30 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XIII. No. 310 



ruvian mummy was placed at the disposal of Professor Morse by 

 Dr. Wilhelm Reiss, the learned president of the congress, and the 

 discoverer, in association with Dr. Stiibel, of the famous Ancon 

 antiquities. An examination of this mummy, which was that of 

 an elderly person, showed that the elements of the hyoid arch were 

 free. 



When the attention of Professor Virchow was called to the sub- 

 ject by Professor Morse, that eminent anatomist said that the 

 question had apparently been entirely neglected. He was inclined, 

 however, to support the correctness of the view advanced by the 

 German authorities, and regard the co-ossification of the hyoid 

 arch as occurring only under abnormal or pathological conditions. 

 Returning home by way of London, while visiting the British 

 Museum of Natural History, we had the good fortune to meet the 

 eminent mammalogist, Professor Flower. When we called his at- 

 tention to the subject, he expressed the liveliest interest, saying 

 that the observation was entirely new, the separation of the bones 

 of the basi-hyoid being wholly contrary to any thing observed in 

 his own large experience. He had taken the pains of making careful 

 observations of this feature, and had made preparations of full sets 

 of the OS hyoides both in man and the lower mammalia. In man he 

 had found that co-ossification took place at maturity, and in proof 

 he called attention to a complete series of British hyoids which he 

 had prepared' for the College of Physicians and Surgeons. There- 

 fore he would regard this observation of Drs. Wortman and ten 

 Kate as indicating a very important discovery. The collection of 

 human hyoids at the College of Physicians and Surgeons was in- 

 spected by Professor Morse, who found it prepared with the skill 

 and knowledge for which Professor Flower is famous. Every 

 specimen, when after maturity, was co-ossified. 



Under a co-operative agreement made at the time between the 

 Army Medical Museum and the Hemenvvay Expedition, the skele- 

 tons exhumed from the ancient cities in southern Arizona have 

 been deposited with the former institution ; and Dr. Billings is so 

 impressed with the importance of the question, that Drs. Matthews 

 and Wortman have been requested to make it the subject of an ex- 

 haustive research. In this work they, with their assistants, are now 

 engaged, and have been supplied with an abundance of material 

 from various races, in order to make the needed comparative ob- 

 servations. A full report thereon will be forthcoming in due time, 

 but it may already be stated that the investigations have been ad- 

 vanced to a stage that fully confirms the opinion originally formed 

 by the observers, — that in the peculiarities of the os hyoides is to 

 be found the most distinctive racial character yet observed in 

 human osseous anatomy. Its value in the determination of vexed 

 questions can hardly yet be estimated, but it will undoubtedly prove 

 of great anthropological service. 



Dr. Wortman inclines to the view that it will be found that lan- 

 guage plays a leading part in determining the form of this feature. 

 The language of the American Indians is such that it requires but 

 slight effort^in utterance. An Indian can talk for hours at a stretch 

 with little fatigue, and even a superficial observer will notice the 

 restrained quality of the voice, the tones not being projected as 

 with us. Now, the^development of ankylosis being held to pro- 

 ceed from exercise, or irritation of the bone, from muscular action 

 or otherwise, it is evident that in a language like that of the Indians 

 there would be less muscular action exerted upon the hyoid arch 

 than in one like ours, where more force is used, and therefore the 

 co-ossification of the parts would be less encouraged. This view 

 of Dr. Wortman's obtains support in observations made by Mr. 

 Gushing at Zuiii, where he finds that the voices of those who are 

 afflicted with bone-disease differ in quality from those of the tribe 

 at large, and infers that their difference may be due to co-ossifica- 

 tion of the hyoid brought about by the disease. 



With the foregoing remarks, I hereby submit Mr. Cushing's let- 

 ter concerning the other important osteological observation men- 

 tioned in the beginning. 



Sylvester Baxter, 



Sec'y Hemenway Expedition. 



Old Fakm, Milton, Mass., 

 Nov. g, 188S. 

 My dear Morse, — Last evening I chanced to tell Mrs. Hemenway 

 something about the observations we made on the distorted skulls of 



Los Muertos and Halonawan, She was greatly interested, especially in 

 what Baxter had to say relative to Dr. Virchow's paper before the re- 

 cent congress, on, I think, deformed American crania. She wished me 

 to write a brief statement of the case and send it to you, as of possible 

 use to Drs. Virchow and Bastian. 



