124 
of certain funguses that may be applied 
to economic uses for which some of the 
true fibers are employed. 
In the portion of the paper which fol- 
lowed, the different forms of fibers were de- 
fined in detail and examples given from the 
list of well-known commercial and native 
or aboriginal species. It is the considera- 
tion of these useful native fibers that makes 
it possible to enumerate a list of a thousand 
species of fibrous plants, while the world’s 
commercial fibers would hardly reach a 
total of fifty species. The native or ab- 
original forms are interesting; our museums 
are filled with manufactures from them, 
and any scheme of systematic classification 
which omits them is faulty and imperfect. 
CURRENT NOTES ON ANTHROPOLOGY. 
PIGMENTATION OF THE SKIN. 
M. BreEvt, in an inaugural thesis re- 
viewed in L’ Anthropologie, reports some 
new observations on the pigmentation of 
the human skin. 
The colors of the different races depend 
upon this pigment in the epidermis, es- 
pecially in its deeper strata. Breul finds 
the coloring matter in the interior of the 
epithelial cells, while even in the negro the 
intercellular spaces are white. The pig- 
ment itself may be quite black, or of any 
shade up toa light yellow. It may be con- 
fined to the nucleolus, or extend over the 
cell. A close examination shows that it is 
distributed in patches over the skin, be- 
tween them the tissue being colorless. This 
is true even of the black races, although in 
them the patches are close together and 
may not be discernible unless the skin be 
stretched. 
This distribution of the coloring matter 
is the same in all races, and its actual 
amount is probably the same, the difference 
in hue resulting from the darker or lighter 
character of the pigmentary grains. 
SCIENCE. 
[N.S. Vou. VI. No. 134. 
HOLMES’ RESEARCHES IN MEXICO. 
Tue second part of the ‘Archeological 
Studies’ of Professor William H. Holmes 
(for a notice of the first part, see ScreNncE, 
February 21, 1896) is devoted to the 
‘Monuments of Chiapas, Oaxaca and the 
the Valley of Mexico.’ It is a most at- 
tractive monograph, based on original per- 
sonal studies, and containing nearly forty 
full-page plates, panoramic views and nu- 
merous text illustrations. The ruins de- 
scribed are those of Palenque, Monte Alban 
Gn Oaxaca), Mitla and San Juan Teotihua- 
can. The volume closes with a series of 
‘Studies of Ancient Mexican Sculpture,’ re- 
ferring to tablets, yokes, figures and carved 
shells. 
The text is full of new suggestions and 
comparisons, as wellas of facts. The archi- 
tectural elements of the various sites are 
analyzed and compared, and the sources 
from which the materials were obtained 
were carefully sought out. Nowhere was 
any evidence found of the use of metals, or 
a condition of the arts above that known to 
have existed at the discovery, although the 
stately monuments of Oaxaca and Teoti- 
huacan testify to an astonishing concentra- 
tion of effort for prolonged periods. The re- 
mains in Mexico are more magnificent in 
dimensions, but on the whole less artistic 
than those of Yucatan or Chiapas. 
D. G. Briyton. 
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 
NOTES ON INORGANIC CHEMISTRY. 
In the last Comptes Rendus a new atomic 
weight determination of cerium is described 
by Wyrouboff and Verneuil. The element 
was obtained in a state of great purity, and 
the determinations made by converting the 
sulfate into the oxid by heat. The atomic 
weightis given at 92.7, but this is on the 
supposition that the oxid obtained is 
Ce,O,. It is ordinarily considered that the 
formula of this oxid is CeO,, which would 
