October 23, 1891.J 



SCIENCE. 



229 



the origin of the Gulf Stream correct. Dr. Kriitnmel makes an 

 approxiQ3ate calculation as to the time occupied by the algae in 

 reaching the Sargasso Sea. A fortnight alter reaching the Gulf 

 proper, the weed would, at the rate of two knots an hour, reach 

 the latitude of Cape Hatteras. From that point its onward mo- 

 tion is slower, and it takes about five months and a half for it to 

 reach west of the Azores. After reaching the Sargasso Sea the 

 weed continues to move slowly, until, becoming heavier as it 

 grows older, it gradually sinks to make way for fresh supplies. 



— There will be an examination at the Civil Service Commission 

 on Nov. 3 to secure two computers for the Nautical Almanac Of- 

 fice. The salary of one will be $1,000 and the salary of the other 

 will be from $1 000 to $1,400, to be determined after examination. 

 The subjects will be algebra, geometry, trigonometry, logarithms, 

 and astronomy. Application blanks can be obtained of the com- 

 mission. District applicants will not be admitted. Arrangements 

 may possibly be made for examining applicants at prominent 

 cities outside of Washington if applications are filed in time. 



— Mr. J. C. Russell, who has been engaged in exploring the 

 jNIount St. Elias region of Alaska, has been heard from at Yaku- 

 tat. He was not successful in reaching the top of the mountain, 

 but he attained a greater elevation than the height of the moun- 

 tain as reported by him last year, between 14,000 and 15,000 feet, 

 and there were still some four thousand feet to climb to reach the 

 summit. This places the height of the peak between 18,000 and 

 19,000 feet, and restores St. Elias to its former position of one of 

 the highest mountains on the continent. La Perouse, in 1876, 

 placed its elevation at 13,672 feet, and it has varied from this all 

 the way to 19,500 feet, as given by Ball in 1874. 



— The long talked-of expedition from Australia to the south 

 polar lands has now assumed the title of a " Swedish-Australasian 

 Expedition," and is likely soon to he equipped and dispatched. 

 At a meeting held in Melbourne on the 3d of July last, according 

 to the October Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, the 

 report of the Antarctic Exploration Committee was read, in which 

 it was stated that a grant of £1,000 had been proposed by the 

 Queensland government, another of £1,366 on condition that the 

 public subscribed £634, by the New South Wales government, and 

 a third of £300 by the government of Tasmania. It remained to 

 be seen what sum the ministry of Victoria would place upon the 

 estimates. Added to the Swedish donation of £5,000, and a simi- 

 lar sum from Sir Thomas Elder, there remained a balance of 

 £3,000 only to be subscribed and insure the success of the expedi- 

 tion, for the successful carrying out of which Baron Nordenskibld 

 had stated that £15,000 would be sufficient. At the recent Inter- 

 national Congress at Berne a resolution of approval of the proposed 

 expedition and hearty wishes for its success was passed on the 

 reading of a paper on the subject by Admiral Sir Erasmus Om- 

 manney. As a pioneer expedition the project is likely to accom- 

 plish most useful work, and its promotion, in face of many obsta- 

 cles, is highly honorable to the public spirit of the Australian 

 colonies. 



— I once heard of a boy who had a pet seal given to him when 

 it was quite young, says a writer in the Illustrated American. It 

 became very tame, and used to cuddle up beside the dogs to sleep 

 in front of the fire, and learned to perform very many tricks. 

 One winter the storms were very severe, and the fishermen were 

 at times quite unable to venture to sea to set their nets. As a 

 matter of course fish were scarce, and the seal's food having been 

 of fish alone, milk had to be substituted; but it consumed such 

 vast quantities of the latter that, for purposps of economy, after a 

 family council, it was decided to dispose of the beloved pet as 

 soon as possible. The boy and a clergyman friend, who had al- 

 ways taken a lively interest in the pet, started off in a boat with 

 their precious victim, and. when far enough out for safety, threw 

 the seal into the water. Little did they expect the result, for the 

 creature, feeling itself very much abused, rushed after the boat 

 with all its might and main, uttering such tearful and heart-rend- 

 ing cries of grief that it was at last taken back into the boat, 

 where it lay exhausted, sobbing and wailing like a child. When 



the familiar home was reached it soon regained its former gaiety 

 and health, and lived to a good old age, little the worse for its 

 adventure. 



