920 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIX. No. 1016 



plementary instrHiiient who played the alternating 

 notes of the scale. That the pan-pipes of the an- 

 cient Peruvian;; .Tere thus played in pairs is shown 

 by pictures upon prehistoric vases, in which two in- 

 struments are represented as being connected by a 

 long loose string. The pan-pipes observed were in 

 most cases composed of 16 reeds, in two rows, one 

 row superimposed upon the other, the row played 

 upon by the performer having the reeds closed at 

 the bottom, the outer row having reeds with an 

 opening at the bottom. The smallest pair pro- 

 duced shrill notes lite those of a piccolo; the larg- 

 est pair, four times as long, produced deep tones 

 much like those of a barrel organ. 



At a special meeting of the society held March 

 4, at the National Museum, Dr. A. B. Lewis gave 

 an address on his ' ' Travels in the South Seas and 

 New Guinea, ' ' illustrated with excellent lantern 

 slides. The four years 1909-13 were spent in the 

 interest of the Field Museum of Natural History 

 of Chicago, studying the natives and collecting 

 ethnological material, chiefly in Melanesia. Many 

 of the islands are only partially explored. Fiji is 

 the most civilized. The natives of Fiji are all pro- 

 fessing Christians, and read and write their own 

 language. Except the ordinary things of everyday 

 life, there is little of the old left. The native 

 Fijian popiilation is about 90,000, the European 

 3,500, while there are 40,000 to 50,000 Indian cool- 

 ies on the sugar plantations. New Caledonia was, 

 for years, a French penal colony, and the natives 

 are reduced to about 30,000 located on reservations, 

 much as our American Indians. Some of the large 

 islands of the New Hebrides are still wild and un- 

 safe. To the ethnologist, Malekula is the most in- 

 teresting. Over 20 languages are spoken on this 

 one island, to say nothing rf dialects. On the Sol- 

 omon Islands there are jrobably not over 300 

 Europeans. New Guinea is the most interesting 

 island of all. Except Greenland, it is the largest 

 in the world, and the least known. New Guinea has 

 never been crossed except near the ends. More 

 time was spent on New Guinea than anywhere else. 

 A considerable portion of the coast was visited and 

 short trips made toward the interior. There are 

 but few Europeans in New Guinea, the greater 

 number, about 1,000, being in the British portion. 

 A considerable number of these are gold-diggers. 

 In German New Guinea there are about 200 Euro- 

 peans, and in the Dutch portion not over 50. The 

 old condition of warfare among the natives has 

 been stopped as far as the government can extend 

 its influence. 



At the 473 d regular meeting of the society, held 

 March 17 in the National Museum, Dr. J. Walter 

 Fewkes delivered an address, illustrated with lan- 

 tern slides, on his "Egyptian Experiences." He 

 considered especially the signiflcance of certain 

 parallelisms in cultural objects of the Stone Age 

 of Egypt and the Gila Valley, Arizona. These re- 

 semblances he ascribed in part to the influence of 

 irrigation. Through the cultural isolation of the 

 Nile Valley in Neolithic times it was protected 

 from outside marauders. Social advancement at 

 the dawn of history was due to the influx of for- 

 eign ideas from the east and to the cooperative 

 union of clusters of villages or nomes in order to 

 more effectually irrigate the valley. This coopera- 

 tion of the rulers of Neolithic Egypt led to the rise 

 of a Great House or Pharaoh. To this cooperation 

 in constructing irrigation ditches may be traced a 

 system of enforced labor in which the Pharaoh not 

 only acquired all cultivated land and the water 

 which alone made agriculture possible, but also con- 

 trolled all labor of the inhabitants. To these rights 

 acquired from the rulers of the nomes in very 

 early times, may be traced the powers exercised in 

 constructing the magnificent monuments that are 

 the world's wonders. 



In Neolithic Egypt, there was a succession of 

 villages strung along the river, each independent of 

 the other, like a cluster of pueblos in Arizona. 

 The remains of architectural constructions at this 

 early epoch stiU remain and are sometimes, as at 

 El Kab, well preserved. They are rectangular, 

 massive, walled forts with an encircling wall of 

 clay not unlike the compounds at Casa Grande in 

 Arizona. Within these enclosures, in Egypt and 

 Arizona alike, were mud or clay built temples, pub- 

 lic buildings and houses of priests, while around 

 them were clusters of the mean hovels in which 

 lived the people like the present Egyptians. The 

 dead were buried in neighboring mounds, placed 

 with knees drawn to the chin and surrounded by 

 mortuary offerings. These graves were rude exca- 

 vations with floor of straw and roof of mud and 

 boughs. Many resemblances between archeolog- 

 ical objects from the Stone Age in Egypt and in 

 the Gila Valley were pointed out. Among these are 

 weapons, stone implements, pottery and its symbolic 

 decorations, flat basket trays, bone and other speci- 

 mens. Certain common conditions of environment 

 and the necessity for artificial irrigation had led 

 the Stone-Age people of different races, without 

 connections, to develop a parallel culture. 



Daniel Folkmar, 



Secretary 



