24 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XII. No. 284 



two together in a Cod under the Earth, and shoot out a small Leaf 

 above the surface of the Earth ; these are the worst of all the sorts 

 of Beans, and yet they are eaten by several " (A jVew and Acciirai^ 

 Description of the Coast of Guinea, etc. . . . Written originally 

 in Dutch by Win. Bosnian. . . . And now faithfully done into 

 English, London, 1705, p. 301). Yrom gobbe to goober is not far, 

 and the object named is the same, beyond a doubt. The origin of 

 buccra (" white man ') is not clear ; but in Haussa, buttra means 

 ' master.' I would appeal to those acquainted with the negro dia- 

 lects to publish short lists of words, such as those dealt with, which 

 will be of great value in determining the ethnological relations of 

 the ancestors of the present negro population of the United States. 



A. F. Chamberlain. 



Toronto, July 2. 



Object-Lessons in Oriental Faiths and Myths. 



A REMARKABLE collection will soon be opened to the world in 

 Paris. The municipality has given a plot of ground that cost two 

 hundred thousand dollars on the Avenue d'Jena. and a large and 

 beautiful stone structure has been erected on it by the state, under 

 a law passed while the present president, Carnot, was finance min- 

 ister. This law secures over three hundred thousand dollars for 

 the erection of a building, and endows the establishment thus 

 formed with a perpetual annuity of nine thousand dollars for pur- 

 poses of maintenance. The glass cases for the collection are partly 

 placed and filled, and the public will be admitted in a few months. 



The collection is primarily intended to teach the history of the 

 development, and the characteristics, of the Oriental religions. The 

 importance of this study strikes us forcibly when we reflect that 

 these forms of faith still deeply influence the daily lives of more than 

 one-half of the human race, and that they have solaced and guided 

 tens of thousands of millions of our fellow-creatures. 



The originator and collector of this unique series of objects is the 

 well-known student of Oriental languages, M. Etienne Emile Gui- 

 met, the son of a wealthy citizen of Lyons. He has spent more 

 than twenty years of an active scholarly life in voyages to, and resi- 

 dences in, China, Japan, and other Asiatic lands, and has devoted 

 several millions of francs from his large fortune to this work of pub- 

 lic instruction. In his native town he is also known for his persist- 

 ent and munificent efforts to secure high-class musical entertain- 

 ments for the people ; and, if his efforts are measured by the ex- 

 quisite congregational singing that I recently heard in one of the 

 Lyons churches, his efforts have been signally successful. 



Yesterday I spent the morning with M. Guimet, examining the 

 collections already in place. We first passed through two long 

 halls, carefully arranged, and lighted from both sides with high 

 windows, — halls, let me say, that would form admirable models 

 for the future architects of the Metropolitan Museum. Here we 

 found two comprehensive collections of pottery, — one from China 

 and one from Japan, — each arranged geographically and histori- 

 cally, beginning, in the case of Japan, with the southern provinces, 

 and ending with the northern. These most valuable gifts of M. 

 Guimet, however, do not belong to my present subject. 



From these halls we entered the lofty library, where are already 

 placed twelve thousand volumes of books and manuscripts contain- 

 ing official statements in the original tongues of the dogmas, creeds, 

 and myths of all the important Oriental forms of belief. Thence 

 we passed to an extensive hall, in which the Japanese religions are 

 illustrated and classed. 



Illustrations of the earliest form of the Shinto nature-worship begin 

 the extensive series. First we have the round metal mirrors resting 

 upon mimic waves of sculptured wood, that stood high in the 

 temple to catch the earliest rays of the rising sun ; then figures of 

 the simply clad priests ; then the implements for making the prim- 

 itive offering of fire and incense to the unembodied god. In order 

 of time follow the paraphernalia of the Buddhist priests, who, cross- 

 ing from Corea, brought with them their gorgeous ritual and im- 

 posed it upon the nation. Then we have innumerable figures of 

 Buddha and attendant deities in gold, silver, bronze, lacquer, and 

 clay, representing the ideas of the important contending sects into 

 which Buddhism was soon divided through the agency of sacerdotal 

 ingenuity. 



