896 



SCIENCE. 



LN. S. Vol. XVI. No. 414. 



FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2-li 



This was Mexican day at the congress. 

 The morning session opened with Dr. 

 Stolpe in the chair. 



Dr. Seler, in his paper on 'The Pictorial 

 and Hieroglyphic Writing of Mexico and 

 Central America,' gave a general resume 

 of the present state of our knowledge of the 

 subject. He laid stress upon the Maya 

 hieroglyphs as of great interest and im- 

 portance. 



Senor Batres gave an account of his ' Ex- 

 ploi'ations at Monte Alban' (the printed 

 report of which was laid before the con- 

 gress). The character of the finds seems to 

 indicate that Monte Alban, near the city of 

 Oaxaca, was a point of Zapotecan-Mayan 

 contact. He also reported on 'The Ex- 

 cavations in the Escalerillas Street in the 

 City of Mexico, ' which have resulted in the 

 discovery of remains of the old Aztec city 

 long buried beneath the debris of the later 

 Spanish one. 



The next paper was read by Professor 

 Seler, on 'Ancient Mexican Religious 

 Poetry.' Mrs. Nuttall, in her 'A Sugges- 

 tion to Maya Scholars, ' said that the classi- 

 fying suffixes of numerals might be found 

 expressed in the hieroglyphic writings. In 

 her paper on 'A Penitential Rite of the 

 Ancient Mexicans,' which was illustrated 

 with the stereopticon, Mrs. Nuttall treated 

 of the religioiis rite of piercing the ears 

 and tongue to obtain a sacrifice of blood. 



Dr. Nicolas Leon reported on 'A New 

 Kind of Hieroglyphic Writing in Mexico,' 

 and Miss Adele Breton exhibited some ex- 

 cellent reproductions of Mexican fresco 

 paintings. 



Sefior Belmar reported on the 'Indians 

 of Oaxaca,' and laid before the congress 

 his 'Estudio del Idioma Ayook (Mixe),' a 

 volume of some 260 pages, constituting a 

 valuable contribution to our knowledge of 

 the Mixe language and people. 



Mr. Thompson's paper, 'Phonographic 

 Reproduction of Maya Songs and Conver- 

 sations,' consisted of screen-pictures of a 

 kinetoscopic representation of the 'sun 

 dance ' of the Mayas, with phonographic ac- 

 companiment reproducing the songs and 

 music belonging to the ceremony. 



At the afternoon session Dr. Maudslay 

 occupied the chair. 



In the evening Dr. Boas gave a smoker 

 for the men delegates. 



SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25. 



The morning session began with Mr. van 

 Panhuj's in the chair. 



In the first paper read by him, Mr. van 

 Panhuys expressed the opinion that the 

 New York name Catskill was given by the 

 Dutch in honor of Kaatz, a statesman and 

 writer of the early part of the seventeenth 

 century. In a second paper he treated of 

 the Dutch claim to have discovered the 

 coast of Guiana, and the legend of 'Stuy- 

 vesant's cemetery' at Curacao. 



In his paper on 'The Racial Unity of 

 the Historic and Prehistoric Aboriginal 

 People of Arizona and New Mexico,' Mr. 

 Blake called attention to the destruction of 

 ancient monuments now going on in the 

 Pueblo country. The mention of the fact 

 that the people of this region, past and 

 present, were very fond of 'green stones' 

 led Professor Putnam to remark that green 

 seemed to be a verj^ popular color all over 

 the globe. Mr. Thompson observed that the 

 sacred tree of the Mayas was literally the 

 ' green tree. ' 



M. Gonzalez de la Rosa's paper, on 'The 

 Chimu Language,' was discussed by Dr. 

 Uhle, who stated that this tongue was now 

 spoken only by the village, the inhabitants 

 of which are engaged in the straw hat in- 

 dustry. 



The next paper was by Mr. van Panhuys, 

 on 'Carib Words in Dutch'; some of which. 



