December 15, 1893] 



SCIENCE 



331 



among the Onondagas yet. In both cases these may be 

 due to a new environment. The flat soapstone vessels, 

 with their many perforations, are earlier in New York 

 than the Iroquois occupancy, and altogether apart from 

 it. Many of them have handles, and they occur along 

 the larger streams. The material is not found in the 

 State, as far as I remember, and they seem to have 

 been brought here by fishing parties. The common 

 forms are like some Eskimo vessels. 



The figure on page 136, representing a man's belt, is 

 of special interest, as showing the reputed form and 

 material of the primitive Iroquois council belt, after- 

 wards made of wampum. The foundation of this 

 Eskimo belt is like that of a wampum belt, but quills, 

 or shafts of feathers, form the pattern instead of beads. 

 Now, it is a clearly proved fact that the Iroquois and 

 their predecessors in New York had no shell beads suit- 

 able for belts, and very few at all. Loskiel said that 

 they used small colored sticks. In a paper on "Hia- 

 watha," and in my "Iroquois Trail," I have given some 

 Iroquois stories on their first use of wampum, in some 

 of which the wampum bird figures. One of these repre- 

 sents Hiawatha litringing the quills of the legendary 

 black eagle. The Mohawk chief, however, cannot call 

 down the sacred bird, and sends a string of partridge 

 quills in return. An Onondaga told me that their early 

 belts were made of the quills of birds or of porcupines, 

 which were afterwards replaced with beads. The latter 

 have been found on no early sites, and are quite modern 

 with them. W. M. Beauchamp. 



BaldwinsviUe, N. Y., Dec. 4, 1853. 



A Miniature Water Lily. 



During an extended tour the past summer in northern 

 Minnesota I came upon a beautiful little white water lily. 

 It is an almost exact miniature of Nymphea odorata. The 

 flowers are about an inch and a half across. The leaves 

 are oval-sagittate, three-fourths inches long. I found it 

 only on the south branch of the Tamarack river, which 

 flows into the northeast corner of Eed Lake. It is there 

 quite abundant. Can any of your readers give more in- 

 formation concerning it ? J. E. Todd. 



University of South Dakota, Dec. i. 



Feigned Death in Snakes. 



In Science for Nov. 3 is an article on ' 'Feigned Death 

 in Snakes." Probably the writer is correct in his state- 

 ment that the Heterodon does not (usually) bite himself 

 just before feigning death. I recall one instance, how- 

 ever, in which a large black blowing viper, in the act of 

 fe'gning death, contrived somehow to get his teeth 

 (such as they were) caught in the skin on his side, and 

 he was lying thus when I picked him up and loosed the 

 teeth. This may have been accidental. I have often 

 tried to get these snakes to bite something — anything — 

 my hand, for instance, and never succeeded. But I 

 have occasionally had one of them strike me a sharp 

 rap with the end of his nose — of course without doing 

 any damage. Moreover, I have not observed that they 

 usually eject the contents of the stomach. When one of 

 them has recently swallowed something, especially if it 

 is something bulky, he will often (perhaps always) eject 

 it before trv'ng to escape or feigning death. But other- 

 wise, my obsen-ation has not led me to believe that it 

 is a common practice. 



However, the thing that I especiall}^ desired to hear 

 about was the action of rattlesnakes under similar cir- 

 cumstances. I have never seen a rattlesnake feign 

 death, but reliable parties have reported the fact; only 

 they generall)- speak of it as the snake killing himself. 



For they all state that the rattlesnake does bite himself 

 and then seems to die. (The quickness with which they 

 appear to die is suspicious). Now Dr. Mitchell states, 

 after much study and experiment with the poison of 

 snakes, that the poison of a rattlesnake injected under 

 the skin of the same animal does not cause death. It 

 is about these animals and their apparently pretended 

 suicide that I would much like to hear. 



J. W. KiLPATRICK. 

 Fayette, Mo., Dec. i. 



Dr. Topinard and the Serpent Mound. 



In the November 10 th issue of Science Dr. Brinton has 

 very properly replied to Dr. Paul Topinard, the eminent 

 French anthropologrist. American students, who have 

 been so frequently told how much more the French know 

 concerning prehistoric archaeology than the scientists of 

 this country, will find a great deal of satisfaction in noting 

 the ignorance which the great savant Dr. Topinard dis- 

 plays in his article. I wish to call the attention of the 

 readers of Science to the fact that, while Squier and Davis 

 published an excellent map of the Serpent Mound (in 

 Adams County, Ohio), Caleb Atwater wrote concerning it 

 in 1820. So the eminent Frenchman has made a mistake 

 of about sixty years in attributing the discovery to Pro- 

 fessor Putnam. One can easily understand and overlook 

 a mistake in locating or describing the small earthworks 

 or western ruins on the part of the distinguished foreigner, 

 but, after all that has been published about our greatest 

 monument, the Serj)ent Mound, it is very strange that one 

 whose entire life has been given to the study of prehis- 

 toric peoples should have fallen into such an error regard- 

 ing it. Waeeen K. Mookehead. 



The Hardness of Carborundum. 



Eeferring to my article on "Carborundum" {Science, 

 XXII , 141), it is there stated that the discoverer of this 

 substance claimed that it would cut and polish the dia- 

 mond. In the December number of the Am. Jour. Sci., 

 XLVL, 473, Mr. G. F. Kunz states the result of an experi- 

 ment made by him to determine this. A new wheel was 

 provided, and, after several trials, it was found that the 

 carborundum, though hard enough to cut sapphire and 

 corundum, would not cut or polish the diamond. The 

 carborundum crystals may be scratched hj diamond 

 points. The hardness is thus between 9 and 10, and it is, 

 next to the diamond, the hardest substance known. 



Wm. p. Blake. 



Late-Bloominq Trees. 



While at Brielle, N. J., I noticed, during the first week 

 in September, several apple trees blooming quite freshly, 

 and I have reports from Alpine, N. J., of pear trees and 

 horse chestnuts being in bloom. Can any of your readers 

 give an explanation of the cause and the effects (upon the 

 trees) of this occurrence ? 



Walter Mendelson. 



Telluride of Gold, Cripple Creek, Colorado. 

 The native gold of Cripple Creek, whether obtained 

 from the placers or from the veins, is remarkably fine, 

 being worth twenty dollars, or more, per ounce. It con- 

 tains verj' little silver, and apjjears to be derived from a 

 telluride allied to, if not identical with, the species cala- 

 verite, which contains about 41 per cent, of gold. The 

 telluride is silver white, and is in prismatic crystals, much 

 striated. In the oxidized ores the tellurium has leached 

 out and left the gold behind in a spongy condition, but 

 retaining the form of the original crystal A purple- 