In the middle of the hall, under the skylight, is a representation 



of the interior of a Japanese temple of the first class, with original 

 images of all the gods before whom worship is usually conducted. 

 Here we may see, how, in the imagination of the Japanese (the 

 sacred Buddha sends forth four great agencies that save men- 

 through persuasion), they are shown to the popular eye in the form 

 of golden figures of prophets in silken robes ; and also how four 

 other emanations from Buddha, symbolical of darkness, compel 

 men to do right through fear, shown as carved images of black 

 devils with gnashing teeth. 



Beyond this group are series of cases containing thousands of 

 objects explaining Japanese myths, lives of saints, and the stories 

 told about their sacred people and places. Another extensive hall 

 contains a series of figures and other objects elucidating the forms- 

 of belief, the myths, and the folk-lore of China. In another the 

 Greek mythology is systematized, in another the Roman, in another 

 the Egyptian. One of the most interesting cases is that containing 

 original images from many places in the countries and islands 

 bordered by the Mediterranean, showing the various steps by which, 

 the Egyptian gods were accepted and adopted under new names- 

 successively by the Greeks and by the Romans. The rooms con- 

 taining the collections from the western lands are as yet but partly- 

 arranged. Enough can be seen, however, to show how important 

 and complete the series of objects must be, — enough to show that 

 the world furnishes no other collection of the kind nearly so large,, 

 or so well prepared for the serious study of the development of 

 Oriental and ancient civilization. 



M. Guimet declared that he had no theory to support in forming 

 his museum. He has excluded the Christian and the Hebrew forms 

 of worship from his scientific treatment, and has confined himself to 

 those lands where religion dawned upon inankind, and where great 

 faiths that dominated extensive territories were developed. He 

 simply presented the authentic documents and the authorized sym- 

 bols for the use of the scholar. L. 



Paris, June 20. 



An Army of Myriopods. 



I am in receipt of a letter, bearing the date July 6, i88S, from Mr. 

 W. H. Cleaver, East Bethlehein, Penn., in which he states that the 

 ' worms,' specimens of which he sends, are at the present time very 

 abundant in his neighborhood. 



To quote from the letter, "they are travelling eastward in 

 countless millions. They travel at night or in the cool of the morn- 

 ing and evening. They camp during the day by getting under sods, 

 boards, stones, or any thing to protect them from the heat of the 

 sun. In some places during the day they are piled up- in great 

 numbers. They do not seem to destroy any thing on their jour- 

 ney, but go hariTilessly along. Fowls will not eat them, and birds 

 do not appear to molest them." 



The specimens which accompany the letter are, I think, the com- 

 mon Polydesmiis erythropygiis. In the absence of any complete 

 systematic work on the Myriopoda, I am not able to identify the 

 species with absolute certainty. The species is very common in 

 this vicinity, but I have never before heard of its occurrence in such 

 numbers as reported by Mr. Cleaver. Edwin Linton. 



Washington and Jefferson College, Washington, Penn., July 7. 



The Old South 'Work. 



You credit me, in your last number, with instituting the lectures 

 in Chicago, like our ' Old South ' lectures here in Boston. That 

 credit does not belong to me. I have for some years been con- 

 cerned in the direction of the ' Old South Work ' in Boston, which 

 is so liberally sustained by Mrs. Hemenway ; and recently I gave 

 the opening lecture in the Chicago course. But the credit of institut- 

 ing the work in Chicago belongs to Mr. H. H. Belfield, the principal 

 of the Manual-Training School in that city. He has labored with 

 rare devotion and energy to establish these ' Old South ' lectures in 

 Chicago, and his success has certainly been very great. If every 

 city had a man of equal patriotism and equal practical power, we 

 should see much done to bring our young people up to higher ideas 

 of citizenship, and to elevate the general political tone throughout 

 the country. Edwin D. Mead. 



Boston, July 9. 



