302 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLV. No. 1161 



sterdam. In no week did the births in Leipzig 

 approach within 100 those in Amsterdam. 

 Dresden, with a population of 579,536, com- 

 pared with Amsterdam's 626,470, had in the 

 first of the weeks mentioned 118 births com- 

 pared with 255 in Amsterdam, the deaths in 

 that week being exactly the same — namely, 

 126. The highest number of births in Dresden 

 in the weeks mentioned was 142 and the low- 

 est number of deaths 103, while the highest 

 number of deaths was 198. 



ANCIENT DWELLINGS IN NAVAHO NATIONAL 

 MONUMENT, ARIZONA 



Me. Neil M. Judd, of the United States Na- 

 tional Museum, has left for Arizona to super- 

 vise for the Smithsonian Institution the ex- 

 cavation and repair of prehistoric ruins and 

 cliif dwellings. The work will be carried on 

 imder a provision in the Indian Appropria- 

 tion Act, Interior Department, for the preser- 

 vation and repair of the remains of ancient 

 dwelling places of certain American aborigines 

 in the ISTavaho National Monument. 



According to a bulletin of the Smithsonian 

 Institution the Navaho National Monument 

 comprises three large ruins located in the 

 northern part of the Navaho Eeservation, in 

 Arizona, about 175 miles by trail north of 

 Flagstaff. There is a road for about a third 

 of the way, but there is little traffic from its 

 termination to the Navaho Monument. From 

 there the way is difficult to travel also on ac- 

 count of the scarcity of water in the desert to 

 be crossed, the lack of opportunity to pur- 

 chase supplies, and the steepness of the ascent 

 near the monument which is truly in the 

 " High Eocks," as the Hopi designate the loca- 

 tion of their former home. 



The trip requires about five days, but the 

 route is an interesting one, for it passes 

 through Painted Desert, a picturesque coimtry 

 especially attractive on account of the native 

 legends and descriptions relating to the sur- 

 roundings. Superstition Mountain, for ex- 

 ample, where, so the Navaho stories relate, 

 fires are to be seen on dark nights, recalls the 

 old Snake legend which claims that all this 

 country once belonged to the Fire God, and 

 that they inherited it from him. In the olden 



days, so they relate, the inhabitants used to 

 see lights moving aroimd the mesas. Journey- 

 ing over the recent lava beds and cinder plains 

 to-day, it is easy for the traveller to accept 

 the story of the early proprietorship of this 

 burnt-out country, and attribute the fires seen 

 there to volcanic eruptions and the glowing 

 lava of years ago, which is quite enough to 

 substantiate the legend. Among the fantas- 

 tically eroded rocks, forming natural sculp- 

 tures along the trail, are Elephant Legs, and 

 White Mesa Natural Bridge, which lend in- 

 terest en route to the Monument, as does also 

 the Indian Village where still dwell descend- 

 ants of the early inhabitants. 



The ancient pueblo and cliff dwellings were 

 first scientifically examined in 1908, by a party 

 of which Mr. Judd was a member, led by Pro- 

 fessor Byron Cummings, formerly of the Uni- 

 versity of Utah and now of the University of 

 Arizona. They are supposed to be the ruins 

 of dwellings made by the Snake people whose 

 descendants live to-day in Hopi villages in 

 northeastern Arizona. Some of the houses 

 built in the cliffs are very large, measuring 

 several hundred feet in length and include as 

 many as a hundred rooms. Naturally, some 

 of the original rooms are buried in fallen 

 debris but their excavation and repair is to be 

 carried out between now and the end of June, 

 by Mr. Judd and his party. 



The only human beings living in the neigh- 

 borhood of these ruins is an Indian trader, and 

 a few Navahos who are very superstitious. 

 None of them will dig in the ruins fearing to 

 evoke the wrath of the spirits of the dead, so 

 Mr. Judd will be forced to engage white labor- 

 ers at Flagstaff, probably six in number and 

 a cook, relying on the native Navahos only 

 for trail-making and the transportation of his 

 supplies and building materials to the ruin 

 where the work is to be done. 



THE INDIAN SCIENCE CONGRESS 



From an account in The Englishman, Cal- 

 cutta, we learn that the fourth annual meeting 

 of the Indian Science Congress opened on 

 January 10 in Bangalore. A large and dis- 

 tinguished gathering of scientific men from 



