Jlm.v 27, 1 888. J 



SCIENCE. 



39 



facts in regard to a great strike impartially, and publishing them 

 within a few days, while the strike is still in progress. In very 

 striking conlrast with this are the ridiculous attempts of committees 

 of Congress to investigate strikes. These inquiries, even if they 

 begin when the strike is in progress, are never completed until long 

 after it is over ; and by the time reports are inade. popular interest 

 in the matter has entirely died out. Besides this, the testimony 

 which a committee of Congress makes is jumbled together without 

 any regard to order, and from this incongruous mass it is impossi- 

 ble for any one to get an intelligent idea of the facts. 



Twenty-one of the States now have bureaus of labor statistics, 

 and an effort is now making to bring about among them a uni- 

 formity of organization and methods of work, which shall also be 

 in harmony with those of the national Department of Labor. 

 When this is accomplished all of these bureaus will be able to co- 

 operate with and supplement the work of each other, to the mutual 

 benefit of all. 



It is worthy of remark in closing that no European country, un- 

 til recently, has had any system of gathering social statistics such 

 as the Department of Labor is publishing from time to time. In 

 most countries the authorities would hardly dare to institute such 

 a system of inquiries, or, if they did, they would not dare to publish 

 them. Belgium has lately established a bureau of statistics mod- 

 elled after our Department of Labor, and a beginning has been 

 made in England. That the scientific value of the work of the 

 Department of Labor is also recognized in almost every foreign 

 country is evidenced by the numerous letters that have been re- 

 ceived from distinguished scientific men abroad, and by notices of 

 its publications that have appeared in most of the scientific period- 

 ical publications of Europe. 



THE BENDEGO METEORITE. 



The famous Bahia or Bendego meteorite described by Mornay 

 and WoUaston in the Philosophical Transactions for 1816, and by 

 Spix and Martius in their ' Travels in Brazil,' was landed in Rio de 

 Janeiro on June 15, and is now in the collection of the Brazilian 

 National Museum. The transportation of this great mass of iron, 

 whose weight was variously estimated from six to nine tons, and 

 which has been found to weigh 5,361 kilograms, was rendered pos- 

 sible by the recent completion of a line of railroad passing within 

 one hundred and fifteen kilometres of the Bendego Creek, where 

 it has lain since the unsuccessful attempt to remove it to Bahia in 

 1785. 



As there was little prospect of a nearer approach by rail in the 

 immediate future, the authorities of the National Museum at- 

 tempted last year to stir up an interest in government and private 

 circles for the removal of the meteorite to Rio de Janeiro. Almost 

 immediately after the subject was broached, Chevalier Jose Carlos 

 de Carvalho, an ex-naval officer who had some experience in the 

 transportation of heavy masses of ordnance in the Paraguayan war, 

 took up the idea w-ith great enthusiasm, and proposed to the Soci- 

 edade de Geographia de Rio de Janeiro that the society should un- 

 dertake the removal, offering at the same time to take charge gra- 

 tuitously of the technical part of the operation. This proposition, 

 which was heartily supported by the president of the society. Mar- 

 quis Paranagua, was at once adopted, and a committee, with Mr. 

 Carvalho at the head, was appointed to raise the necessary means 

 by a popular subscription. This work proved unexpectedly easy, 

 as a prominent and wealthy member of the society, Baron Guahy, 

 offered, as soon as the matter was mentioned to him, to defray all 

 the expenses. The project was also warmly espoused by the Prin- 

 cess Regent, and by the Minister of Agriculture, Counsellor Rod- 

 rigo Silva ; and everything depending on the government, such as 

 transportation, material from the arsenal and railroad shops at 

 Bahia, etc., was placed at the disposition of Mr. Carvalho. and two 

 government engineers, Drs. \'icenle de Carvalho and Huniberto 

 Anuores, were detailed to aid in the undertaking. 



After about three months spent in preparing material and in 

 studying the route to be traversed, the march commenced on the 

 25th of November, 1SS7. and the meteorite was placed on the rail- 

 road on the 14th of May of the present year. A road had to be 

 opened for this special purpose, as those existing in the region are 



only mule paths : over one hundred streams, one with a width 

 of eighty metres, had to be crossed by temporary bridges. The 

 route lay over several chains of hills and one mountain range, in which 

 an ascent of 265 metres had to be overcome with a grade of 32 

 per cent. In overcoming these many and serious obstacles Mr. 

