June 5, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



891 



■with, supernatural or magical import — there 

 are other fire-observanees, occurring usually 

 among the same peoples, which also have a 

 bearing on the significance of the fire-cult. 

 Especially significant is the annual or cyclic 

 ceremony of extinguishing the old fire and 

 kindling new by some archaic method, as the 

 central and most solemn rite in the transi- 

 tion to a new year — e. g., at the planting of 

 the first seed or the first eating of the new 

 crop (Eome, Celtic Ireland, Eskimos, Iro- 

 quois, Muskoki, Aztecs, Ouichuas and others). 

 Widely diffused are also the customs of pass- 

 ing new-born children over or around the 

 fire (c/. Greek myths of children rendered 

 immortal by this means) ; of leaping through 

 fires at certain seasonal festivals, as the 

 Eoman Palilia, the Johannisfeuer celebra- 

 tions, etc. ; of employing fire as a fertility 

 charm for crops and herds; of celebrating 

 essential parts of the marriage ceremony be- 

 fore the household fire ; of using fire in initia- 

 tion rites. An analysis of these observances 

 and a consideration of the reasons actually 

 given for certain of them by Iroquois and 

 Maori makes it probable that the sacred fire 

 was by many races conceived, not as a prac- 

 tical convenience, nor as an umnotivated 

 ancient custom, nor as a device for frighten- 

 ing away demons, nor as a negative purifying 

 agency merely, but as a vehicle of life force 

 or magical energy — manitou, wakonda or 

 mana; that the health and prosperity of the 

 household or tribe were believed to depend in 

 part on the fire's perpetuity, vitality and 

 purity; and that the fire, like all natural 

 forces, was thought of as subject to periodi- 

 city, to a tendency to grow old and weak, and 

 accordingly as in need of periodic renewal. 



In a paper on " The Psychology of Dreams," 

 Dr. Robert H. Lowie called attention to the 

 services which scientific dream psychology 

 can render to the ethnologist. A knowledge 

 of the investigations carried on in this field 

 will enable him to view critically the plaus- 

 ible but inaccurate dicta of popular psy- 

 chology. Knowing, for example, the theory 

 of dreams advanced by Delage, the ethnolo- 

 gist will not naively accept the assumption 

 of Wundt and Radestock that dreams of 



recently deceased relatives have largely in- 

 fiuenced the development of belief in a here- 

 after. A positive benefit is derived when 

 mythological figures of obscure origin, such 

 as dwarfs, gorgons, etc., are derived from the 

 distorted images of some dreams — Wundt's 

 Fratzentraume — as a conceivable source. 

 Erom a purely psychological point of view, 

 the speaker urged the desirability of fuller 

 dream-records, especially in regard to varie- 

 ties of hypnagogic experience. 



E. S. WOODWORTH, 



Secretary 



THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 



At the 203d meeting of the society, on 

 March 25, 1908, Mr. Willis T. Lee spoke in- 

 formally regarding the " Local Upturning 

 Sedimentary Eocks at their Outcrop." Grand 

 Mesa in western Colorado rises 5,000 feet or 

 more above the general surface to the south 

 and west, and is surrounded by a steep escarp- 

 ment. The general dip of the beds is 2.5°, 

 but where they crop out in the sides of the 

 mesa for a distance of 75 miles or more, the 

 dip is often 5° to 8° or more. It is usually 

 greatest in the projecting points and becomes 

 less inward or toward the mesa, flattening to 

 the general inclination of 2.5° within a dis- 

 tance varying from a few hundred feet to a 

 quarter of a mile. 



The upturned parts may represent the bases 

 of eroded anticlines, monoclines or domes, but 

 this suggestion is apparently invalidated by 

 the occurrence of dip only toward the mesa 

 and practically at right angles to the outcrop; 

 or the phenomenon may be due to weathering 

 of the exposed sediments combined with relief 

 of pressure as the superincumbent rocks were 

 eroded away. This finds support in the ob- 

 servation that the rocks are often most steeply 

 upturned in the projecting points of the cliffs. 

 On the other hand, it is not certain that relief 

 of pressure would have any influence on the 

 inelastic rocks, or that the shales underlying 

 the beds in which the upturning is most con- 

 spicuous would expand on exposure to the 

 weather. It is probable that hydration and 

 carbonation of the rocks may account for the 

 upturning. 