According to Nature, Mr. W. H. Harris of Ealing, England, 

 records in Nature Notes (Sept. 15) a remarkable instance of " fru- 

 gality" in bees. The recent extremely rainy weather seems to 

 have suggested to his bees that there would probably soon be an 

 end of honey-making. Accordingly, although there was "a crate 

 of fairly filled sections above the stock-box," they adopted vigorous 

 measures to prevent future inconvenience. '' It is a positive fact," 

 says Mr. Harris, " that my bees, not content with ejecting larvae 

 of both drones and workers, proceeded to suck out the soft contents 

 of the corpses, leaving only the white chitinous covering, which 

 had not hardened suflSciently to prevent the workers from piercing 

 it with their mandibles, and then inserting their tongues." 



— Mr. W. Prentis of Rainham, England, describes in the Octo- 

 ber number of the Zoologist an interesting case of a wild duck's 

 forethought. As quoted in Nature, a mowing machine was set to 

 work round the outside of a field of lucerne bordering a marsh, 

 diminishing the circle each time round the field, leaving about two 

 acres in the centre. A wild duck was seen by the shepherd to fly 

 from the piece of lucerne that was left with something in her 

 beak, and, happening to fly near him, she dropped a three-parts 

 incubated egg. She was again observed by the shepherd, and also 

 by the sheep-shearer, carrying another egg in her beak, this time 

 over the marsh- wall towards the saltings; and again she was seen 

 for the third time carrying an egg in her beak in the same direc- 

 tion. Next day, when the field was finished by the removal of the 

 last piece of lucerne, the wild duck's nest from which the eggs 

 had been removed was discovered. 



— Carl Lumholtz (author of " Among Cannibals"), who is the 

 head of the expedition now making explorations in the Sierra 

 Madre of Mexico, under the auspices of the American Geographical 

 Society and the Museum of Natural History of New York, will 

 write exclusively for Scribner's Magazine the results of his inves- 

 tigations and adventures. The first paper will appear in the No- 

 vember issue. Dr. Lumholtz says : '• My mlention ".s to investigate 

 accurately the language, habits, and customs of the primitive peo- 

 ple of the Sierra Madre by living with them, as I did with the 

 natives of Australia ; and thus I may hope to do my share in the 

 noble work of elucidatmg the history of the native race of this 

 great continent." 



— The Itajjerial Academy of Sciences, Vienna, has just pub- 

 lished in its Memoirs (Vol. XXXIX., Part First) a posthumous 

 work of the traveller Dr. J J. von Tschudi, which is of uncom- 

 mon interest to ethnographers and linguists. Its title is " Cul- 

 turhistorische und sprachliche Beitrage zur Kenntniss des alten 

 Peru" (Wien, F. Tempsky, 1881, pp. 330. 4"). The contents 

 are arranged under thu'ty eight headings havmg Indian names, 

 and to give an idea of these, some of those more generally known 

 may be mentioned here: Amaiita, Apatchita, Ketchua, Korikantsa, 

 Llama, Papa, Pariana, Patchakamak, Sairi, Tawantin-suyu, Waka, 

 Waskar (usually spelled huaca, huaskar), Wieakotcha. In the 

 article "Ketchua" he gives his reasons for defending Clements 

 Markham's opinion, that there had never been an Amiara people, 

 but that the language called Aimara was really that of the Kola'o, 

 or, as we will call them now, Collas. This people was of a sturdy, 

 ferocious race of mountaineers, which resisted for many years the 

 attempts at subjugation made by the Inca " kings." When they 

 had been conquered, the kings colonized other provinces with 

 Kola'o men, who were forced to emigrate, and placed colonists in 

 the Kola'o country, who were taken from Ketchua-speaking popu- 

 lations of the province Aimara. Thus a mixed people was formed, 

 and a new medley language originated among it. which we know 

 under the name of Aimara. In this medley language the elements 

 of the Kola'o are still recognizable from those of the intrusive 

 Ketchua, and prove to be of another linguistic family. Markham's 

 idea of its origin has been also upheld and further developed by 

 Tschudi in his excellent book " Organismus der Ketchua Sprache " 

 (1884). 



