June 1, 1883.] 



SCIENCE. 



495 



the name of Arsinoe, but the other quite unknown. 

 I could not make out to whom it referred, but the 

 next day I saw quite clearly. Tlie top of the tablet is 

 occupied by two series of offerings made to the gods 

 of the Heroopolite nome by the King Ptolemy Phila- 

 delphus. Among the gods is liis sister, and wife Ar- 

 sinoe, with the two cartouches, num ab en sliu, 

 mer neteru ; Arsina. Below are twenty-eight lines 

 of text, written clearly at the beginning and end of 

 the stele, but, unfortunately, very carelessly in the 

 middle. However, the monument is perfect : there 

 is not one sign wanting. It is one metre and a quar- 

 ter high, and about one metre wide. . . . One tiling 

 interested me particularly in the inscription : it is the 

 name of a locality of which Osiris is the god, and 

 which is called Pi-Keheret. Now, I cannot help 

 thinking that we have at last got the Egyptian name 

 for Pi-hahiroth, and (this conjecture, perhaps, is a 

 little presumptuous) that it was called by the Greelfs 

 (fiaypapioKoTui. This name of Pi-Keheret occurs twice 

 in the text, perhaps of tener, — once in the offering 

 scenes, and another time in the course of the narra- 

 tion. You will understand how important it would 

 be to gain the site of this spot ; and that the mere 

 fact of its being in the Heroopolite nome, in the 

 neighborhood of Succoth and Arsinoe, would defi- 

 nitely put aside Schleiden's and Brugsch's theory of 

 the exodus through Lake Serbonis." 



M. Naville is about to publish a narration of the 

 whole work at Pithom, in which he will fully discuss 

 the many interesting questions which have sprung 

 from that work. — (Academy, April 7.) H. o. [1012 



PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 



Children's minds. — In October, 1869, the peda- 

 gogical society of Berlin inquired by circular how 



many of the children .who entered the primary 

 classes had seen certain common animals, insects 

 and plants, public buildings, museums, parks, subur- 

 ban pleasure-resorts, etc. Other questions related 

 to the home, farm, natural history, God, Christ, 

 prayer, and many such subjects. 



Profiting by this experiment, Mr. G-. Stanley Hall, 

 last September, undertook to ascertain the contents 

 of children's minds on entering the Boston primary 

 schools. Much pains was taken to collate such ques- 

 tions as would yield the best results, and to utilize the 

 most skilful kindergarten teachers in putting the 

 questions. Even with all these aids and cautions, 

 the results were often very amusing. Two tables are 

 given by Mr. Hall, setting forth the words, and the 

 per cent of children ignorant of them. The high 

 rate of ignorance is absolutely astonishing. About 

 ninety per cent did not know where their ribs were 

 situated, and seventy-five per cent could not describe 

 an island. Furthermore, those who knew certain 

 facts — for instance, that cheese comes from the cow 

 — apprehended them in the loosest manner, thinking, 

 perhaps, that the cheese is squeezed from the cow 

 as the juice from a lemon. The same ignorance or 

 indefiniteness of knowledge marked the opinions of 

 the majority of the children concerning natural phe- 

 nomena, natural history, and physical experiments 

 of the simplest kind. 'The autlior comes to the fol- 

 lowing conclusions : 1. Children know next to noth- 

 ing valuable at the outset of their school life; 2. 

 Children can best be prepared for school by familiar- 

 izing them witla objects; 3. Teachers should carefully 

 explore children's minds; 4. The concepts that are 

 most common in the children of a given locality are 

 the earliest to be acquired, while the rarer ones 

 are later. — [Princeton review, 1888,259.) J. w. P. 



[1013 



INTELLiaENOE FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. 



GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS. 

 National museum. 



He-arrangement. — The collection illustrative of 

 mammalian osteology, which is in many respects one 

 of the finest in America, is at present undergoing a 

 thorough examination, and will be re-installed for 

 the purposes of exhibition and study. The collec- 

 tion is especially rich in carnivores and cetaceans. 



Recent additions. — The French government has 

 presented a complete series of Sfevres porcelains 

 showing the stages of manufacture and the varieties 



of wares produced. The government collections 



of Washington relics, including the Lewis collection, 

 have been transferred from the Patent oflBce to the 



museum. Messrs. Prang and company of Boston 



have presented a beautiful collection illustrative of 



the art of lithography. ^The museum has received 



from the British museum one of its two stuffed 

 specimens of the Senegal manatee (Trichechus sene- 

 galensis), together with a skeleton of the same species. 

 AH the recent species of the Sirenians are now rep- 

 resented in the collections. 



Notes. — The American pharmaceutical association 

 will hold its session In the lecture-hall of the museum 



in September. The preparators of the museum 



were severally awarded prizes for specimens of their 

 art displayed at the taxidermists' exhibition held in 

 New York in May. 



STATE INSTITUTIONS. 

 State laboratory of natural history, Normal, 111. 



The fauna of Lake Michigan and the smaller lakes 

 of the north-eastern part of Illinois. — Two weeks were 

 spent by Mr. Forbes and assistants in continued 

 dredging off Chicago for a distance of fourteen 

 miles alongshore, from the harbor to about ten miles 

 out. Animal lite here was scanty, except within 

 half a mile of shore. The commonest invertebrate 

 forms were Amnicola llmosa, Somatogyrus isogo- 

 nus, Pleurocera elevatum, Goniobasis livescens, and 

 Sphaerium solidulum, among Mollusca; and Daph- 

 nia liyalina, Cyclops Thomasi n. s., Diaptomns sicilis 

 n. s., and Limnocalanus macrurus, among Crustacea. 

 Pontoporeia also occurred occasionally. The most 

 abundant macroscopic plant was Nostoc pruniforme, 

 forming small gelatinous nodules on stones. Vau- 

 cheria tuberosa was also not rare. 



In order to obtain material for a study of the bot- 

 tom fauna of the deeper regions of the lake, a trip 

 was made to Grand Traverse Bay in Michigan, a long 

 narrow arm of the lake of extraordinary depth near 

 shore. Here, with the assistance of a steam-tug and 

 a crew of four men, tlie dredge and trawl were hauled 

 repeatedly in water varying from a depth of thirty to 

 one hundred and two fathoms, and the margins of 

 the bay were searched thoroughly and carefully from 

 a yawl. Numerous specimens of Cottidae were ob- 



