SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. I. No. 18. 



from the region, thus preparing the general 

 surface in which the adolescent preglacial 

 valley was eroded. 



The relation of displacements of this kind 

 to the location of settlements along the 

 river and to the choice of places for bridge- 

 building across it, would furnish material 

 for an interesting phj^siographical essay, ex- 

 tending the well-known report by Gen. War- 

 ren. The outline map on which the old 

 and new courses of the river are represent- 

 ed, is unfortunately without names, mak- 

 ing the careful reading of the chapter a 

 difficult matter for those unacquainted with 

 with such places as Fort Madison and Sand 

 Prairie. 



W. M. Davis. 



Haevaed TJniveesity. 



CURRENT NOTES ON ANTHROPOLOGY { VII.). 

 ET72SriC INSCEIPTIOIfS IN EASTEEN AMERICA. 



It is well known that venturous Norwe- 

 gian navigators in the eleventh century 

 visited at divers times the eastern coast of 

 ]S"orth America. The ancient sagas of Ice- 

 land which narrate the events of these 

 voyages are provokingly meager and ob- 

 scure ; so that it has been quite impossible 

 to decide how often such voyages were 

 made, or how far south the explorers ad- 

 vanced. Of course, it is to be supposed 

 that of some such expeditions we have no 

 account whatever. 



The late Professor E. N. Horsford per- 

 sistently maintained that positive evidence 

 of a pre-Columbian European settlement on 

 the Charles river, Mass., had been discover- 

 ed by him. The testimony he presented did 

 not convince many, and his daughter. Miss 

 Cornelia Horsford, has done well to pursue 

 and extend the lines of investigation which 

 her father began. The results are said to 

 be confirmatory of his theory, but the only 

 one which has as yet been made public is a 

 neatly illustrated, privately printed pam- 

 phlet, of 22 pages, entitled ' An Inscribed 



Stone,' By Corneha Horsford (Cambridge, 

 1895). 



The stone referred to was discovered at 

 Weston, Mass., in an uncultivated field, 

 and came under Miss Horsford's notice 

 merely by accident. One of its sides bore 

 a partly obliterated series of lines which 

 Mr. J. B. Woodsworth, of the U. S. Geo- 

 logical Survey, pronounces to be of arti- 

 ficial origin. Thej^ are arranged after the 

 manner of a runic futhorc, and simulate 

 certain forms of such writing. Miss Hors- 

 ford does not offer an interpretation. 



A second inscribed stone near New York 

 city is depicted, the runes on which Miss 

 Horsford both transliterates and provi- 

 sionally translates as referring to a census 

 of the inhabitants by the church officials. 



On a loose sheet a large number of runic 

 and ogham inscriptions from Great Britain, 

 the north of Europe and Greenland are 

 given for the purpose of comparison. 



The publication is one well worthy the 

 attention of historians. 



WHEEE WAS THE GARDEN OF EDEN ? 



We have not yet done with seeking on 

 the earthly plane the pristine Paradise, 

 Eden, ' the land of joy'. 



The latest explorer of its whereabouts is 

 the distinguished Professor Paul Haupt, of 

 the Johns Hopkins University, in an article, 

 'Wo Lag das Paradies?" in the'Ueber 

 Land und Meer,' No. 15, 1895. He differs 

 from Friedrich Delitsch, who, in his work 

 with the same title, asserted that the de- 

 scription of the locality in Genesis appUed 

 directly to the canal and river system of 

 Babylonia; he differs from himself in his 

 opinion as expressed in a paper published 

 last j'car in the proceedings of the American 

 Oriental Society, and concludes that the 

 four rivers mentioned in the Hebrew record, 

 the Pison, the Gihon, the Hiddekel and the 

 Euphrates, are, reversing the order, the 

 Euphrates, the Tigris, the Karun and the 