While our excavations were in progress. I observed, by keeping close 

 watch over the disinterments, that all, or nearly all, skulls occurring in 

 earth sepulchres, were apparently deformed by artificial means. From 

 the fact, however, that skulls taken from stone graves or cists, or from 

 other sorts of tombs wherein they had been fairly protected, were uni- 

 formly and regularly brachycephalic, and showed no other sign of dis- 

 tortion than tlie occipital flattening from the cradle-board, I was led to 

 infer that those from the earth sepulchres had been deformed by acci- 

 dent ; that is, by post-mortem influences. 



Subsequent observations, in all of which I was confirmed by Dr. ten 

 Kate, indicated the entire correctness of this inference. For example:, 

 no general rule of cranial disfiguration (always with the above instanced 

 exception) was found to prevail. On the contrary, the disfigurations- 

 seemed to depend largely, if not wholly, on the positions of the skulls. 

 When the latter were lying on their sides in the graves, at an angle of, 

 say, forty-five degrees, one side of the coronal region would be de- 

 pressed, and sometimes the face, even, would be obliquely distorted, as- 

 in Fig. I of the accompanying slips. Again, when the skeleton was 

 lying on its back, with head elevated, the crown would be greatly de- 

 pressed, as in Fig. 2 ; or, if the head happened to be less elevated, face 

 partially upturned, the frontal region was invariably more or less flat- 

 tened and broadened, as in Fig. 3 ; or if, finally, the head chanced (face 

 still upward) to be greatly depressed, the parietal region was flattened, 

 throwhig the frontal forward sometimes to an extraordinary degree, as- 

 in Fig. 4. 



Perhaps the most extreme of these cases of post-mortem distortions of 

 skulls were those which, belonging to skeletons of persons who had been 

 buried on their sides, were so regularly flattened laterally that they 

 seemed unmistakably to belong to the dolichocephalic class, as in Fig. 

 5. In fact, the only examples of "long-headed "skulls found during our 

 researches, in either the north or the south (among the ancient ruins, 

 that is), were so plainly distorted by this post-mortem pressure, that they 

 made no exception to the rule established by Dr. ten Kate, that the 

 Pueblo or Aridian was a short-headed race- 

 All this is simply due to the practice of blanket-burial. The skulls, 

 being unprotected during the earlier years of burial, are, by the pressure 

 of the earth, gradually deformed, — so gradually, indeed, that they 

 neither crack, nor do the sutures part. The deformities are therefore in 

 no wise distinguishable, after the specimen is removed from its original 

 resting-place, from those produced by art. We are now, therefore, 

 forced to note, in collecting our crania, their relative positions in the 

 earth sepulchres very carefully. 



I sincerely hope this may prove useful to Drs. Bastian and Virchow, 

 or at least of some interest to them and the many other gentlemen who 

 were so courteous to you and Mr. Baxter. 



Faithfully yours, 



Frank Hamilton Gushing. 



The Julian Electric Traction System. 



In the opening pages of your journal of Dec. 21, 1S88, a de- 

 scription is given of the Hauss Electric Railwaj', and comparisons- 

 are made between that system and other systems of electric trac- 

 tion. A paragraph is devoted to pointing out what the writer 

 claims to be the defects of the storage-battery system. 



It is very much to be deplored that some electrical railway com- 

 panies attempt to raise their own systems in the public estimation 

 by crying down other systems. What is still more deplorable is, 

 that, in attempting to do this, they are not always friends to truth. 

 There could be no better proof of this than the paragraph I have 

 above referred to on the storage-battery system. 



The writer admits that the storage-battery plan " would seem to- 

 be the ideal system," for the reason, among others, that " it dis- 

 penses with the necessity of a continuous conductor, the electrical 

 generator and motive power are all contained within the car, and 

 there is apparently an entire absence of any possibility of danger 

 to the passengers." The writer goes on to say that " these favor- 

 able anticipations would be justified were it once demonstrated 

 that a storage-battery had been devised that was economical of 

 power, of reasonable weight, and durable in service." The writer 



