36 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XII. No. 285. 



unpublished documents from the British and French foreign offices. 



George Routledge cS: Sons will publish shortly 'The Handy 



Reference Atlas of the World,' by John Bartholomew, containing 

 100 maps and plans, a complete index, and geographical statistics. 



D. C. Heath & Co. have ready a collection of twenty-five 



models and twenty-five photographs by N. S. Shaler, William M. 

 Davis, and T. W. Harris, instructors in geology in Harvard Col- 

 lege, designed to show the principal features in the structure of the 

 superficial aspects of the earth's crust, with extensive text descrip- 

 tive of each figure, prepared for the use of beginners in geology. 

 This collection is now in use in the laboratory of Harvard College, 

 by the Boston School of Natural History, and a dozen other schools 

 of various grades. Messrs. Heath & Co. will also publish very 

 soon an ' Illustrated Primer,' by Sarah Fuller, principal of the 

 Horace Mann School for the Deaf, Boston. The aim of this little 

 book is to familiarize the deaf children with the printed forms of 

 words and sentences which they have learned to speak. To as- 

 sociate these with the objects, there are introduced many simple cuts 



of common objects with which the pupils are acquainted. Harper 



& Brothers have just issued a handsomely illustrated work, entitled 

 'The Capitals of Spanish America,' by W. E. Curtis, in which all 

 the great cities in the central and southern parts of this Western 

 continent are described at length, and their ancient history retold. 



' The Injurious Influences of City Life ' is the subject of a 



brief but striking paper, by Walter B. Piatt, M.D., to appear in the 

 August Popular Science Monthly. The limitation of muscular 

 movements, the noise, and the pavements in a city, are the principal 



sources of the effects to which he refers. Messrs. Eyre & Spot- 



tiswoode, London, have issued two new volumes of the ' Report on 

 the Scientific Results of the Voyage of the " Challenger," ' — Vol. 

 XXIV., ' Zoology (2 parts, text and plates). Report on the Crus- 

 tacea Macrura ; ' Vol. XXV., ' Zoology, Report on the Tetractinel- 



lida." Roberts Brothers have just ready ' Harvard Vespers,' a 



collection of the sermons preached to the students by Phillips 

 Brooks, E. E. Hale, A. P. Peabody, and Dr. Gordon, of the Old 



South, Boston. D. C. Heath & Co. will publish shortly some 



selected poems from Lamartine's ' Premieres et Nouvelles Medita- 

 tions.' They will be edited, with biographical sketch and notes, 

 by George O. Curme, professor of German and French, Cornell 

 College, Mount Vernon, lo. -The University Publishing Com- 

 pany will hereafter publish Prof. A. Knoflach's works on ' German 

 Simplified ' and ' Spanish Simplified.' These works, heretofore 

 published by the author, have had a fair sale, which it is hoped 

 will be extended by the transfer to an enterprising firm like the 



University, Publishing Company. Funk & Wagnalls have just 



ready ' Nobody Knows,' by A Nobody, which deals with what the 



author calls ' social wrongs.' • Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. announce 



' Political Essays,' by James Russell Lowell, which will doubtless 

 attract remarkable attention. Most of the essays date back to the 

 time of the war and the reconstruction which followed. The clos- 

 ing paper is his New York address in April last, on ' The Place of 



the Independent in Politics.' Harper & Bros, have issued ' The 



Namesjand Portraits of Birds which interest Gunners,' containing 

 descriptions of birds generally shot in the eastern portion of the 

 United States, and giving the different names by which they are 

 commonly known in other parts of the country. 



— At a meeting of the French Academy of Sciences, July 2, Prof. 

 S. P. Langley was elected a corresponding member. 



— In June, 1887, a committee of the Howard Association invited 

 the co-operation of their friends and the public to enable them to 

 issue, and distribute at home and abroad, certain works which their 

 secretary, Mr. Tallack, had prepared, embodying important facts, 

 figures, and observations collected by the association during the 

 past twenty years, in reference to prison discipline and the best 

 methods of the treatment and prevention of crime, together with 

 the questions of intemperance and capital punishment. The works 

 alluded to are now nearly ready for the press, and are three in 

 number. It is hoped that they may each be issued during the year 

 1888. The contents of two of these books will include the follow- 

 ing subjects : — ' Prison Discipline, and the Best Modes of the Treat- 

 ment and Prevention of Crime,' including chapters on the existing 

 British, continental, and American systems of prison and penal 



discipline ; separation and association in jails ; prison visitation ;. 

