Decembee 20, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



857 



and Liebig, setting forth the state of our knowl- 

 edge of the subject at the time of taking uj) his 

 own study of it, and showing the tendency of 

 professional opinion to the effect that a very 

 close relation exists between the proteids of 

 seeds and those of the animal system. The re- 

 sults of Dr. Osborne's work show the fallacy, 

 except in a general way, of this opinion, and 

 set forth the reasons why it cannot be accepted. 



He takes up the proteids of the seeds in sys- 

 tematic order, beginning with the most soluble, 

 and discusses the pertoues, proteoses, albumins, 

 globulins, glutinoids, alkali-soluble proteids, 

 -and neucleo-albumin and nuclein. He separates 

 these substances by means of solvents such as 

 alcohol, strong and dilute, salt solutions, weak 

 alkali solutions, and precipitating them from 

 the solutions by various reagents, obtains them 

 in forms in which they may be studied. The 

 results he has secured in this way are of the 

 highest interest and value to the history of this 

 •class of bodies. 



The third and last paper on the program 

 was that of Dr. J. H. Wainwright, of the United 

 States Laboratory, in this city, on ' The Deter- 

 mination of Solid Fats in Artificial Mixtures of 

 Vegetable and Animal Fats.' His method con- 

 .sists in subjecting the mixture to pressure at 

 the ordinary temperature of the laboratory, 

 about 70° F. Much lower or much higher tem- 

 peratures he finds detrimental to accuracy, as 

 at 60° considerable of the higher melting point 

 •constituents are retained, while at 80° F. and 

 above much of the low melting point constitu- 

 •ent is removed. The method was devised par- 

 ticularly for the separation of compound lards 

 •containing cotton-seed oil, lard and stearine, 

 with the special object of determining the per- 

 centage of oleo-stearine, which, in the presence 

 of lard, could not be satisfactorily done by the 

 ordinary methods where the information was 

 obtained from the iodine number and other 

 constants. Results were obtainable by this 

 method within 1 per cent. , but at present, until 

 further investigated, the author allowed IJ- per 

 cent, either way, or a total error limit of 3 per 

 <;ent. in reporting results. 



The General Secretary called attention to the 

 time and place of the next and twelfth general 

 meeting of the Society, which will take place 



on the 30th and 31st of this month at Cleve- 

 land, Ohio, and at which an unusually interest- 

 ing and valuable program will be presented. 

 The next meeting of the New York section 

 will be on the 10th of January. 



DuEAND Woodman, 



Secretary. 



THE ANTHEOPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASH- 

 INGTON. 



The regular meeting of the Society was held 

 on Tuesday evening, December 3d. 



Dr. Otis T. Mason read a paper on the ' In- 

 fluence of Iron Upon Native American Arts,' 

 of which the following is an abstract : 



Aboriginally the manufacture of iron was un- 

 known upon the American continent. The 

 native races, after receiving it, treated it as stone 

 and worked it cold; they have nowhere become 

 skillful in the use of it. 



The term ' native American arts, ' in common 

 parlance, is ambiguous, now signifying all that 

 the aboriginal tribes do and all that is collected 

 fi'om them; at anotlier time it is made to mea^n 

 only that part of their activities which they had 

 in pre-Columbian times; at still another time 

 the term is restricted to what the peoples of the 

 "Western Hemisphere themselves originated. 



To get at the last two, there must be carefully 

 eliminated everything added and suggested by 

 the intrusion of the Iron Age, and everything 

 must be restored that was crowded out, and 

 supplanted by iron and its productions. 



This elimination can be intelligently made 

 only by knowing intimately what each intrud- 

 ing people had to bring, and really did bring. 

 The history of America demands a study of the 

 Eastern Hemisphere, especially the folk element 

 and the folk arts in it. One must just as 

 thoroughly know the stocks from which the in- 

 truders came. By studying those who came, 

 what they brought, those to whom they came, 

 the knowledge of the added result will be 

 gained. A fact usually entirely overlooked in 

 this connection is this, that as early as 1505 

 Ovando solicited that no negro slaves be sent to 

 Hispaniola, because they fled among the Indians, 

 taught them bad customs and never could be 

 captured. In 1517 the slave trade was author- 

 ized by Charles V, and during three hundred 



