September 20, 1889.] 



SCIENCE. 



207 



his customer with the value of the book. When pay-day comes 

 the customer pays this amount, and meantime uses the coupons 

 for the purchase of supplies, the same as paying cash, thus avoid- 

 ing ail disputed accounts and saving valuable time to both the 

 ■dealer and his customer. They are manufactured by the Histor- 

 ical Publishing Company, of Dayton, Ohio. 



— The October issue of The Chatitaiiqiian is the initial number 

 •of Vol. X., and appears in a new form and with a cover of new de- 

 sign. It presents the following in the table of contents: "The 

 Politics Which Made and Unmade Rome," by President C. K. 

 Adams, of Cornell University; "The Life of the Romans," by 

 Principal James Donaldson, of the University of St. Andrews, 

 Scotland ; iVIacaulay's " Lays of Ancient Rome," paraphrased by 

 Arlo Bates ; " Map Quiz " on The Chautauquan Map Series ; " The 

 Study of the Seasons," by Professor N. S. Shaler, of Harvard Uni- 

 versity ; " Child Labor and Some of its Results," by Helen Camp- 

 bell ; " Mental Philosophy," by John Habberton ; " The Uses of 

 Mathematics," by Professor A. S. Hardy, Ph.D., of Dartmouth 

 College ; "The Burial of Rome," by Rodolfo Lanciani, of the Uni- 

 versity of Rome. Professor La Roy F. Griffin explains the general 

 principles of "Explosions and Exposives" ; " Canada and Ireland : 

 A Political Parallel," is discussed by Professor J. P. Mahaffy of 

 Dublin University ; " The Future Indian School System " is an ar- 

 ticle full of practical suggestions for improving Indian schools, by 

 Elaine Goodale ; Hon. S. G. W. Benjamin, ex-minister to Persia, 

 writes entertainingly of "The Women of Persia"; Bishop J. F. 

 Hurst tells much that is interesting about " The Current Literature 

 of India"; "Impressions Made by the Paris Exposition" is a 

 timely article, translated from the Revue dcs Deux Mondes. The 

 list of contributed articles ends with the Rev. J. G.Wood's obser- 

 vations of " Some Odd Fishes." 



'tk the character of 

 n will be furnished 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



* t* Correspondents are requested to be as Brief as possible, Th 

 in all cases required as proof of ^ood faith. 



The editor wilt be fflad to publish any queries consonant wi 

 the journal. 



Tiue'tty Co/ties of the nu 'nher containing his contmunicatio. 

 free to any correspondent on request. j 



Methods of Burial. 



There is one method of preserving the body that is well worthy 

 of notice, and that has not received the attention that its impor- 

 tance demands. It is the desiccation of the Vemains, considered 

 in a report on the disposal of the dead, by John M. Peacocl<e, M.D., 

 presented to the Medical Society of the county of Kings, Brooklyn- 

 Long before the Spanish conquest, the Peruvians were adepts in 

 this mode of preserving the dead. The bodies of the Incas, and 

 their queens and countless numbers of their subjects, testify to 

 this. The interesting question is often asked whether the ancient 

 Peruvians embalmed their corpses, or whether the bodies owe their 

 good preservation to the influence of the climate, which is so con- 

 ducive to munmiification. Sefior Rivero, the director of the 

 National Museum at Lima, having examined hundreds of mummies, 

 was unable to find any preservative substance in them. It is true 

 that in the skulls a brown or blackish mass, in dust or small pieces, 

 has been found ; but a chemical and microscopical analysis has 

 proved that the dust and the pieces were 'composed of cerebral fat 

 and globules of dried blood. All the mummies contain the brain 

 and intestines, and in none of them could Rivero discover any in- 

 cision which would have been necessary for evisceration had the 

 bodies been subject to embalmment. In the mummy of a child 

 found by Dr. Von Schudi, and which is now in the Imperial Acad- 

 emy of St. Petersburg, the ribs of the left side were detached from 

 the sternum, exposing the thoracic and part of the abdominal 

 ■cavities, plainly showing the heart, with the pericardium, the 

 shrivelled lungs, the diaphragm, the transverse colon, and portion 

 of the small intestines. These facts prove that the Peruvians did 

 not have recourse in the preservation of the dead to any elaborate 

 process of embalming as customary among the Egyptians. The 

 bodies were simply desiccated by exposure to the air. The heated 

 soil and calcined sand on the coast dried the corpse, and the pure 

 ■cold air and dry winds of the interior did the same thing. 



