February 16, 1894. 
imperfectly acquainted with the writings of that dis- 
tinguished antiquary. For instance, the name of the fifth 
day in the Maya calendar is chicchan, which in one of his 
articles, published in 1888, Dr. Seler derives from can, 
serpent, and cz, to bite; but in a later paper, published 
in 1891, he retracts this etymology, and says, ‘‘ Jetzt ist 
es mir zweifellos, dass es chic-chaan, d. h., ‘tomado 
sefal,’ ‘tomado aguero,’ bedeuten soll.” Dr. Thomas, 
unacquainted with the latter article, asserts that my 
quotations were not correct, and questions the transla- 
tion. It is good for reviewers, as well as writers, to keep 
themselves acquainted with the current literature of their 
own special branches. 
Dr. Thomas also objects to my interpretations of the 
Maya month names from religious ceremonies held at 
certain seasons, stating that it is ‘‘totally different from 
the method by which the names of the months of other 
calendars were obtained ”;—entirely overlooking the fact 
(for I cannot suppose he is ignorant of it) that the Nahuatl 
month-names are recognized by all to have been derived 
just in this way. 
In his letter to Sczence, Dr. Thomas fails to grasp Mrs. 
Nuttall’s theory. There is no fixed relation of the 
ceremonial year of 260 days to each civil solar year of 
365 days; but in a cycle of exactly 37 solar years, 13,515 
days, the two calendars coincide; and there is certainly 
some evidence that this cycle was noted and celebrated 
by both Mayas and Mexicans. We may well leave, how- 
ever, further discussion of this intricate subject till the 
' appearance of Mrs. Nuttall’s work, now in course of pub- 
lication by the Peabody Museum of Archeology. 
The analogies which Dr. Thomas endeavors to point 
out in favor of a Polynesian origin of the calendar are not 
impressive. For instance, 8 months, 232 days, surely 
does not ‘‘correspond somewhat closely with the sacred 
period of the Mexican calendar,” which was 260 days. 
Nor is it easy to see why it is such a ‘‘singular fact,” 
that the Javanese, like the Mexicans, had a five days’ 
week, since both employed the quinary method of 
enumeration. As to the Hawaiian system, Dr. Thomas 
is quite right in speaking of the accounts of it as ‘‘in 
evident confusion’; therefore the less we base analogies 
upon it, the more creditable will be our caution. 
D. G. BRINTON. 
Philadelphia. 
Mining Exhibits at Chicago. 
THE anonymous writer of the article entitled, ‘‘ The 
Columbian and the Centennial Expositions,” in Sczence 
of Feb. 2, we think unjustly criticizes the exhibits of 
the Mining Building. It is evident that the writer, in 
common with probably nine-tenths of the visitors, has 
passed judgment on the exhibit as a whole by examining 
merely those parts of it which were displayed on the 
ground floor. Toa lover of educational features in the 
exhibit nothing could arouse greater regret than that so 
vast an amount of space on the ground floor was devoted 
to ‘* great piles of rocks and ores utterly without system ”’ 
and to the veritable storage of practically worthless, 
unlabeled material in expensive showcases, as for example 
in the wretched Mexican display. Your correspondent 
most justly condemns such waste of space, but when he 
attempts to score ‘‘the rest”’ of the exhibits, it is very 
easy to see that he overlooks the gallery exhibits, which 
in educational value far exceeded any at the Centennial. 
In Philadelphia exhibits of considerable interest, but of no 
scientific value, were scattered through several buildings; 
and the ‘‘ Mining Annex,” itself an afterthought, and 
added to the main building merely to supply the demand 
for space, contained little that was comparable even to 
the exhibits on the ground floor of the Chicago Mining 
SCIENCE. 93 
Building. The elaborate, and on a whole excellent, 
metallurgical display in the west gallery, though defective, 
had no competitor at the Centennial; the most instructive 
Coke exhibit, the admirable abrassive exhibit, the large 
floor chart of the coal fields of the United States, and the 
collections of building stones all in the east gallery and 
the grand display of oils in the north gallery, the mere 
decoration of which we understand cost $65,000, are not 
even mentioned by your correspondent, and probably he 
never ascended the tiresome stairways which led up to 
the real mecca of the few who desired to study the educa- 
tional exhibits in the Mining Building. Nor is mention 
made of the great systematic collections of minerals and 
rocks displayed respectively in the east and west galleries. 
It is worth noting that every specimen in two of these 
collections was labeled with its species, crystallographic 
form, chemical formula and locality, and so mounted as 
to clearly display the label, which in one collection was 
invariably a printed one. These systematic collections 
were unquestionably the best labeled, most complete and 
scientific, ever shown at any World’s Fair. Two fine 
displays of gems in the rough and cut, in the west gallery, 
are also overlooked. It is easy to find fault, but far 
better, in our judgment, to discern merits, and as a_ 
mineralogist who visited the Centennial more than a score 
of times and spent six months at the Columbian Exposi- 
tion, the opinion here expressed that the mining exhibit 
at Chicago far exceeded that at Philadelphia may coincide 
within the unwritten opinion of many a mineralogist. 
Gro. L. ENGLIsH. 
New York. 
BOOK REVIEWS. 
Histories of American Schools for the Deaf, 1817-1893. 
Edited by Epwarp A. Fay. 3 vols., octavo. Wash- 
ington, D. C., The Volta Bureau. 
Tue historical sketches contained in these goodly 
volumes were prepared for the Columbian anniversary, 
the enterprise having been first suggested in December, 
1892. They give accounts of all the schools for the deaf 
that have been established in the United States, Canada 
and Mexico, most of the ‘histories having been prepared 
by the heads of the various schools or by persons des- 
ignated by them, several of the writers being deaf them- 
selves. The different articles of which the work consists 
are printed and paged separately, the printing in many 
cases having been done by pupils or graduates of the 
schools, andthe volumes are profusely illustrated with 
portraits and other pictures. Most of the schools are 
public, and supported in whole or in part by the state; but 
private and denominational institutions are also included, 
the whole number of schools dealt with being seventy- 
nine in the United States, seven in Canada and one in 
Mexico. Besides the histories of the various schools, 
these volumes contain an introduction by the editor, an 
account of several conferences of the instructors and also 
of the American Association to Promote the Teaching of 
Speech to the Deaf, together with many statistical and 
personal items pertaining to the general subject. 
Of the schools whose origin and history are here re- 
counted, the greatest interest naturally attaches to the 
earliest ones and to those which at a later time introduced 
the system of oral teaching. The editor in his intro- 
ductory note alludes to the first establishment of the 
European schools for the deaf, which were the models of 
our own; and the opening chapters of the first volume 
describe the founding of the first two American schools, 
the American Asylum at Hartford, which was opened in 
1817, and the New York Institution, which originated in- 
dependently the following year, The remainder of the 
