September 23, 1904.1 



SCIENCE. 



409 



the survival of a custom which was once prac- 

 tised throughout the Valley of the Mississippi 

 — that of utilizing the ancient mounds as 

 places of burial. 



In many mounds which have been examined 

 in the central and southern section of the 

 valley, interments have been discovered only 

 two or three feet below the present surface of 

 the mounds. A notable instance of this sort 

 occurred at the time of the destruction of the 

 large mound which formerly stood in the city 

 of St. Louis. In 1869 when the mound was 

 removed, human remains were found about 

 three feet below the surface near the north 

 end.* Stone graves were also found upon the 

 summit of the same mound, a group of five 

 having been examined by members of the Long 

 Expedition as early as 1819.t 



According to a statement made by Oonant, 

 the large mound must have been used by the 

 Indians as a place of burial, as late as 1819 or 

 the same year it was seen and described by the 

 Long party. 



" This mound, as is well known, was used by 

 the Indians as a burial place, and only about 

 sixty years since, it was visited by a small 

 band, who disinterred and carried away the 

 bones of their chief, who had been buried 

 there."t 



At a meeting of the Ethnological Society in 

 January, 1861, E. G. Squier described a burial 

 which had recently been discoverd near the 

 summit of a small mound near Cahokia, op- 

 posite St. Louis, and stated " that the position 

 of the skeleton in the mound would lead him 

 to infer that it was of comparatively recent 

 deposit. His experience was that the true 

 remains of the mound builders were generally 

 to be found at the bottom of the mound, im- 

 mediately under its apex." 



Such a conclusion would apply to the 

 mounds at Mille Lac ; the ' true remains of 

 the mound builders ' are found at the bottom 

 of the mound on the original surface, while 



* Conant, ' Footprints of Vanished Races,' 1879, 

 p. 41. 



t ' Expedition from Pittsburg to the Rocky 

 Mountains,' Phila., 1823, Vol. I., p. 64. 



i Conant, p. 41. 



§ Bulletin of the Ethnological Society, Vol. I., 

 p. 25, January, 1861. 



the secondary or intrusive burials are made 

 by the Ojibways. D. I. Bushnell, Jr. 



Cambriuge, Mass., 

 July 22, 1904. 



CURRENT NOTES ON METEOROLOGY. 



A WORLD-WIDE BAROMETRIC SEE-SAW. 



To Nature for June 23, Dr. W. J. S. Lock- 

 yer contributes an article under the above 

 title, in which the results of recent studies 

 by Sir Norman Lockyer and himself are em- 

 bodied. Two pressure variation types were 

 selected, that over India and that at Cordoba, 

 and the pressure curves of other places were 

 compared with these two type curves. When 

 any pressure curve extending over several 

 years showed an excess pressure at those 

 epochs when the Indian pressure curve was in 

 excess, it was classified as similar to the In- 

 dian type, and represented by a -t-. If more 

 like the Indian curve than the Cordoba curve, 

 but not quite the exact counterpart of India, 

 it was marked + ?. Similarly, pressure curves 

 like Cordoba were classified as — , and those 

 more like Cordoba than India, as — ?. Other 

 cases, difficult to classify satisfactorily, were 

 marked ± ? or ?. The signs of the different 

 types of pressure variation were then entered 

 on a map of the world, and the two main 

 regions were separated by neutral lines. It 

 is interesting to note that the two neutral 

 lines are fairly symmetrical to one another. 

 Both lines apparently cross the equator at 

 antipodal points, and both appear to have a 

 similar trend in north and south latitudes. 

 The indication is that a general law exists 

 with regard to pressure changes which occur 

 . simultaneously in these two extensive regions 

 of the globe, the neutral lines forming a ful- 

 crum about which see-saws of pressure from 

 one region to another take place. Professor 

 Bigelow, of the U. S. Weather Bureau, has 

 reached conclusions along the same line of in- 

 vestigation which are in the main similar to 

 those here discussed. The importance of these 

 studies is in connection with the possible long- 

 range forecasting of the future, for it is prob- 

 able that regions which are the reverse of one 

 another as regards secular pressure variations 

 should have opposite kinds of abnormal weath- 



