NATURE 



[May io, 1906 



ing, and is fully illustrated. Formulae for reagents, 

 stains, &c., then follow, after which certain types are 

 selected and full directions given for demonstrating 

 root, stem, floral, cell, and other structures. This 

 section is illustrated with twenty-three coloured plates 

 of the specimens, beautifully executed and with ample 

 descriptions. The author is to be congratulated on 

 the success which he has attained in the production of 

 this work. R. T. Hewlett. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



{The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions 

 expressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake 

 to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected 

 manuscripts intended for this or any other part of ^MVRE. 

 No notice is token of anonymous contmunications.\ 



The San Francisco Earthquake of April i8. 



This disastrous earthquake was remarkable for its long 

 duration and the rotatory character of the movement. As 

 observed at Mare Island the first sign was a very faint, 

 gentle rustling, the waves being the merest tremors ; but 

 after about a minute's duration they had grown to such 

 proportions as to be felt by everyone. The violent phase 

 lasted about forty seconds, and then the shocks died out, 

 the last feeble tremors vanishing about three and a half 

 minutes from the time of the first perception. The writer 

 was favourably situated for noting the slightest disturb- 

 ance, and had been awake some time before the first 

 tremors were felt, and he could see the clock face at the 

 beginning and end of the disturbance, which read about 

 jh. iim. and 5h. 14m. 30s. Two of the four astronomical 

 clocks at the Mare Island Observatory were stopped by 

 having their pendulums thrown upon the ledge which 

 carries the scale for measuring the amplitude of the swing. 

 The time of the violent oscillation thus automatically re- 

 corded was 5h. 12m. 37s., Pacific Standard Time, eight 

 hours slow of Greenwich. The waves were mainly from 

 the south and south-south-west, and they seemed to turn 

 to the west, giving the movement an elliptical, clockwise 

 rotation. The pendulums of the two clocks which kept 

 moving had their points rubbed against the swing index 

 of the ledge so violently that the metal of the index was 

 brightened by the friction of the pendulum points, and the 

 time thereby deranged more than twenty seconds. Except 

 for the disturbance of objects on the ground, the earth- 

 quake seemed to be essentially noiseless. Other slight 

 shocks have continued at irregular intervals for the past 

 five days. T. J. J. See. 



U.S. Naval Observatory, Mare Island, California, 

 April 23. 



Interpretation of Meteorological Records. 



I REGRET that, owing to absence from home, I have only 

 now seen Mr. Lander's letter in Nature of April 19 ; I 

 ha%'e to apologise for my inexcusable carelessness in writing 

 of the storm as being accompanied by rain in place of 

 snow and hail. However, accepting Mr. Lander's correc- 

 tion, it does not appear that the change will produce anv 

 alteration in the interpretation of the records, as it does 

 not matter whether the water fell in the liquid or the 

 solid state ; its presence in either form would check any 

 rise of temperature due to compression in the downward 

 moving air. Any difference in the effect of snow compared 

 with rain in producing a downward movement of the air 

 would be to make the current stronger, because the air 

 offers greater resistance to the fall of snow than to rain. 



It is very interesting to know that at the place where 

 Mr. Lander made his observations the barometer began 

 to rise before the first hail arrived. But if the interpret- 

 ation offered of the records be correct, this would only seem 

 to indicate that his place of observation was not directly 

 under the area where the storm began, and that the com- 

 pression produced by the falling hail and snow travelled 

 outwards and caused a rise in his barometer before the 

 storm cloud brought the hail to him. 



Baveno, Italy, May 7. John Aitken. 



