190 



NA TURE 



[August 5, 1922 



Research Items. 



The Kwakiutl Indians. — The report of the 

 Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and 

 Ethnology, at Harvard University, for 1920-192 1, 

 published in 1922, records the results of many 

 expeditions. The one of chief interest to British 

 readers is a visit to the Kwakiutl Indians of British 

 Columbia, made by Dr. C. F. Nevvcombe, to look 

 for the few remaining house-posts or other large 

 carvings of those Indians. From Kalukwis village 

 on Tournour Id. he secured two fine house-posts, 

 about sixteen feet high and nearly four feet across. 

 Each is carved with figures representing the speaker 

 of the chief and the ancestral grizzly bear who was 

 friendly to the founder of the family, giving him 

 rights to certain dances, and teaching him the use 

 of the appropriate masks. These carvings are now 

 on exhibition, and a house group of Kwakiutls has 

 been added to the fourteen previously illustrating 

 the home life of the American Indians. A new Hall 

 of North American Ethnology was opened to the 

 public in September 1920, but it needs more cases 

 before the collections can be finally arranged. With 

 the reduction in the price of plate glass, it is hoped 

 that these cases will soon be added. 



The Ethnology of Scandinavia. — Prof. H. F. 

 Osborn contributes to Natural History of April last 

 (vol. xxii. No. 2) an article entitled " Our Ancestors 

 arrive in Scandinavia," in which, with good illustra- 

 tions, he sums up the latest conclusions on its archae- 

 ology. From the chronological table he argues that 

 " it becomes apparent that what the far-distant 

 north-west was to our American pioneers, what 

 Ultima Thule was to ancient historic times, such 

 was Scandinavia to the people of the Mediterranean 

 borders. In the course of thousands of years imple- 

 ments, symbols, and inventions — useful, religious, or 

 artistic — slowly found their way westward and north- 

 ward, from Eastern Asia to Sweden, a distance which, 

 thanks to the telephone, is to-day spanned in a few 

 seconds. For example, copper is said to have been 

 used at Anau, Turkestan, about 4000 B.C., and first 

 appears in Sweden 1500 years later — namely, 2500 

 B.C. The Age of Bronze, which was in full sway in 

 Egypt and Chaldea by 3000 B.C., makes its first 

 appearance in Sweden eight hundred years later. 

 Thus within a period of eight thousand years our 

 ancestors arrived in Scandinavia and passed through 

 a long hunting stage of evolution with only flint 

 implements ; through all the Neolithic phases ; through 

 a superb development both of the art of flint and of 

 bronze ; into the culminating period of the Age 

 of Iron." 



The Forging of Finger-prints. — It is disconcert- 

 ing to learn from an article by Mr. JVC. Goodwin in 

 the third number of the new publication, Dactylo- 

 graphy, that the practice of forging finger-prints is 

 increasing and will soon become a problem for New 

 Scotland Yard. The criminal must first obtain 

 specimens of the prints of the dupe on whom he 

 intends that suspicion should fall. This he does by 

 arranging that the dupe leaves his prints on a glass, 

 or on a polished piece of furniture, after which the 

 prints are photographed. One method of forging 

 involves the use of a rubber stamp, where a facsimile 

 of the original is reproduced on the rubber by means 

 of transfer paper, and the surrounding rubber deftly 

 pared aw^ay with a sharp knife. The second method 

 is to take a negative cast of the finger to be forged 

 by pressing it into a mould of soft wax, plaster of 

 Paris, clay, or even bread. A third process involves 



NO. 2753, VOL. I IO] 



photographing a photograph of the prints to be forged 

 on a reversed plate, which is clamped to a duplicate 

 plate made of gelatine mixed with bichromate of 

 potassium. The two are exposed to the light, with 

 the photographic negative nearer to the light, and 

 the sensitised surface touching the gelatine. 



Fossil Fish from Southern Italy. — Prof. 

 Geremia D'Erasmo describes and figures in the 

 Rendiconto dell' Accademia delle Scienze, Napoli 

 (Ser. III., vol. xxviii.), some fossil fish from southern 

 Italy. They comprise an almost complete Picno- 

 dont (Ccelodus costati, Heckel) from the cenomanian 

 beds of Alessano, province of Lecce, where examples 

 of this group are scarce ; a Leptolepis from the 

 cretaceous of Roccadevandro, province of Caserta ; 

 as well as a Seriola, a Thynnus, two species of Clupea, 

 and a Pelamys from the pleistocene strata of Taranto. 



Redescription of an Eocene Lizard. — Dis- 

 covered and described fifty years ago, the remains of 

 Saniwa ensidens, Leidy, from the Bridger deposits 

 (Eocene) of Wyoming, have only recently been 

 properly developed from the matrix. The unusual 

 perfectness of the skeletal remains thus revealed have 

 justified their redescription by Mr. C. W. Gilmore 

 (Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus., vol. lx.). The fossil proves to 

 be a true member of the family Varanida?. which 

 therefore contains the genus Varanus, largely made 

 up of living species of lizards, and the genus Saniwa, 

 whi( h now includes six or more extinct species, since 

 Marsh's Thinosaurus is considered by the author as 

 congeneric with Saniwa. 



Owl from the Eocene of Wyoming. — A fragment 

 of a humerus and two vertebra? from the Bridger 

 deposits of Wyoming were referred in 1873 by Dr.. 

 J. Leidy to a lizard which he named Saniwa major. 

 The humerus is now shown by Mr. A. Wetmore 

 (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci., Philadelphia, vol. lxxiii.) 

 to be avian and to represent an owl of the family 

 Bubonidas, similar in size to Pulsatrix perspicillata, 

 Latham. It does not resemble closely any existing 

 genus of modern North American owls, but in a way 

 combines characters pertaining to several. The 

 author assigns it tentatively to Shufeldt's genus 

 Minerva under the new trivial name of M. saurodosis, 

 but admits that that genus, founded on a claw at 

 first referred to Aquila, although from the same 

 formation and district, may yet prove to be an 

 incorrect receptacle for the new species. 



Systematic Botany. — The forty-seven articles of 

 the latest volume of the Kew Bulletin (Bulletin of Mis- 

 cellaneous Information, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 

 1 92 1 ; 105. net) are an index of the activities of the 

 Royal Gardens. They are mainly of systematic interest, 

 including revisions of genera, descriptions of novelties, 

 and notes on plants of botanical or economical import- 

 ance. A point of general interest which emerges is the 

 indication of the great amount of work which remains 

 to be done before we can have an accurate knowledge 

 of the constituents of the floras of the different parts 

 of the world. The revision of the Stipa grasses of 

 Australia (by Miss D. K. Hughes) indicates 40 

 distinct forms in place of the 15 hitherto recognised ; 

 it also bears out the common experience, that variation 

 in anatomical structure of the leaf-blade of grasses 

 does not run parallel with the characters of leaf and 

 flower from which we infer their relationships. The 

 incomplete state of our knowledge of the Central 

 American forest flora is well illustrated by a revision 

 of the genus Belotia, and of the family Tiliaceae, in 

 which T. A. Sprague distinguishes eleven species, an 

 increase of six on the number hitherto recognised. 



