700 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIX. No. 487. 



gem as the cylinder is Assyrian. Among the 

 funeral scarabs especially to be mentioned 

 were those placed upon the heart of the dead; 

 these were usually inscribed with passages 

 from the book of the dead; they were worn 

 by the living as ornaments and amulets, and 

 the historical scarabs, as those of Amenophis, 

 were of large size and covered with inscrip- 

 tions recording royal deeds. The paper was 

 discussed by Dr. Weston Flint. 



' The Franco-Egyptian Medal,' was the title 

 of a paper by Col. Paul E. Beckwith, of the 

 Division of History in the National Museum. 

 Col. Beckwith briefly described the Napoleonic 

 expedition to the valley of the Nile and spoke 

 of Champollion and other French men of sci- 

 ence who gave undying luster to this otherwise 

 disastrous campaign. Col. Beckv^ith gave a 

 history of the issuing of a medal by Louis 

 XVIII. commemorative of the Egyptian ex- 

 plorations and described figures of Egyptian 

 divinities which appear on this remarkable 

 work of art. 



Professor W. H. Holmes read an illustrated 

 paper on ' Significant Analogies between Pre- 

 Columbian and Oriental Art.' Professor 

 Holmes discussed the subject of the peopling 

 of America from the east and placed on the 

 screen a series of portraits of various peoples 

 from India, Mexico and around the Pacific. 

 The views showed a remarkable similarity of 

 types between the continents as to external fea- 

 tures. Professor Holmes spoke briefly on the 

 latitudinal modifications of peoples. A series 

 of views showing types of architecture and art 

 following the same range were next shown. 

 Professor Holmes pointed out the use of pyra- 

 mids in both hemispheres and the eifiorescence 

 of decorative designs to cover surfaces, these 

 designs both in Cambodia and Mexico arising 

 from religion. There is, said Professor 

 Holmes, sufficient reason for studying the 

 problem of art in southeastern Asia, and in 

 the light of our present knowledge one is led 

 to feel that there may have been oversea con- 

 tact between America and Asia at the period 

 of the great Buddhist revival about 1,000- 

 2,000 years ago. 



In the discussion Dr. Casanowicz said that 

 there is unity in the multiplicity of anthro- 



pological phenomena. Buddhist art at the 

 time of Asoka was affected by Persian art 

 which was itself influenced by Assyro-Baby- 

 lonian culture, and these facts explain the 

 transplanting and derivation of architectural 

 and art forms. By establishing a connection 

 between Hindu and aboriginal American art 

 an unbroken chain, as it were, is formed. 



Col. Flint spoke of the similarity of the 

 dragons of Chinese mythology to those of 

 Central America. Miss Alice Fletcher said 

 that there is unity of race and of art culture 

 based on psychical conditions, hence the con- 

 tinents touch. 



Dr. Hrdlicka agreed with Professor Holmes 

 as to the Asiatic influx to America, and, dis- 

 carding language as a factor, said that soma- 

 tologically there are many points of agreement 

 between the entire Malay-Mongolian stock and 

 the American aborigines. The main diffi- 

 culty in identifying the Americans with the 

 Malay-Asiatics was the old error of making 

 from the Indian a ' red ' race. 



Walter Hough, 

 General Secretary. 



THE BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 



The 385th regular meeting was held Satur- 

 day evening, April 2, 1904. Henry Oldys 

 spoke on ' The Use of Our Musical Scale by 

 Birds.' He briefly sketched the history of 

 music, and then analyzed examples of bird 

 music, showing that, judged by modern stand- 

 ards, they take higher rank than such speci- 

 mens of the music of ancient Greece and the 

 early church as have been preserved. The 

 evolution of the modern diatonic scale among 

 various peoples, some of whom must have 

 developed it independently — Egyptians, Chi- 

 nese, East Indians, Papuans, Bushmen, Az- 

 tecs, Iroquois Indians, Bellacoola Indians 

 (British Columbia), Greenland Eskimos, and 

 many others — indicates that there is some- 

 thing in this particular combination of defi- 

 nite and mathematically related intervals that 

 is peculiarly satisfying to the musical taste, 

 a taste shared by man only with birds. As 

 some birds exhibit other essentials of modern 

 music — rhythm, melodiousness, symmetry, etc. 

 — we should naturally expect them to use the 