NO. 1906, VOL. 74] 



w 



RECENT PUBLIC.iTIONS OF THE BUREAU 

 OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY.^ 

 E welcome the long-looked-for monograph on the 

 Halio ceremony of the Pawnee bv Miss Alice 

 C. Fletcher, the Thaw Fellow of Harvard University, 

 as upon her, so to speak, has fallen the mantle of 

 Gushing. Not only has she a long and intimate 

 acquaintance with certain tribes of the Plains Indians, 

 Ijut her affection for and sypipathy with the Indians 

 is so marked that the old and prominent natives have 

 confided to her their sacred lore ; and she was even able 

 to induce Tahirussawichi to come to Washington, he 

 being the keeper of the old and sacred objects, whose 

 life has been devoted to the acquisition and mainten- 

 ance of certain sacred rites. In 1898 he was taken to 

 the Capitol and the Library of Congress. While the 

 vastness and beauty of these structures gave him 

 pleasure, they did not appeal to him, for such build- 

 ings, he said, were unfitted to contain sacred symbols 

 of the religion of his ancestors, in the service of' which 

 he had spent his long life. He admired at a distance 

 the Washin£fton Monument, and when he visited it he 

 measured the base by pacing, but he would not go up, 

 saying, " I will not go up. The white man likes to 

 pile up stones, and he may go to the top of them ; I 

 will not. I have ascended the mountains made by 

 Tira'wa." 



The purpose of the ceremony was twofold : (i) to 

 benefit particular individuals by bringing to them the 

 promise of children, long life, and plenty; (2) to estab- 

 lish a bond of friendship and peace between two 

 distinct groups of people. It is intertribal, and not 

 only serves as a means for the interchange of ideas 

 through contact and through gifts, but represents one 

 of the many powerful agencies which, by spreading 

 tolerance and friendly feeling, tend to weld scattered 

 warlike bands of men into great, peaceful nations. A 

 desire for offspring was probably the original idea. 

 The ceremony is very old, and has been modified in 

 the process of time to adapt it to changed conditions 

 of environment. For example, the substitution of the 

 buffalo for the deer, and the transference of songs ; 

 thus one formerly sung while on a journey to the mesa 

 is now sung within the lodge. 



" Each ritual contains one general thought, which 

 is elaborated by songs and attendant acts. These 

 songs and acts are so closely related to the central 

 thought that one helps to keep the other in mind, and 

 they all form a sequence that, in the mind of the 

 Pawnee, can not logically be broken. The compact 

 structure of the Hako ceremony bears testimony to 

 the mental grasp of the people who formulated it. 

 .^s we note the balancing of the various parts, and 

 the steady progression from the opening song of the 

 first ritual to the closing prayer in the twentieth, and 

 recall the fact that the ceremony was constructed with- 

 out the steadying force of the written record, we 



1 "Hopi Katcinas." Drawn by Native Artists. By Jesse Walter 

 Fewkes. 



"Iroquoian Cosmology." First Part. By J. N. B. Hewitt. Twenty- 

 first Annual Report of the Bureau of .'American Ethmlogy. 1899-1900. 

 (Washington, 1901.) 



"Two Summers' Work in Puehlo Ruins." By Jesse Waller Fewkes. 



"Mayan CalenHar Systems, II." By Cyrus Thomas. Twenty.second 

 Annual Report. Part i., igoo-1901 (1904). 



"The Hako: a Pawnee Ceremony." By Alice C. Fletcher, assisted by 

 James R. Murie. Music transcribed by E. S. Tracy. //.,/. Part ii. 

 ( 1004I. 



"TheZuiii Indians; their Mythology, Esoteric Fraterniiies, and Cere- 

 monies." By Matilda Coxe Stevenson. Twenty-third AHnual Report, 

 1901-1902 (1904). 



" Mexican and Central .American Antiquities, Calendar Systems, and 

 History." Twenty-four Papers. By E. Seler, E. Forstmann, P. Schellhas, 

 C. Sapper, and E. P. Dieseldorff. Translated from the German under 

 the supervision of C. P. Bowditch. Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of 

 American Ethnology. Bulletin 28 (pp. 082). (Washington : Government 

 Printing Office. 1904.) 



" Haida Texts and Myths; Skidegate Dialect." Recorded by John R. 

 Swanton. ll'id. Bulletin 29, 1905. 



