January 10, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



77 



the sectional committee for five years and Pro- 

 fessor T. F. Focke member of the general com- 

 mittee. On recommendation of the sectional com- 

 mittee Professor Frank Schlesinger, director of 

 the Allegheny Observatory, was elected vice-presi- 

 dent and chairman of the section, and Professor 

 F. B. Moulton, University of Chicago, was elected 

 secretary for five years. G. A. Millek, 



Secretary of Section A 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 



THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 



A SPECIAL meeting of the society was held 

 December 3, 1912, at 4:30 p.m., in the New 

 Museum Building, Mr. Stetson, the president, in 

 the chair. 



Mr. Wm. H. Babcock read a paper on ' ' The 

 Islands of Antillia, " illustrated by lantern slide 

 maps, taking the title of his paper from Peter 

 Martyr 's ' ' Decades of the New World, ' ' where 

 that author, in view of ' ' the cosmographers, ' ' 

 states that he believes these islands were what his 

 contemporary, Columbus, had discovered. Peter 

 Martyr's own sketch map of 1511 was exhibited, 

 showing Florida as one of them under the name 

 of Beimeni: also the maps of Beccaria, Bianco, 

 Pareto and Benincasa, from 1435 to 14S2, who 

 may be among ' ' the cosmographers ' ' referred to. 

 They show a group of four large islands roughly 

 corresponding in size, arrangement and other re- 

 spects with Cuba, Jamaica, Florida or Beimeni 

 and Andros of the Bahamas, and bear on Bec- 

 caria 's map the names Antillia, Eeylla, Salvagio 

 and Insula in Mar (Opposite Island or Island out 

 Before, King Island, Savage Island and Island 

 in the Sea). These are nearly as far west of the 

 Azores as the latter are west of Europe and in 

 such a location must be either the creatures of 

 mere fancy or appurtenances of America. But it 

 is not likely that mere guess-work could produce 

 the remarkable correspondences of these great map 

 islands with the reality, such an island group being 

 altogether unique in the Atlantic. 



Behaim's globe of 1492 contains an inscription 

 to the effect that a Spanish vessel visited Antillia 

 in 1414, more vaguely endorsed by another on 

 the map of Euysch (1508) which credits the 

 Spaniards with finding Antillia long ago. That 

 something of the kind happened in the first quarter 

 of the fifteenth century may be inferred from the 

 fact that Beccaria (1535) names the group col- 

 lectively "The Newly Eeported Islands," most 

 likely borrowing this title legend from his earlier 



map of 1426, although the fourteenth-century 

 maps had contained no suggestion of Antillia and 

 her consorts. 



Tlie other fifteenth-century maps named cor- 

 roborate Beccaria, being very consistent in out- 

 line and arrangement so far as they go, although 

 two of them give but three islands and Bianco 

 shows only Antillia and a part of Salvagio, which 

 he calls La Man de Satanaxio, but this last seems 

 to be a case of mutilation. However, the Laon 

 globe of 1493 shows only these two main (rect- 

 angular) islands. 



A current map showed how naturally any craft 

 entering and continuing in the great-sea-current 

 which sweeps from the Azores and the other 

 eastern islands westward to the Antilles would be 

 carried to Cuba and her neighbors. 



The Catalan map of 1375 and the Pizigani map 

 of 1367 with its picture of St. Brandan blessing 

 his Fortunate Islands of Porto Santo and Madeira, 

 and the figures of a dragon and a dentapod, each 

 carrying off a seaman from his ship as a warning 

 against westward exploration, were also exhibited. 

 They show the circular island of Brazil west of 

 Ireland and the more southerly crescent-form Man 

 or Brazir, both being important and persistent 

 legendary islands : and the Catalan map in par- 

 ticular shows all the Azores approximately in their 

 real grouping; but neither of them presents any- 

 thing like the Islands of Antillia. 



Dr. Philip Newton read a paper on the Negri- 

 toes of the Philippines, estimating their total 

 number (full bloods) at 5,000, though by counting 

 mixed-blood tribes and individuals the estimate is 

 sometimes carried up to 25,000. They are dis- 

 tributed through numerous islands, though not 

 reported from Mindoro. The greater number are 

 on Luzon. There is no difference in them, except 

 as their blood is mingled with that of neighboring 

 races. They are not fishermen, but hunt and 

 gather natural products, using in some districts 

 poisoned arrows, the symptoms of poisoning being 

 like those of strychnine. Their houses are made 

 of upright poles connected by horizontal poles 

 having cross pieces and leaf thatching. They are 

 buried under or near these homes. They rarely 

 bathe and their clothes (which are breech-clouts 

 or aprons) are apparently never washed. Usually 

 these are of cloth obtained in trade, but in some 

 islands, for example Palawan, bark is used. 

 Negritoes do not regularly practise agriculture, 

 but will sometimes plant rice — and perhaps move 

 away before it ripens. A skin disease is the most 



