November 27, 1891.] 



SCIENCE. 



299 



ti:e east end nothing was founrl. Near the surface of the second 

 cut two bowlder outlines resembh'ns; panthers were uncovered and 

 measured. Like the effigy mounds in Wisconsin, they were 85 

 to 90 feet long, being comijosed of one thickness of stone. The 

 heads, limbs, and tails were distinctly outlined. Near the bottom 

 of the second cut were three skeletons, with objects of copper, 

 bone, and shell. North of this deposit lay the great medicine 

 man, or chief of the village which had erected the mound. If 

 the number of implements is evidence of the esteem in which a 

 prehistoric man was held by his people, he was certainly the most 

 important Caique of the Scioto Valley. At his head were imita- 

 tion elk-horns, neatly made of wood and covered with sheet cop- 

 per, rolled into cylindrical form over the prongs. The antlers 

 were twenty-two inches high and nineteen inches broad at the top. 

 They fitted into a crown of copper, bent to fit the head from oc- 

 cipital to upper jaw. Copper plates were upon the breast and 

 stomach ; also on the back. The copper preserved the bones and 

 a few of the sinews. It also preserved traces of cloth similar to 

 coffee sacking in texture, interwoven among the threads of which 

 were nine hundred beautiful pearl beads, bear teeth split and cut, 

 hundreds of other beads of both pearl and shell. Copper spool- 

 shaped objects and other implements covered the remains. A 

 pipe of granite and a spear-head of agate were near the right 

 shoulder. The pipe was of very tine workmanship, and highly 

 polished. The mound is still in process of examination, two 

 months bein;< yet required to open it thoroughly. It is thought 

 to indicate connection with the Aztec people, as such head-dresses 

 are only found in Mexico and Yucatan. 



— Since Laveran discovered a parasite in the blood of several 

 patients suffering from malai-ial fever ten or twelve years ago, 

 many other observations on this interesting subject have been made 

 both by himself and by many other writers. Continental, American, 

 and Indian. One of the latest papers on the subject is a disserta- 

 tion by Dr. Romanovski of St. Petersburg, reported in The Lancet. 

 He thinks that the malarial parasites are so inseparably associated 

 with the disease that the blood of patients supposed to be suffer- 

 ing from malaria ought to be examined as a matter of routine, as 

 the sputum of phthisical patients is, for microbes. He finds that 

 the amoeboid parasite of tertian fever has a nucleus which acts by 

 means of a fibrous metamorphosis of the chromatin net-work, and 

 not by a direct method. When quinine is administered in suffi- 

 cient doses it causes the destruction of the amoeboid parasite, the 

 degeneration, which is easily observed, chiefly affecting the nu- 

 cleus. With regard to the prescription of quinine, he says that it 

 should be given in two doses of about fifteen grains each during 

 the twelve hours immediately preceding the attack, because during 

 that period the number of adult parasites is at its maximum. From 

 some observations made with tincture of sunflower Dr. Romanov- 

 ski was led to the conclusion that this drug, though not without 

 its influence on malarial fever, cannot be considered as a satisfac- 

 tory substitute for quinine. He appends to his work references 

 to more than 120 articles bearing on the subject, some few of 

 which are in Russian, but the great bulk are in more accessible 

 languages. 



— The fame of the Cape as a health resort is not of recent 

 growth, says The Lancet. In the old days of our Indian Empire, 

 long before the Suez Canal was projected, and when connection 

 with the East was maintained exclusively by sailing ships around 

 the Cape of Good Hope, Cape Colony was the favorite recruiting 

 ground for our countrymen exhausted by the toils or climate of 

 Hindustan. The Suez Canal and steam have altered all this, and 

 the Cape has suffered in consequence. It is once more becoming 

 known as a health resort, in consequence of that widespread 

 movement of travel which is now making all parts of the world 

 familiar, ami turning their special features to advantage not only 

 for commerce and adventure, but for health. The broad features 

 of the Cape climate are as follows. Great dryness, clearness, and 

 rarefaction of the atmosphere; abundance of sunlight; considera- 

 ble maxima of heat, which are nevertheless free from depressing 

 effects and consistent with vigor and activity; cool nights, a con- 

 siderable proportion of wind; a long summer and winter, with a 

 correspondingly short spring and autumn ; much dryness of soil 



and scantiness of forest and vegetation. The health record is, on 

 the whole, good. There is no yellow fever or cholera. Pulmo- 

 nary affections are alleged to be relatively somewhat infrequent. 

