102 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. I. No. 4. 



epitaphs of the seventeenth century,' Sarah 

 A. P. Andrews ; ' Popular medicine, cus- 

 toms and superstitions of the Eio Grande,' 

 Capt. John G. Bourke ; ' Plantation court- 

 ship,' Frank D. Banks ; ' Retrospect of the 

 folk-lore of the Columbian Exposition,' 

 Stewart Culin ; 'Eskimo tales and songs,' 

 Franz Boaz ; ' Popular American Plant 

 Names,' Fannie D. Bergen. 



A large number of papers were read be- 

 fore the Society and discussed by the mem- 

 bers present. The first was by Dr. Wash- 

 ing-ton Matthews, entitled 'A ISTavaho Myth,' 

 which related in detail one of the sacred 

 legends of the tribe. 



Capt. R. R. Moten then read a paper on 

 'Negro folk-songs,' in which he spoke of 

 natural musical tendencies of the colored 

 race and reviewed a number of the old 

 songs of the South before the war. Negro 

 music, he said, might be divided into three 

 kinds, that rendered while working, a dif- 

 ferent kind for idle hours, and a third and 

 more dignified sort used for worship. Capt. 

 Moten said the general public had but little 

 idea of the old negro music, and that many 

 of the so-called negro songs rendered by 

 white men in minstrel performances were 

 abortions. There were some old familiar 

 melodies, however, which were true to 

 nature, and full of inspiration. 



A quartet of colored men was present, 

 and sang a nvimber of negro songs illustrat- 

 ing the points brought out by Capt. Moten. 



Several speakers dwelt upon the import- 

 ant question of the diffusion of folk-tales 

 and the explanation of striking similarities 

 found in localities widely apart. Mr. "W. 

 W. Newell was inclined to explain such by 

 theories of transmission ; while Major J. 

 W. Powell and Dr. D. G. Brinton, both of 

 whom had papers on closely related topics, 

 leaned toward the ' anthropologic ' expla- 

 nation, which regards those similarities as 

 the outgrowth of the unity of human psy- 

 chological nature and methods. 



Dr. J. W. Fewkes gave a detailed de- 

 scription of the figures in the ancient Maya 

 manuscript known as the ' Cortesian Codex.' 

 Other j)apers presented were : ' Kwapa 

 folk-lore,' Dr. J. Owen Dorsey ; 'Korean. 

 Children's games,' Stewart Culin ; ' Burial 

 and holiday customs and beliefs of the Irish 

 peasantry,' Mrs. Fanny D. Bergen ; 'Biblio- 

 graphy of the folk-lore of Peru,' Dr. Geo, 

 A. Dorsey ; ' Mental development as illus- 

 trated by folk-lore,' Mrs. Helen Douglass ; 

 The game of goose with examples from 

 England, Holland, Germany and Italy,' 

 Dr. H. Carrington Bolton ; ' The Swastika,' 

 Dr. Thomas Wilson ; ' Folk-food of New 

 Mexico,' Capt. John G. Bourke, U. S. A.; 

 ' Opportunities of ethnological investigation 

 on the eastern coast of Yucatan,' Marshall 

 H. Saville ; ' Two Ojibway tales,' Homer 

 H. Kidder. 



The officers elected for the ensuing year 

 were : President, Dr. Washington Mat- 

 thews ; Vice Presidents, Rev. J. Owen Dor- 

 sey, Captain John G. Bourke, TJ. S. A.; 

 Permanent Secretary, William Wells Ne- 

 well, Cambridge, Mass.; Corresponding Sec- 

 retary, J. Walter Fewkes, Boston, Mass.; 

 Treasurer, John H. Hinton, New York, N. 

 Y.; Curator, Stewart Culin, Philadelphia, 

 Pa. D. G. Beinton. 



Univeesity of Pennsylvania. 



SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 

 Les oscillatioiis electriques. — H. Poincabe, 



Membre de I'Institut. Paris, George 



Carr6, 1894. 



This woi-k contains, briefly stated, a clear 

 mathematical discussion of the general feat- 

 ures of the Faraday-Maxwell electromag- 

 netic theory in Hertzian form, and of those 

 special problems bearing upon this theory 

 which are of particular interest to the ex- 

 perimentalist. The mathematical solution 

 of these problems is compared carefully with 

 the results obtained, principally by the ex- 

 periments of Hertz and of other iuvestiga- 



