292 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. I., No. 10. 



mon is of the opinion that such diseases as Texas 

 fever, charbon, and pleuro-pneumonia, are the re- 

 sults of germs wliich he has found in his post-mortem 

 examinations, and that it is possible to protect unaf- 

 fected animals from these diseases by dilute inocula- 

 tion. 



The precautions which the government has taken 

 to prevent the importation of infectious diseases from 

 abroad, by the establishment of quarantine stations, 

 are praiseworthy, and it is of the greatest importance 

 that proper regulations relative to the transportation 

 of infected cattle from place to place should be 

 adopted ; but it is manifestly of far greater impor- 

 tance to ascertain the laws which control the diseases 

 themselves, and to discover some cheap and obtaina- 

 ble means by which the farmer can protect his herds 

 when attacked. 



PUBLIC AND PRIVATE INSTITUTIONS. 

 Peabody museum of American archaeology, Cambridge, Mass. 



Stone graves of the Cumberland valley. — In what 

 was foi-merly an extensive cemetery covering several 

 acres, at Brentwood, Tenn., eighty graves which had 

 not been disturbed were opened during explorations 

 the past summer. These graves were made by placing 

 slabs of stone edgewise, forming the sides and ends 

 of the graves; and on these, other flat stones were 

 placed after the body was deposited. The bottoms 

 of these cists were sometimes lined with sma.ll stones, 

 but oftener with large potsherds. In some instances 

 the lining was probably of bark. In several of these 

 graves, two or three, and even, in one instance, five 

 bodies were buried. In two graves, besides the skele- 

 ton of the person for whom each grave was made, 

 one or two bones were found belonging to a second 

 individual, in such positions as, showed that they had 

 been carefully placed in the grave. In one grave 

 containing five skeletons, two of the three adult 

 crania had persistent frontal sutures; and these were 

 the only crania, in all the eighty graves, presenting 

 this peculiarity. One adult skull had an extra suture, 

 dividing the parietal of the left side into two nearly 

 equal portions. This skull was also remarkable for 

 the extreme occipital flattening, and great develop- 

 ment of large Wormian bones; also for the absence 

 of the two lateral incisors of the upper jaw, which, 

 if they were ever present, must have been lost early 

 in life, as all signs of the alveoli, or of wide gaps 

 between the teeth, were obliterated. Many bones 

 bearing evidence of simple inflammatory disease, but 

 none of any specific taint, and several showing united 

 fractures, were also found. 



The pottery resembles in type that from the Mis- 

 souri graves, but is, as a whole, of better finish. 

 There were no large and coarse vessels in the graves, 

 although the large fragments of thick pottery with 

 which the bottoms of many graves were lined show 

 that large vessels were made. The pottery from the 

 stone graves consists principally of water-bottles of 

 various shapes, small food-dishes, and bowls. Some 

 of these are ornamented by incised lines, and others 

 by designs in colors. Among the stone implements 

 found were a large and finely polished celt of chert, 

 several long chipped points with serrated edges, and 

 a few arrow-heads, one of which was found embed- 

 ded in a dorsal vertebra of the skeleton in the grave. 

 Several implements and ornaments maile of bone 

 were obtained, among them two long bone pins with 

 large, flat heads, — both found close lo skulls, sug- 

 gesting that they were probably used for hair-orna- 

 ments; also a number of shell and terra-cotta beads, 

 and a single carved disk of shell, resembling those 

 previously found in the stone graves of the Cumber- 



land valley; together with a clay pipe having an orna- 

 mental bowl. Only eight pipes have previously been 

 obtained in the several thousand graves which have 

 been explored for the museum. Of these eight, three 

 were of pottery, and the rest of different" kinds of 

 stone ; one of the latter was elaborately carved, repre- 

 senting a man holding a cooking-pot which formed 

 the bowl of the pipe. 



An interesting discovery was made in the ceme- 

 tery near the top of the hill, which at this place had 

 gradually been guUied, and disclosed a mass of char- 

 coal. On removing with a trowel all the earth about 

 the charcoal, it proved to be the remains of burnt 

 logs. A man was kept at work for several days fol- 

 lowing out the lines of charcoal and burnt clay; and 

 after a time he succeeded in bringing to light, from 

 imder a few inches of clay, the charred fioor-beams 

 of a wooden structure of some sort. Within the en- 

 closure formed by the charred logs were discovered a 

 bed of ashes, a number of fragments of pottery, one 

 perfect dish identical in character with those found 

 in the stone graves near by ; also a few burnt bones, 

 two small discoidal stones, and two discoidal pieces 

 of pottery. The logs had been supported by clay, 

 which partly covered them, and thus prevented their 

 total destruction when the building, of whose floor 

 they formed a part, was destroyed by fire. About^ 

 ten feet in length and five in width of this structure' 

 were traced, of which a drawing was made before 

 any thing was disturbed. While stone graves were 

 found on all sides, and within ten to twenty feet of 

 the site of this structure, none were discovered under 

 it; and there seems no reasonable doubt that these 

 charred logs were the remains of a wooden structure 

 of the period of the stone graves. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



— In continuation of the work of establishing and 

 verifying secondary meridians of longitude, Lieut.- 

 Commander F. M. Green, assisted by Lieut. -Com- 

 mander C. H. Davis and Lieut. J. A. Norris, U.S.N., 

 under the direction of the Bureau of navigation, has 

 determined a chain of geographical positions, com- 

 mencing at Madras, in British India, and extending . 

 through the China and Japan Seas to Vladivostok, 

 in Siberia. The stations occupied were Vladivostok, 

 Yokohama, Nagasaki, Shanghai, Amoy, Hong-Kong, 

 Manila, Cape St. James, Singapore, and Madras. 



In measuring differences of longitude, the method 

 adopted was in all cases to establish portable obser- 

 vatories in each of the two places between which the 

 measurement was to be made, connecting the obser- 

 vatories with the telegraph-offices by short lines; so 

 that the two observers were in telegraphic communi- 

 cation with each other. The errors of the chronome- 

 ters on local time were then determined by means of 

 numerous star-transits, and the chronometers were 

 compared by repeated telegraphic signals sent both 

 ways over the cable. The latitudes were determined 

 by zenith telescope observations of pairs of well-de- 

 termined stars. 



A full account of the work, with details of tlie ob- 

 servations and computations, has been prepared, and 

 will be published by the U. S. navy department. 