 Hydatids, so frequent in Australia, are lare. Rheumatism and 

 neuralgia are frequent. Speaking generally, accommodation and 

 means of communication are bad, but appear to be undergoing 

 a steady change for the better. 



— The Lancet, in describing a military bicycling trip in which 

 the party made one hundred miles in about ten hours, says in 

 conclusion : The most interesting part of the narrative has still to 

 be told. The veteran cyclist, Major Knox Holmes, at the near 

 close of his eighty-third year, mounted on a tandem with Mr, 

 Males, a young rider under eighteen years of age, accompanied 

 the corps, and arrived at the termination of the expedition five 

 minutes in advance of the rest. He was a little distressed on dis- 

 mounting, from too hard riding the last few miles, but he soon 

 threw off his fatigue and joined his companions at dinner with 

 thorough zest. His condition is physiologically peculiar. In 

 twelve weeks' new training he has, in the most striking manner, 

 "developed muscle" in the external and the internal vasti, the 

 rectus, and the muscles which form the calf of the leg. It has 

 become so entirely a part of physiological docti-ine that after 

 threescore years and ten there is no new development of muscle, 

 that if we had not seen with our own eyes, as we have, this actual 

 development in one whose age exceeds by thirteen years the tradi- 

 tional span of human life, we should have doubted the possibihty 

 of its occurrence. 



— An official report by Mr. Hughes of the Geological Survey of 

 India, on tin- mining in the Mergui district of Burmah, contains 

 a description by Mr. Adam of a remarkable tin deposit discovered 

 in the Maliwun district. After tracing a reef which attracted his 

 attention from hill to hill, and taking specimens in various places 

 and in a variety of ways, these gave such extraordinary results 

 " that I felt myself quite puzzled to account for the enormous 

 masses of wealth lying unheeded, more especially as many years 

 before a European company lost all its capital within a short dis- 

 tance of this very place. ... It is a most extraordinary deposit, 

 quite beyond anything I have ever seen in my travels, nor have I 

 heard of any miner or prospector meeting anything so rich." He 

 then details two experiments, by one of which he got 141 pounds 

 of ore from two cubic yards of the most unlikely rock he could 

 see, and by the other 141 pounds of ore from one cubic yard of 

 unselected rock. "These results," he says, "multiplied by the 

 enormous masses of these hills, would give figures altogether fab- 

 ulous in their dimensions." Mr. Hughes is not quite so enthusi- 

 astic about the discovery. He says: "I twice visited this reef, 

 once in company with Mr. Adam and again with Dr. King, the 

 director of our survey. There is nothing I would term a main 

 lode, but rather a zone of metamorphic rocks through which runs 

 of varying ore-bearing quartzes can be traced. Many of the 

 smaller seams, of a reddish-brown color, are heavily weighted 

 with tin ore, giving as high a proportion as 60 per cent. The 

 primary value of the reef is dependent on the persistence of these 

 courses of quartz; for, apart from them, little or no ore was ob- 

 tainable by rough washing samples of the rock. In dealing with 

 the claim of this reef to exceptional richness, we have to allow 

 for the vicissitudes which seem to dog the persistance of all metal- 

 liferous indications in India, and we have to allow for the acci- 

 dent of the courses of quartz dying away as they descend. At 

 first sight there is nothing to suggest such a liability, but we have, 

 in the hi tory of unsuccessful efforts to work the lodes from 1873 

 to 1877, a warning as to the possibly fleeting nature of the deposit 

 under discussion. This, however, is the very worst aspect that 

 can be assumed, kad the pleas on the other side are that the reef 

 has been traced for more than three miles, that a large portion of 

 it can be won by surface blasting, and that the statements made 

 as to the precarious character of the runs of quartz are based on 

 imperfect evidence. The point on which there can he no dispute 

 is that there is a large mineralized zone of rock exposed in the 

 form of a prominent, well-defined hill, which is free from any 

 speculative doubts as to its existence. At the spot known as 

 Khow Muang there are at least 60,000 tons of reef within sight." 