 Carvalho and his companions gave a brilliant and practical rebut- 

 tal to the somewhat widespread, but unjust, notion among foreign- 

 ers that the Brazilian character is deficient in the qualities of inge- 

 nuity, energy, and perseverance ; while on the other hand the gen- 

 erous donation of Baron Guahy, amounting to about ten thousand 

 dollars, proves that wealthy and public-spirited Brazilians can be 

 counted on for pecuniary aid for scientific purposes when once the 

 matter is properly brought to their attention. 



Important aid was also rendered to the enterprise by Drs. Luiz 

 da Rocha Dias and Jose Ayrosa Galvao, chief engineer and first 

 assistant of the government railroad line in Bahia; by Richard 

 Tiplady, Esq., superintendent of the Bahia and San Francisco 

 Railroad ; and by the firm of Claudio de \'icenzi & Co., owners of 

 the steamship Arlindo, on which the meteorite was given free 

 transportation from Bahia to Rio de Janeiro. 



THE HEMENWAY-CUSHING EXPEDITION. 



Mr. Frank H. Cushing, whose wonderful discoveries in re- 

 gard to the customs and religion of the Zuni Indians, made during 

 his residence among this remarkable people, are recognized as the 

 most valu.i.ble of recent additions to American ethnologic knowl- 

 edge, has spent the past winter and spring, as may be known to 

 many readers of Science, in Arizona, making explorations of exten- 

 sive ancient ruins there. The expenses of this expedition, which is 

 well equipped, are paid by Mrs. Hemenway of Boston, the lady 

 who has lately shown such substantial interest in Mr. Cushing's 

 work. That gentleman had reached a point in his studies of the 

 Zunis that, in order to pursue them further, it seemed necessary to 

 attempt to trace their history back to the beginning by an examina- 

 tion of the ruined cities and temples in which their ancestors lived 

 and worshipped. This is the object of Mr. Cushing's recent work. 

 Attached to this expedition, during the past winter and spring, was 

 Dr. James L. Wortman, of the Army Medical Museum, who has 

 recently returned to Washington. His mission was chiefly that of 

 an anatomist engaged in anthropological work. The Medical 

 Museum has been engaged for several years in the collection of 

 human skeletons for the purposes of comparison, and the net re- 

 sult of Dr. Wortman's labors during the past winter and spring 

 has been the securing of about one hundred complete skeletons, 

 the skulls of which are in a good state of preservation, although 

 the rest of the bones are more or less imperfect. 



In an interview since his return Dr. Wortman has given the first 

 account of Mr. Cushing's latest work that has been published, and 

 from a report of this interview the following brief description of the 

 explorations of the expedition and their results has been made up. 



The scene of Mr. Cushing's explorations is the wide valley or 

 plain at the confluence of the Salt and Gila Rivers in south-west- 

 ern Arizona. To-day railroads cross this valley, and much of it 

 has been reclaimed by irrigation from the desert condition into 

 which it relapsed when the ancient inhabitants disappeared. Still a 

 wide expanse of the plain, which is forty-five miles across, remains 

 a desert covered with sage-brush, cactus, and mesquite. It slopes 

 from the Salt to the Gila River, and advantage was taken of this 

 feature of its topography by the ancient people in constructing 

 canals to irrigate the whole plain. In some places these old canals 

 have been re-opened by the modern farmers, and restored to their 

 original use. On this wide plain are many groups of mounds, in 

 excavating which Mr. Cushing has discovered many ancient cities, 

 to some of which he has given the names of Los Muertos. Los 

 Homos, Los Guanacas. Los Pueblitas, Los Acequias. etc. Los 

 Muertos. the city of the dead, has been traced for three or four 

 miles, and forty or fifty huge structures or communal houses in it 

 have been examined. 



The surface indications of these cities are a series of truncated 

 mounds twenty or twenty-five feet high, surrounded by a great 

 number of fragments of ancient potter)'. The cities consist of ir- 

 regular groups of houses built along the banks of the canals. 



