338 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IX. No. 218. 



mind-s of many chemists to the necessity of 

 broader views of chemical compounds ; it has 

 stimulated many chemists to fuller investiga- 

 tions in the inorganic field, and it has led at 

 the hands of the two leaders to a vast enrich- 

 ment of our chemical knowledge of large classes 

 of compounds. We may add that for the most 

 part it has been conducted in the best spirit. 

 In the Trans-Caucasian region, from the 

 Black Sea to the Caspian, are scattered many 

 mud volcanoes, both in the naphtha regions 

 and elsewhere. lu the Zeitschrifl fur anorgan- 

 ische Chemie, P. Melikoff describes the analyses 

 of the products of one of these mud volcanoes, 

 that of Achtala. The principal ingredients of 

 the water are salt and soda. The solid matter 

 is chiefly a plastic clay, with fine grains of cal- 

 cite, feldspar and quartz. The greater part of 

 the paper is a discussion of the origin of the 

 soda and of sodium carbonate deposits and 

 ■waters in general. The experiments of the au- 

 thor show that in the presence of ferric or 

 aluminum hydroxid, as well as of colloidal 

 substances and zeolites of the soil, sodium sul- 

 fate and calcium bicarbonate react readily with 

 formation of sodium carbonate, and the same is 

 true of sodium chlorid and calcium bicarbonate. 

 The hydroxid present, and in soils the col- 

 loidal substances, hold the reaction products 

 with different degrees of firmness, preventing 

 reverse reactions and allowing in natural leach- 

 ing process the separation of these products. 

 Thus in the latter reaction the ferric hydroxid 

 has a greater capacity for absorbing soda than 

 for calcium chlorid, hence the latter is first re- 

 moved by washing, and the later wash waters 

 contain largely soda. Similar reactions take place 

 in the presence of ammonium carbonate, which 

 is present in most soils. Thus the natural soda 

 formation is attributable to the interaction of 

 salt or sodium sulfate, on the carbonates dis- 

 solved in natural waters in the presence of the 



soil. 



J. L. H. 



CURRENT NOTES ON ANTHROPOLOGY. 



LINGUISTICS OF THE CHACO. 



The very few students of South American 

 languages may be interested to learn that in 

 the ' Proceedings ' of the American Philosoph- 



ical Society for October, 1S9S, I have published 

 a paper of thirty pages, together with a lin- 

 guistic map, on the languages of the Chaco 

 region, embracing portions of the Argentine 

 Republic, Paraguay, Brazil and Bolivia. The 

 map covers the area from lat. 20° to 30° south, 

 and long. 56° to 66° west from Greenwich. In 

 this area the colors define the extensions of nine 

 linguistic stocks, based on the most recent in- 

 vestigations. Especial interest attaches to the 

 newly-found Eunima stock, first recognized as 

 such by Guido Boggiari in 1895, although vocab- 

 ularies of it had been printed before that date. 

 While this paper does not solve all the prob- 

 lems of the Chaco tongues, it certainly dimin- 

 ishes their number. 



THE CRANIOLOGY OF CRIMINALS. 



What are the differences between the skulls 

 of criminals and those of ' respectable people ' ? 

 This is the question which M. E. Pitard under- 

 took to solve by comparing the crania of fifty- 

 one convicts who had died in the penal colony 

 of New Caledonia, with the average crania of 

 the citizens of Paris. Practically, there turned 

 out to be no constant difference at all, unless it 

 was that the vertical index of the criminal skulls 

 was slightly higher ; in other words, the con- 

 victs were ' brainier ' than the good folks. There 

 was also the same amount of variation in the 

 heads of the criminals. Some were long, others 

 broad-skulled ; some had a notably large, others 

 a small cubical capacity; these variations run- 

 ning parallel to those of the general population. 

 M. Pitard's article, with abundant data, is in 

 the Bulletin of the Anthropological Society of 

 Paris, 1898, Ease. 3. 



THE FOLK-LORE OF THE FJORT. 



This is the title of the latest volume issued 

 by the Folklore Society of Great Britain. It is 

 written by E. E. Dennett ^d edited by Miss 

 Mary H. Kingsley. The ' Fjort ' is the name 

 applied to the negro tribes of the French 

 Congo, who once formed the great native king- 

 dom of Congo. The volume is much more 

 than a collection of folk tales. Miss Kingsley 

 in the introduction and the author in his com- 

 mentary and notes furnish fresh and valuable 

 information on the religious beliefs, marriage 

 and burial customs and mode of life of these 



