationship in the Six Nations was that of the 
American Indians generally, and his subsequent reflection that 
he had encountered a fundamental fact in the development of 
humen society. He afterward resumed the whole question in a 
popular manner in his ‘ Ancient Society ; or, Researches in the 
Line of Human Progress of Savagery through Barbarism into 
Civilisation.” His last work was among the pueblos of New ~ 
Mexico, from the study of which he concluded that the Mound- 
builders were village Indians of New Mexican origin, and that 
the mounds were the platforms for their long wooden communal’ 
houses. These conclusions were published in the first report of 
fourth of the ultimate strength of the steel used in con- 
struction. The steel used in compression will be consi- 
derably stronger and harder than the more ductile 
material used for the parts in tension. 
Facility of erection has necessarily been one of the 
most important governing elements in the design of the 
Forth Bridge. With 200 feet depth of water, scaffolding 
is of course out of the question, and the only practicable 
way of erecting the great girders is by commencing the 
work at each pier and adding successive bays of struts, 
ties, and bracing on either side, until the whole structure 
is complete. This mode of erection, technically known 
as ‘erection by overhang,’’ is that which has been suc- 
cessfully adopted in the two largest railway bridges yet 
constructed, namely, the St. Louis Bridge across the 
Mississippi, of 525 feet span, and the Douro Bridge, of 
the same span, near Lisbon. The great advantage and 
security of erection by overhang in a case like the Forth 
Bridge is that every piece of the work is finished and 
securely braced against storms before another length is 
commenced. When the bridge is partially finished it will 
at the distance present much the appearance of three 
huge birds perched with outspread wings on as many 
rocks. The distance between the tips of the wings will 
be represented by that between the ends of the canti- 
levers, or say, 1500 feet. It might be thought that this 
would be a critical stage of the erection, but it is not so, 
as the work is so designed that if a hurricane of 56 lbs. 
per square foot were to strike one wing whilst the other 
remained becalmed the cantilevers would not spin round 
like a weathercock, but remain perfectly stable and 
secure. 
We understand that the Board of Trade have signified 
their approval of the design and cf the provisions made 
by the engineers as regards strains and wind pressures. 
. 
NOTES 
THE last work of the late Mr. H. C. Watson on the distribution 
of British plants was his ‘‘ Topographical Botany,” published in 
1873-4, in which he traced the dispersion of each species through 
the 112 vice-counties of Britain which he adopted. Of this book 
only roo copies were printed for private circulation, and these 
Bee Perey byte pao eee Re a wa the Archzological Institute of America (1880). On his death- 
a Iarge amount of new material has been accumulated, principally a= ; ‘ 4 Aes 
z : bed he received his very latest printed work, ‘ Houses and 
through the exertions of the members of the Botanical Record é ies Aborisines? publisher sitene 
Club, and at the time of his death, last autumn, Mr. Watson House Life of the ee : bela ae oe Ad 
was engaged in the preparation of a new edition, This he did Bureau of Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution. 
not live to complete as regards its prefatory and explanatory WE regret to annource the death, at the age of seventy-one 
portions, but he had kept an interleaved copy in which he regu- | years, of Prof. J. W. Draper, of New York. We hope next 
larly entered up every record of any plant in a new district that | week to give some account of his varied work in science. The 
was brought to his notice. At his own special request this was | death of Mr. Binney, of Manchester, is alo announced, and of 
deposited with his herbarium at Kew, and from this it is now | him also next week we shall give a brief memoir. 
proposed to prepare a second edition of the book, which Mr. 
Quaritch has undertaken to publish, and Mr. J. G. Baker, of the 
Royal Gardens, and the Rev. W. W. Newbould to make ready 
for the press, 
THE scientific circle in Dublin has sustained a great and a 
deeply felt loss by the sudden and premature death of Dr. 
Reuben J. Harvey. Reuben J. Harvey was born in 1845; he 
; - was the son of a well known physician in Cork, still living, and 
THE New York Nation announces the death of Mr. Lewis H. | for many years one of the most distinguished professors im 
Morgan at Rochester, N.Y., on December 17, after a brief ill- | the Queen's College of that city. He entered Trinity College, 
ness following a long period of delicate health. ‘* With reference | Dublin, in 1863, obtaining a non-foundation scholarship im 
to our pre-Columbian antiquities,” the Vadion states, ‘‘he might | science in 1866; he graduated as a senior gold medallist (Mathe- 
for some time past have been called the Nestor of Indian ethno- | matical Tripos) in 1867. Entering the medical school of the 
logists. A native of Western New York, he early became | University of Dublin he obtained the first medical scholarship in 
interested in the neighbouring remnant of the once mighty Six | 1868, and graduated as M.B. in 1870, He completed his studies 
Nations, and gained a thorough insight into the political and | in the schools of Vienna and Wiirzburg; at one time he was a 
military constitution of the Covfederacy, its manners and cus- | demonstrator in anatomy in the Dublin University School ; of late 
toms, and above all its curious system of tribal intermarriages. | years he was Professor of Physiology in the Carmichael School 
Together with some kindred inquiring spirits he instituted, at | of Medicine, and one of the physicians of the Cork Street Fever 
the age of twenty-five, an Order, or ‘New Confederacy’ of | Hospital. In the pursuit of his professional duties he was taken 
the Iroquois—a sort of antiquarian society, having as a sub- | ill of typhus fever on the 24th of December last, of which he 
sidiary aim the promotion of a kindlier feeling toward the red | died on the 28th of the same month. His sterling qualities 
