May 13, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



669 



Professor J. Dyneley Prince has a most 

 interesting article on the wampum records 

 ■which have been preserved among the 

 Passamaquoddy Indians. These symbols 

 were rendered to him in the native dialect 

 by a chief of the tribe, and this text is 

 given, together with a translation into Eng- 

 lish. The method of memorizing is stated 

 to have been that certain combinations of 

 the shell beads suggested certain sentences 

 or ideas. There were different varieties, 

 the one referring to marriage ceremonies, 

 another to funerals, to installations and the 

 like. Examples of several of these are sup- 

 plied. 



It does not seem that wampum-belts were 

 in use and Professor Prince did not find the 

 strings themselves. His article is one of 

 peculiar value on the still obscure subject 

 of the uses of wampum and the manner in 

 which it served mnemonic purposes. 



THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SCALP- LOCK. 



The last number of the Journal of the 

 Anthropological Institute contains an ar- 

 ticle by Miss Alice C. Fletcher on the sig- 

 nificance of the tuft of hair or scalp-lock 

 so common among the American Indians. 

 It is drawn from her study of the Omaha 

 tribe and their religious ceremonies. One 

 of the most solemn of these is that of the 

 first cutting of the hair of the children. 

 The meaning of this rite was some sort of 

 a consecration of the child to the God of 

 Thunder, who was spoken of as ' grand- 

 father.' The sign of the consecration was 

 the small lock of hair left on the crown of 

 the head and separately braided. It sj'm- 

 bolically represented the life of the man, 

 and from this arose the custom of scalp- 

 ing the enemy who was slain in battle, as 

 his life thus passed into the power of his 

 ■conqueror. 



D. G. Brinton. 



Univeesity of Pennsylvania. 



CURRENT NOTES ON BOTANY. 

 THE MORPHOLOGY OP GINKGO. 



The morphology of the Ginkgo has puzzled 

 botanists not a little, although on account 

 of its oddity the tree has been studied by a 

 good many investigators. Every botanist 

 is familiar with the naked stalks usually 

 bearing two ovules at the summit, which 

 have been regarded quite generally as axial 

 in nature. This is the view held by Eich- 

 ler in Die Naturlichen Pflanzenfamilien in 

 1887, and the genus is assigned to a place 

 in the Coniferae in accordance therewith. 

 Essentially the same view was held by 

 Sachs in his ' Text-Book,' Goebel in his 

 ' Outlines of Classification and Special Mor- 

 phology of Plants,' Strasburger in ' Coni- 

 feren und Gnetaceen,' as well as by syste- 

 matic botanists generally. On the other 

 hand, Van Tieghem in his 'Traite de Bota- 

 nique' (1891) regarded the ovule-bearing 

 stalks as foliar in nature. In a footnote in 

 my ' Botany for High Schools and Colleges ' 

 (1880) I wrote as follows: "The mor- 

 phology of the flowers of Ginkgo, as here 

 given, is by no means satisfactory. In- 

 stead of the ovules being borne upon naked 

 axes, it is probable that they are in reality 

 upon foliar organs, i. e., either upon modi- 

 fied leaves somewhat as in Cycas, or upon 

 elongated homologues of the ' scales ' of 

 Abies. Either interpretation would neces- 

 sitate a considerable change in the sys- 

 tematic arrangement of Taxinete." 



In the Botanical Marjazine (of Tokyo) for 

 February and March, 1896, Kenjiro Fujii 

 began a discussion of the views held re- 

 garding the morphology of the flowers of 

 Ginkgo, and completes his paper nine 

 months later by publishing the third in- 

 stallment in the number for December, 

 1896. The paper is accompanied by a plate 

 in which the foliar nature of the ovule- 

 bearing stalks is proved with the greatest 

 certainty. All gradations are shown from 

 the slightly modified leaf, through leaves 



