FEBRUARY 15, 1901.) 
less extent, notes are produced as in a Jew’s 
harp. The tones are, however, very faint, 
and are audible only at a short distance. 
The use of this bow, known as ‘ kawotone 
panda,’ is restricted to the medicine-men or 
shamans, and other persons are rarely allowed 
to see and never allowed to touch the instru- 
ment. The sacredness of this bow, the fact that 
it is used by the medicine-men only in commu- 
nicating with and praying to the ‘kukini’ or 
spirits, and that its manufacture is accompanied 
by ceremonial observances, including the rub- 
bing of the bow with human blood—all seem 
to point to the bow as being of native origin. 
The limited contact of these Indians with the 
negro, and the place held by the instrument in 
the religious life of the people, here as well as 
elsewhere in America, would seem to militate 
against the view that the musical bow is on this 
continent the result of acculturation. 
Rouanpd B. Drxon. 
CURRENT NOTES ON PHYSIOGRAPHY. 
THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. 
A CAREFUL study of ‘ the Pleistocene Geology 
of the south central Sierra Nevada with especial 
reference to the origin of the Yosemite valley,’ 
by H. W. Turner (Proc. Cal. Acad. Sci., 3d ser., 
Geology, i, 1900, 261-321, 8 pl.) is of much 
interest, but still leaves this interesting problem 
without definite solution. The suggestion that 
the valley is a graben is discarded, yet direct 
proof or disproof of this view can be gained only 
when identifiable structures are found in the 
rocks of the valley floor and of the uplands, 
as has been done in the case of the Rhine 
graben. It is concluded that ‘the canyons of 
the Sierra Nevada, like most other canyons the 
world over, were formed in the main by river 
erosion’; but it is suggested that after a rather 
extended glaciation of the Sierra highlands, 
narrow and deep canyons were cut in an inter- 
glacial epoch, and that ice streams of a second 
glacial epoch ‘greatly modified the new-cut 
canyons of the interglacial epoch, and gave 
them, within the glaciated area, substantially 
their present form.’ ‘The contrast between the 
broad U-shaped section of the Yosemite and the 
sharp V-shape of the Merced canyon farther 
SCIENCE. 
275 
west seems to favor this view. Moraines are 
found on the valley floor at six points, the 
westernmost being where the open valley ends 
and the V-canyon of the Merced begins; it is 
pointed out that the size of the moraines would 
be greater if their bases were not generally 
buried in river sands and silts. 
Gannett, commenting on Turner’s article, 
forcibly maintains the glacial origin of the 
Yosemite, appealing especially to its hanging 
lateral valleys in support of his opinion (Geogr. 
Mag., XII., 1901, 86-87). 
PATAGONIA. 
THE geographical results of the Princeton 
expeditions to Patagonia are presented by 
Hatcher in most interesting form. (‘Some geo- 
graphic features of southern Patagonia, with a 
discussion of their origin,’ Nat. Geogr. Mag., 
xi, 1900, 41-55.) The eastern coast shows a 
line of sea cliffs, from 300 to 500 feet high, sel- 
dom broken except at river mouths where the 
few harbors are found. The strata in the cliffs 
are nearly horizontal, but by following them 
for long distances two marine formations sepa- 
rated by a continental formation are discovered, 
all being covered by 20 or 30 feet of unstrati- 
fied boulders and clays, the great shingle for- 
mation, of glacial and aqueous origin. Vast 
plains stretch inland from the coast, subarid, ~ 
bearing thin grass and scattered bushes; guan- 
acos and rheas are found here in abundance. 
The plains are broken by escarpments, often 
several hundred feet high, trending north and 
south, and interpreted as sea cliffs formed dur- 
ing the latest emergence of the region. Recent 
lavas cover considerable areas in the central 
interior, forming scoriaceous plains of large 
extent, here and there dissected by canyons. 
Indeed, all these features are broken by the 
valleys of rivers coming from the back country. 
One of these valleys, that of San Julian, has at 
present no stream ; its waters having been cap- 
tured by a northern tributary of the Santa Cruz, 
100 miles in from the coast. Numerous de- 
pressions holding small salt lakes are inter- 
preted as remnants of an ancient valley system, 
now masked by deposits formed during the last 
submergence of the region. ‘The district pied 
mont to the Andes is sheeted with morainic 
