January 6, 1899.] 



SCIENCE. 



37 



not be driven by clockwork if the time of the 

 appearance of the brightest meteors in the region 

 towards which the camera is directed is noted. 

 For then the exact positions of the comparison 

 stars iu their curved trails while the plate is 

 exposed is known. Amateur assistance in me- 

 teor photography is, therefore, valuable. ' Of 

 still greater value is the photographic record by 

 the larger instruments. Not only can the paths 

 of the meteors be located with accuracy and the 

 position of the radiant points determined, but 

 special characteristics of the trails may be 

 studied. Thus the Harvard Circular, No. 35, 

 mentions that the light attained a maximum 

 and then diminished as rapidly as it increased ; 

 that sudden changes due to explosions are well 

 shown ; that the trail is sometimes surrounded 

 by a sheath of light, and that in one case the 

 trail remained after the meteor had passed. 

 That these characteristics, which have been 

 noted visually heretofore, should now submit 

 to a permanent photographic record shows that 

 photography will have a large place in this 

 branch of astronomical study. 



chase's comet (J. 1S9S). 



The discovery of this comet on the plates 

 exposed at New Haven, on the radiant region 

 of the Leonids, is the most interesting episode 

 of the meteor observations. The photographic 

 brightness was estimated to be equal to a star 

 of the 11th magnitude, but it was much fainter 

 in a visual telescope. It was hoped that it 

 might be connected with the meteor stream, 

 but its orbit shows that it simply chanced to be 

 in that direction when observed. The pre- 

 liminary orbits thus far published are unusually 

 discordant, perhaps due to the combiuation of 

 the photographic and visual determinations of 

 position. 



STELLAR MOTIONS. 



Professor W. W. Campbell, of the Lick Ob- 

 servatory, in the publications of the Astronom- 

 ical Society of the Pacific, announces the rapid 

 movement towards us of two stars, ?? Cephei and 

 C Herculis. From four photographs of their 

 spectra he determines a relative velocity of 53.9 

 miles per second for the former and 43.7 for the 

 latter. Allowing for the motion of the solar 

 system, these figures are reduced to 46.0 miles 



per second and 33.5 miles per second respec- 

 tively. 



Winslow Upton. 

 Brown University, 



December 16, 1898. 



CURRENT NOTES ON ANTHROPOLOGY. 



THE AMERICAN HERO-MYTH. 



Two studies have lately appeared on the 

 widely diffused myth of the ' culture-hero ' in 

 America. The one is by the Count de Charen- 

 cey, on the legend of Huitzilopochtli, printed 

 in the Proceedings of the French Association for 

 the Advancement of Science, 1897 ; the other is 

 by Dr. Franz Boas, reprinted from the Memoirs 

 of the American Folk-lore Society, Vol. VI., 

 and treats of the Salish Raven Myth and others 

 from the Northwestern tribes. 



All these myths are strikingly alike in many 

 details, and botli these writers agree that ' it is 

 inconceivable that they originated independ- 

 ently.' Hence Dr. Boas claims that the various 

 raven and coyote tales have a common source ; 

 and with precisely the same and equally strong 

 arguments M. de Charencey shows that the 

 myths of the Mayas and Nahuas originated in 

 eastern Asia. 



To my thinking, not the similarities (for 

 these we should expect from the constitution of 

 the human mind), but the differences in such 

 myths are what should command our chief 

 attention. 



THE PRIMITIA'E SAVAGE. 



'Was primitive man a modern savage?' is 

 the question asked by Dr. Talcott Williams in 

 the Smithsonian Report, just issued, and an- 

 swered by him in a constructive negative. To 

 Dr. Williams, primitive man was a peaceful, 

 happy creature, knowing not war or cannibal- 

 ism, with a 'surprising primitive development, ' 

 which later on degenerated into civilization. 

 This early man enjoyed ' a juster conception of 

 the divine ' than his descendants. His gods 

 were peaceful, communication free, hospitality 

 open. " The earth was still empty and happy 

 and young." 



If Dr. Williams intends this as a pleasant, 

 humorous sketch, it \'?'ill pass; if a serious in- 

 ference from the ascertained facts of prehistoric 



