56 
NATURE 

[Way 18, 1871 

AMERICAN NOTES 
THE annual meeting of the National Academy of Sciences was 
held on the 18th of April last in the rooms of the Smithsonian 
Institution, in Washington, and continued in session four days. 
A number of interesting communications were presented. A re- 
port was presen‘ed by the treasurer of the Academy in regard to 
the Bache bequest, in which it was stated that its present value 
was about 41,000 dols , invested at 6 per cent., and bringing an 
income of about 2,400 dols. a year. It may be remembered by 
some of our readers that Prof. A. D. Bache, the late head of the 
Coast Survey, left his property in trust to the National Academy 
of Sciences, after the death of Mrs. Bache, for purposes con- 
nected with the advance of science, appointing as special trustees 
Prof. Agassiz, Prof. Peirce, and Prof. Henry. The precise dis- 
position of this fund has not yet been determined upon, the 
bequest having fallen too recen‘ly into the hands of the society to 
make it necessary to come at once toa conclusion.—Uhe ship 
Onward arrived at New Bedford a few days ago, and her captain 
—Pulver—reports passing Sunday Island on the passage from 
Honululu, and states that the volcano near by, referred to ina 
previous number of Scientific Intelligence, was at that time three 
miles long, and from 300ft. to goot. high. The sulphurous 
vapours extended around to a distance of three to four miles. 
He thinks that when the volcano becomes quiet there will be 
a good harbour between it and the main land, where before there 
has been only an open roads ead. The island is in latitude 29° 
south, and in longitude 178° west. The statement of Captain 
Pulver, according to the New Bedford Stazdard, is corroborated 
by other witnesses. —An examination has recently been made by 
an officer of the United States army of an old pueblo situated 
about twenty-five miles from the town of Socorro, on the Rio 
Grande. The walls of the buildings of this pueblo are composed 
of thin sandstone, heaped one layerupon another without mortar, 
and without any traces of beams or timber of any kind. The 
edifices seem to have been but one story high, and to have con 
sisted of four separate buildings, arranged so as to form a hollow 
square with a fi'th a little outside of these. The longest range 
was over 200ft. in length, and the whole five contained about two 
hundred rooms. Near the pueblo extensive silver mines have 
recently been discovered, and a town is to be laid out during the 
present year, the material for the houses to be derived from the 
ruins. There are evidences of ancient workings of these 
mines in the form of shafts now entirely filled up with 
earth, although it is probable that these do not antedate the 
period of the occupation of the country by the Spaniards. 
—According to late advices from South America, an unusually 
brilliant electric phenomenon was visible from Tacna, on the 
coast of Peru, early in March of the present year, around the 
snowy peak of Tacora, lasting tor over two hours. The light- 
nings were of extraordinary shapes, and the thunders were of 
such intensity, and were heard over so wide an extent of country, 
as to completely terrify the population, unused to such exhibi- 
tions. This unwonted display was preceded by a slight shock of 
earthquake on the previous night.—According to the Comercio, 
of Lima, on the 12th of February, at Pitchican, an extraordinary 
meteor, of an oblong shape, and of a red colour, was seen to 
descend suddenly from the sky toward the earth ; and, as soon as 
it touched, an explosion occurred, leaving a dense cloud over 
the place, and knocking down a fence for about five hundred 
yards. Among the stones heaped around by this meteoric body 
were found recently dead fishes of different species, which 
were su posed 'o have been lifted out of the river and dashed 
against the stones.—!he cattle disease continues to spread 
throughcut South America, all efforts to resist its progress having 
been unavailing. At the present time it is very prevalent in the 
Southern provinces of Chili, and in the adjacent country.—The 
details of later advices from the Isthmus of Panama indicate the 
discovery of a rather low water-shed between the Atlantic and 
Pacific, on the Isthmus of Darien, although the feasibility of 
constructing a canal is, after all, by no means well-established. 
As far as the engineering possibilities are concerned, the chance 
seems to be much more favourable by way of Nicaragua, the re- 
sult of a late investigation by Mr. Sonnenstern, on behalf of the 
Nicaraguan Government, serving to show that a route of 220 
miles can be found connecting the two oceans, 196 of which is 
a ready constituted by the rivers and lakes of the country, leaving 
only twenty-four miles of land to be excavated, with a maximum 
elevation of not more than twenty-six feet. A slight drawback, 
however, to the value of this line is to be found in the fact, 
stated in the same paper, that the harbour of San Juan del 


Norte has been nearly filled up by asand-bar, entirely preventing | 
the entrance of vessels ! 


SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 
THE Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologie for the present quarter begins 
with a critical paper on ‘‘ Ethnological Classifications,” espe- 
cially those which rest on language. The writer comments on 
the arbitrary character of the division of languages into ‘isola- 
ting,” ‘‘agglutinating,” and ‘‘inflecting,” and contrasts the com- 
paratively exhaustive knowledge of animal types on which zoo- 
logical classifications depend, with the very scanty acquaintance 
which ethnologists possess of the great mass of languages beyond 
the Indo-European group. Exact knowledge of these latter highly 
complex and differentiated languages is, he argues, of very little 
use in tracing the origin and affinities of more primitive speech. 
It is suggested that peculiarities of language often depend on 
local chatacters of climate rather than on race. Thus, short 
words may be the result of a warm and lazy climate, like Siam, 
while, on the contrary, the chilly Indians of Athapascow 
take an athletic delight in cailing their feet ‘‘ choachastlsokai.” 
Many interesting examples are given of Dog-Latin, Pigeon-Eng- 
glish, Chinook-French, and other bastard varieties of civilised 
languages, which appear to be modified in a certain definite way 
according to climate and to race. Here is an example of Monks’ 
Latin of the date 1127. ‘* Donent illis in Dominicis diebus carnem 
Mottotinum (Mouton) 7 guartis fercis cicerones, cum lardo.” 
The second article in the same journal, by Franz Engel, is on 
the national types and races of Tropical America. It contains 
an interesting account of the habits and characters of the Spanish 
Americans, the Creoles, Negroes, and Indians, with the various 
cross-breeds among them. But there is little addition to our 
knowledge of their anatomical and physiological peculiarities, 
and the whole description is written in a diffuse and affected 
style, including in oae passage a very prosaic travestie of verses 
from ** Das Lied von der Glocke.” A much shorter but valu- 
able paper, by Adolf Hiibner, gives an account, with figures, of 
a great series of drawings he discovered on a flat slate rock 
in the Trans-Vaal Republic of South Africa. Indigenous wild 
animals of all kinds were, to judge from the specimens given, 
very fairly represented, with a few human figures, one holding a 
bow ; but no domestic animals were to be seen, nor was there 
any appearance of alphabetical or even picture-writing. The 
same writer gives also an account (with plans) of ancient Caffre 
fortifications in Mosalikatzi’s kingdom. 
In the Berlin Academy of Anthropology, &c., a sketch by Dr. 
HW. H. Hildebrand was exhibited (and is reproduced in the 
Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologie) of one of the urns with sculptured faces 
which have attracted so much attention in this Academy before. 
It was found in Cyprus. Other communications were on pile- 
dwellings in the Kuder See (Holstein), by L. Meyer; on an 
instrument of bone, about eight inches long, shaped like a knife- 
blade, and jagged along the edge, found in Mecklenburg, about 
fiiteen feet deep, and covered by ten feet of chalk ; on a burying- 
place in East Prussia, which proved by the utensils discovered in 
the graves to have been used by Romans ; on stone implements 
in East Greenland ; and on the ethnological characters of the 
Turcos of the French Army, for the study of which recent events 
have offered unusual facilities. Ata subsequent meeting of the 
Academy, Prof. Virchow read a paper onthe use of ¢idi@ and 
and other bones as skates in early times ; and Herr Jagor one on 
the discovery of kitchen middens in the Andaman Isles. : 
In a reprint from the Archeologia (vol. xii.) Prof. Rolleston 
gives an interesting account of his researches ina Roman-British 
cemetery at Frilford, near Abingdon. Superficial to the more 
ancient interments, which were mostly in coffins and belonged to 
Christian times, were found later remains of the Saxon Pagan 
period. The latter were placed promiscuously, the former with 
more or less orientation, and the fact that the direction of the 
grave usually deviates towards the south is ingeniously explained 
as due to the majority of deaths having taken place then, as now, 
in the winter quarter of the year, when the sun would rise south 
of the due east. From the character of the skulls, and the urns, 
weapons, nails, &c., found in the graves, various important con- 
clusions are drawn as to the social condition of this country 
during the obscure period between the departure of the Romans 
and the conversion of the Saxons ; and the whole paper is illus- 
trated by a curious and felicitous erudition which reminds the 
reader of the account of a Roman cemetery at Old Walsingham, 
given in the ‘‘ Hydriotaphia” of Sir Thomas Browne.” 
