870 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol XLIII. No. 1120 



According to Dr. P. Saterain, who made a geolog- 

 ical study of the cavern, it is of the same cal- 

 careous composition as the mountains in which it 

 is situated. It has not been possible to determine 

 the age of the cavern because there were no fos- 

 sils in it; and the inclination of from 60° to 70° 

 of the calcareous strata, the tertiary strata visible 

 in slopes of the mountain, and other circumstances 

 permit the conclusion that in geological formation 

 it belongs to the secondary and probably to the 

 Jurassic period. 



In the bottom of the cavern, resting on a layer 

 of ashes, there were found a number of skulls ar- 

 ranged in a semicircle, and concentric to those, the 

 large bones arranged in the form of an X, and in 

 the same way the short and flat bones were ar- 

 ranged, and at the center the bones of the pelvis. 

 Three of the skulls were studied in Paris under 

 the direction of Drs. Verneau and Eivet in 1906. 

 In the cave was found also the fragments of a 

 human mandible and a flat stone; and mixed with 

 hiiman teeth a number of other teeth of a strange 

 form. The objects mentioned will be placed on 

 exhibition for the benefit of the members of the 

 congress. The fragment of the human mandible 

 was studied in 1911 by F. Ameghino, who believes 

 that it belonged to a species of genus homo dif- 

 ferent from those known up to the present time. 

 He gave it the name of Soma cuhensio. In the 

 opinion of Dr. Both, of the Museo de la Plata, 

 the mandible and the teeth are those of a species 

 of ape extinct in the island of Cuba, where in his- 

 toric times apes have not been known. 



The study of Dr. Montana is accompanied by an 

 extensive bibliography. 



Indian Ceremonial and other Practises on the Hu- 

 man Body: Walter Hough. 

 Practises on the human body are almost uni- 

 versal, such as tattoo, perforation of lips, nose, 

 cheeks, ears, breasts, etc.; filing, brealdng or orna- 

 menting the teeth; shaping the skull, nose, legs, 

 etc.; excoriations by knife and fire, etc. They 

 may be classified as (1) surgical, (2) cosmetic, (3) 

 ceremonial, and (4) thaumaturgic practises, and 

 cause more or less profound modifications in parts 

 of the body. It is probable that they are aU 

 based on nature religion. Environment has an im- 

 portant efl'eet on the practises treated in the paper. 

 The majority of mutilative practises occur among 

 unclothed peoples. In America they are found 

 sparingly in the United States and become in- 

 creasingly prevalent in Mexico, Central America 

 and tropical South America, repeating the phe- 



nomena of the East Indies, Oceanica, Africa and 

 such regions as are inhabited by unclothed peo- 

 ples. Among clothed peoples the visible parts of 

 the body are subject to modifications in the fol- 

 lowing order: Ears, nose, lips, facial surface and 

 ankles. The practises on these parts survive the 

 adoption of clothing, while tattoo deteriorates or 

 becomes obsolete. The paper describes American 

 practises and illustrates the practises of other 

 parts of the world for comparison. 



Preliminary Eemarlcs on the STceletal Material Col- 

 lected by the Jesup Expedition: Beuno Gette- 



KING. 



In preliminary remarks on the skeletal material 

 collected by the Jesup Expedition of the Ameri- 

 can Museum of Natural History, the speaker points 

 out the variety of racial elements combined in the 

 Indian population of the northwestern section of 

 this continent. So far as the skuUs are con- 

 cerned, the morphological diagnosis of the face 

 will aid materially in conducting investigations. 

 Racial affinities with the peoples of northeastern 

 Asia can be demonstrated in consideration of the 

 bodily proportions manifested in the size and 

 form of the long bones. 



One Aspect of Present Evolution in Man: Paul 



POPENOE. 



Pre-Columbian America was free from the most 

 serious contagious diseases of Europe: tubercu- 

 losis, smallpox, measles, etc.; consequently the 

 native population had undergone no evolution or 

 immunization against them. When brought by 

 the conquerors, these diseases immediately began 

 to kiU the natives much more rapidly than they did 

 the Europeans, among whom natural selection, by 

 eliminating the least resistant in each generation 

 for many centuries, had produced a strong re- 

 sistance. In the markedly different death-rate of 

 native Americans and Europeans, with respect to 

 these European diseases, we can see evolution in 

 man actually in operation, and working rapidly to 

 produce a more disease-resistant race in the New 

 World. The high death-rate of negroes in the 

 United States from tuberculosis, as contrasted 

 with the death-rate of whites, offers another illus- 

 tration of natural selection at work. In the light 

 of such facts, it would be erroneous to suppose 

 that evolution in man has slowed down or ceased; 

 in some directions it is probably proceeding more 

 rapidly to-day than ever before. 



George Grant MacCuedt 

 {To ie concluded) 