In Peru the animals that drop by the wayside will be found at 

 the end of months entire, not corrupted, but dried. On the high- 

 way from Arequipa to Lima a number of the mummified animals 

 are to be seen, which serve as landmarks to indicate the road when 

 the wind covers it with sand. The climatic conditions of the im- 

 perial city of Cuzco are very favorable to the desiccating process. 

 Here, in the great temple of the Sun, the remains of the Incas have 

 been discovered in a marvellous and lifelike condition. Cuzco, 

 the most ancient city of Peru, has an elevation of 11,380 feet above 

 the sea. Surrounded by lofty and snowclad mountains, it might 

 be supposed to possess a cold, not to say frigid, climate ; but its 

 temperature, though cool, is seldom freezing. In what is called 

 the winter season, from May to November, the pastures and fields 

 are dry and withered, more from drought than from frost. 



La Casas describes the Peruvian burial rites as follows : " The 

 dead are wrapped in the skin of the llama, then clothed and de- 

 posited in a sitting posture. The doors of the tombs, which are all 

 toward the east, are then closed with stone or clay. At the end of 

 a year, when the body becomes dry, the doors are again opened. 

 There is no bad odor, because the skins in which the bodies are 

 placed are sewn up very closely, and from the cold they soon be- 

 come mummies." 



Travellers in Africa have found bodies of camels, which had 

 evidently died of fatigue in the desert, to be so dried and preserved 

 by the heat of the sun that no evidences of post-mortem decay 

 were discovered. The atmosphere of our North-west Territories 

 is, in some places, so dry that the snows of winter pass off from 

 the ground without leaving it wet, and mummified buffalo have 

 been found on the plains of Colorado. When freshly killed meat 

 is subjected to a dry summer heat, it is rapidly converted into the 

 well-known 7V;-,(v;/^<?^/ of the plains. Dried apples, peaches, and 

 other fruits are familiar examples to every housekeeper of desic- 

 cated vegetable matter. This method of preservation is as widely 

 known as it is primitive, and clearly indicates that absence of 

 moisture prevents decomposition of organic material, or, in other 

 words, desiccation takes the place of putrefaction. X. 



New York, Sept. 16. 



Monopolies and the People. . 



In the criticism which you make {Science, xiv. p. 186) of the 

 plan which I proposed for settling the railroad question, in my 

 book " Monopolies and the People," I think you slightly misappre- 

 hend my views, as you say, " All fares and freight tariffs are to be 

 fixed by the government commissioners." At the present time, in 

 a number of the States of the Union, fares and freight tariffs are 

 fixed by a State commission; and the provisions of the Interstate 

 Commerce Law subject rates on all interstate traffic to the ap- 

 proval of the United States Government Commission. 



My contention is that these rates should be fixed, not by a com- 

 pany, which holds a monopoly, or by a government commission, 

 holding autocratic power. The one plan is unjust to the people; 

 the other, to the railway-owners. The principle which seems to 

 me the true one is, fix rates in proportion to the expense of carry- 

 ing the traffic. 



Charles Whitney Baker. 



New York, Sept. 14. 



Queries. 



48. Origin of the Common Name of Crotalus ce- 

 rastes. — Recently a naturalist friend residing in Santa Fe, N. 

 Mex., begged to know of me the origin of the name " side-winder " 

 for the horned rattlesnake (C. cerastes), and, although I have often 

 heard that term applied to the crotaline species alluded to, I have 

 never been able to ascertain how such a name came into use. The 

 few persons versed in such lore to whom I have referred the mat- 

 ter could give no account of it, or state whether they knew of any 

 particular habit of the horned rattler that would justify its being so 

 called. Yarrow quotes the name in his " Check List of North 

 American Reptilia and Batrachia" for the species in question, but, 

 so far as I know, nowhere explains its origin ; and I would be glad 

 of any light upon this point. 



R. W. SHUFELDT. 

 Takoma, D.C., Sept. ii. 



