May 27, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



743 



several members. Some doubted the an- 

 tiquity of the pottery; others said the repre- 

 sentations were from a patient suffering 

 under a local disease called llaga. In sum- 

 ming up, Professor Virchow concluded that 

 the pottery was authentic and that the le- 

 sions shown were pathological, but that 

 whether from leprosy or some other disease 

 must be left for further investigation. 



THE THROWING- STICK IN AMEEICA. 



At the last meeting of the French Asso- 

 ciation for the Advancement of Science 

 Mr. Henri Michel brought sufficient evi- 

 dence from new finds to show that the 

 throwing- stick was in use in some parts of 

 Peru. He calls attention to the Eskimo 

 throwing- stick described by the traveler 

 Pinart as in use in the Kadiak Archi- 

 pelago, and also that found in very ancient 

 deposits in France. 



It is gratifying to see that, instead of 

 arguing that Peruvians, Eskimo and Cave- 

 men borrowed one from the other, he 

 pointed out that these are examples of in- 

 dependent invention. Evidently, it is not 

 surprising to come across it again in the 

 old village sites of Florida (Gushing), and 

 it is equally needless on this recurrence to 

 found any theory of the affinities of the 

 ancient key-dwellers. 



I may add that Mr. Michel is not the 

 first to observe the presence of the atlatl in 

 Peru. D. G. Brinton. 



Univeesity of Pennsylvania. 



NOTES ON INORGANIC CHEMISTRY. 

 The large quantities of compounds of the 

 the rare earths accumulated by the "Wels- 

 bach Light Company, at Gloucester, New 

 Jersey, under the direction of Mr. Waldron 

 Shapleigh has been alluded to in Science. 

 Of these earths none are rarer than neodym- 

 ium and praseodymium, the two elements 

 into which Auer von Welsbach separated 

 what had been previously considered the 



element didymium. It is pleasing to 

 chronicle that Mr. Shapleigh has put gen- 

 erous quantities of salts of each of these 

 elements in the hands of Professor Harry 

 C. Jones, of Johns Hopkins University, for 

 atomic weight determinations, and the re- 

 sults are published in the last American 

 Chemical Journal. More than two kilo- 

 grams of the ammonium neodymium nitrate, 

 and nearly as much praseodymium, were 

 used as the basis of a careful series of puri- 

 fications. Twelve determinations were 

 made with each metal, and the atomic 

 weight results are praseodymium = 140.45 

 and neodymium = 143.6. It is curious 

 that these results are almost the reverse of 

 those found by the discoverer, von Wels- 

 bach, 143.6 and 140.8, and almost suggests a 

 question as to whether the discrepancy does 

 not arise from a typographical error in von 

 Welsbach's work. From the fact that the 

 stable oxids are Prp, and Ndp, the higher 

 weight might be anticipated for neodymium, 

 but the placing of these elements in the 

 periodic system is yet a problem. 



In a recent voyage from the Cape of 

 Good Hope to England samples of water 

 were drawn daily from the ocean and 

 analyzed. The results are published by 

 C. J. S. Makin in the Chemical Neivs, and 

 compared with the results from the Chal- 

 lenger expedition. The average total solids 

 was 36.31 grams per thousand, the quan- 

 tity being slightly greater in the North 

 Atlantic than in the South, as was found 

 in the Challenger samples. In general the 

 results correspond to those of the Chal- 

 lenger, but the amount of sodium chlorid was 

 found slightly less (76.9 as against 77.76 

 parts per hundred of total salts), while the 

 amount of magnesium chlorid (11.4 to 

 10.88) and calcium sulfate (4.23 to 4.07) 

 was slightly greater. Free ammonia was 

 found 0.19 milligrams per liter ; am- 

 monium salts 0.36, and albumenoid am- 

 monia 0.56. J. L. H. 



