528 



SCIUJVCM 



[Vol. Vni., No. 201 



exception to these figures. He thinks that a very 

 large number of dogs that have bitten people, and 

 supposed to be rabid, were not rabid, and points 

 out several other possible errors in Pasteur's de- 

 ductions. 



The unseemly wrangle that has been caused 

 by the Quartei^ly review article on Mr. Edward 

 Gosse has greatly excited the literary men at the 

 universities. Whatever be the merits of the case, 

 from this distance we can only see that the whole 

 proceeding is derogatory to the dignity of men of 

 literary reputation and culture. Journalistic 

 quarrels are usually of no benefit and questionable 

 taste, but it would be bad indeed if the outcome of 

 this one should be, as one English critic insinu- 

 ates, to prove that at one university is a profes- 

 sor who is not a scholar, and at the other, one who 

 is not a gentleman. 



THE AMERICANISTS. 



The sixth session of the Congress international 

 des Americanists was held in Sejatember last at 

 Turin. It may not be amiss to say that the pre- 

 vious meetings were held at Nancy (1873), Lux- 

 emburg (1877), Brussels (1879), Madrid (1881), and 

 Copenhagen (1883), The sixth session would 

 have been held last year had not the cholera pre- 

 vented. The congress held its meetings in the 

 old chamber in the Carignan palace, where the 

 deputies of the Sardinian kingdom held their meet- 

 ing, while the capital of that kingdom remained 

 at Turin. M. Desire Charnay opened the real 

 business of the meeting with an address complain- 

 ing that too little attention was given in Europe 

 to the study of Auierican history, and too much 

 to that of the east. " Why," said he, " men care 

 more for the discovery of a finger of Venus or a 

 toe of Mercury than they do for the finding of a 

 whole city in America." He instanced especially 

 the apathy with which Maudslay's work was re- 

 ceived in England, saying that it took the direct- 

 ors of the Kensington museum three months to 

 make up their minds as to whether they would 

 accept a monolith as a gift. 



The first discussion arose on a paper read by M. 

 Guido Cora on the Zeni Brothers. The speaker 

 delared that the well-known map which goes 

 under the name of the Zeni map was the best au- 

 thority in the case. He recognized the Faroe 

 Islands in Frislanda ; Iceland in Islanda ; Green- 

 land in Engronelant; and portions of North 

 America in Estotiland and Drogeo. M. Beauvois 

 thought that the Zeni explored Newfoundland, 

 while M. V. Schmidt argued that Engronelant 



corresponded to the modern Angramanlant and 

 Norway. 



M. Jiminez followed with a very long and de- 

 tailed communication on the migrations of the 

 Carib race. In his opinion, that movement w^as 

 by the Amazon and Orinoco rivers. Then M. le 

 Baron de Baye presented a note by the Marquis of 

 Monclar with regard to a trepanned skull from the 

 upper basin of the Amazon, and M. Pigorini a 

 memoir of M. Strobel upon picture-writing of 

 South America. M. Grossi finally read a paper 

 upon coins of the old and new worlds. 



The next day M. Schmidt presented, in behalf 

 of Dr. H. Rink, a paper describing the Eskimo 

 tribes of the extreme west and east. He gave 

 very detailed statements of the manners, customs, 

 houses, dress, social order, myths, and traditions 

 of those tribes. Dr. Rink agrees with Captain 

 Hohn, that the Eskimos have occupied the coasts 

 of Greenland on all sides. 



A description, purporting to have come from 

 Mr, A. S. Gatschet of the ethnological bureau at 

 Washington, of the Maya dictionary, was then 

 read. Without doubt it is of the greatest impor- 

 tance in the study of this ancient language, and 

 the deciphering of the old inscriptions in that lan- 

 guage. The dictionary, or rather vocabulary, 

 forms part of the Carter-Brown library in Provi- 

 dence. The dictionary is in two parts, each form- 

 ing a small quarto volume. Part i. contains the 

 Maya-Spanish part; part ii,, the Spanish-Maya 

 part. It was probably composed between 1590 

 and 1600. It is named after the monastery where 

 the author lived, Motul, The author is unknown, 

 and the copy in question is not the original manu- 

 script, but a copy. According to a somewhat 

 minute calculation, it was estimated that the vol- 

 ume contained about 15,400 terms. Others have 

 thought the number higher. It gives us the 

 Maya tongue as it existed at the time or shortly 

 after the conquest. A vote was passed asking the 

 government of the United States to publish the 

 dictionary at its own expense. The congress soon 

 after adjourned, after providing for another meet- 

 ing at Berlin in 



ARCHEOLOGICAL ENIGMAS. 



The meeting of the Anthropological society of 

 Washington on Nov, 16 was devoted to the read- 

 ing of two papers bearing on the antiquity of man 

 in America. Mr, G, K, Gilbert, chief geologist of 

 the U, S, geological survey, described minutely 

 the finding of an ancient hearth on the southern 

 shore of Lake Ontario, at the bottom of a well 

 about thirty feet deep. The formation at the base 

 of which the hearth was discovered is one of a 