 penal labor; prison officers; the police; imprisonment for long 

 terms and for life ; the aid of discharged prisoners ; habitual offend- 

 ers ; probation and conditional liberation ; juvenile delinquency ;. 

 reformatory and industrial schools ; pauper children ; sentences ; 

 various modes of punishment and prevention, etc.: and ' The Death- 

 Penalty at Home and Abroad,' including chapters on the limits and 

 operation of deterrence and penalty ; British and foreign official 

 statistics of murder and its punishment ; judicial mistakes ; insan- 

 ity and homicide ; the law of murder ; American homicide ; the 

 prerogative of pardon ; modes of execution ; the abolition of capital 

 punishment, regular and irregular ; perverted clemency ; substitutes- 

 for the infliction of death ; alternative dangers ; the opinions, on 

 this question, of John Stuart Mill, Justice Sir Fitzjames Stephen,, 

 Lord Bramwell, Prince Bismarck, Earl Russell, Right Hon. Joseph. 

 Henley, M.P., Right Hon. John Bright, M.P., King Oscar I., and 

 others; the Bible and capital punishment, etc. The above appeal 

 has been widely issued in the form of a circular. It has hithertO' 

 only elicited _£62 4s., and this sum has been exclusively contributed 

 by eleven friends who were previously subscribers to the association, 

 and familiar with its services. It is obvious that much more effec- 

 tual help is necessary to enable the committee to carry out their 

 wishes. 



— Germany is taking an interest in the exploration of the An- 

 tarctic regions. An expedition is being organized by Dr. Neumayer 

 of the Hamburg Observatory. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 

 Onondaga White-Dog Feast. 



D.4NIEL La Fort testified before the legislative committee this 

 month that the Onondagas burned no white dog this year, because 

 the Indian breed had run out. He told me soon after the feast, 

 which occurred as usual, minus the dog, that it was a sacred breed, 

 and no others could be used ; and I think none was burned last 

 year. Of course, this is partially an excuse for letting the custom 

 die out, as Indian dogs could be procured from other Iroquois if so 

 desired. The feast has fallen into decay, though its observance in 

 some ways will continue a while longer. The presumption is, that 

 some intelligent Indians are assisting in its gradual disuse. This 

 decay has been quite marked in this generation. Forty years ago, 

 two dogs were burned ; twenty years ago, but one, but this was 

 on a blazing pile outside the council-house. Five years ago they 

 opened the top of the council-house stove, and dumped the dead 

 victim into that. Now there is no dog at all. 



The last feast attracted some antiquarians from a distance, who 

 were much disappointed at the omission, — Hamlet, with Hamlet 

 left out, — but there was no remedy. The dog had had its day. 



It is customary to call this an ancient feast, and to suppose it 

 identical with the white-dog feast of the Senecas, which it much 

 resembles. I have before now pointed out the differences, one of 

 the principal of which is the time at which the dog is killed. With 

 the Senecas this was at the beginning of the principal feast-day, 

 and it remained hung up until the fifth, when it was taken down 

 and burned. Among the Onondagas the killing and burning were 

 always on the same day. The Onondagas had such a sacrifice but 

 once a year ; "the Senecas, on any important occasion, sacrificing 

 several dogs during Sullivan's invasion in 1779. With them the 

 custom seems but little over a century old, the Onondagas adopt- 

 ing it later, while the other nations may not have had it at all. 

 At least, it has been described only in these two, and that but at a 

 late day. The Onondagas simply added a striking rite to their 

 earlier dream-feast, which had the periodical observance of the later 

 dog-feast. That they had it from the Senecas seems reasona- 

 ble ; but whence the latter obtained it is not so clear. It may 

 prove a late outgrowth of earlier customs, dog's-flesh having been 

 always highly esteemed by the Indians. Unknown, apparently, to 

 the French missionaries, it is already among the things that have 

 been. In a very short time the other rites of the feast will disap- 

 pear, as feasts themselves have been dropped. I recently had the 

 good fortune to be present at the Onondaga planting-feast, which 

 has never been described. W. M. Beauchamp. 



Baldwinsville, July 12. 



