SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XII. No. 285 



in imploring and celebrating the coming of the less mysterious 

 herds of buffalo. The wonderous fecundity of the fish early made 

 it the symbol of life and the creative power. The Israelites often 

 relapsed into the worship of the fish-gods of Phoenicia. In the 

 early Christian Church the fish symbol for Christ, adoption of which 

 was probably influenced by the traditional sentiment indicated, an- 

 teceded the acrostic of his name and titles in Greek, Ijigov- Xpia-6^ 

 Qeov Tio- SuT/;p, presented by the letters of the Greek word IX9TS, 

 though the permanence of the symbol was doubtless enchanced by 

 the literary coincidence. 



The old doctrine of 'signatures,' so called, had its effect in the 

 adoption of fish as spiritual food. It was cold, and the meat 

 was generally white, thus coinciding with the symbolism of tem- 

 perature and color to express purity. 



It is fortunate that some rules in relation to repletion are no 

 longer observed. One which was noticed among the Hurons and 

 the Canadian Algonkins by the early French missionaries, and 

 styled le festin a manger tout, consisted in the religious obligation, 

 sometimes attended with loss of life, of the communicants to eat 

 up every particle which was set before them. A festival, some- 

 what of the same nature, was called the ' glutton mass,' celebrated 

 in England during if not after the reign of Henry IV. A less 

 dangerous, because regulated, term of repletion was prevalent in 

 India, according to a Brahman tradition, in which the invitees, be- 

 fore commencing the carouse, bound themselves around the abdo- 

 men with a band of straw ; and their modified feat was, not to eat 

 indefinitely until all had been devoured, but only until the straw 

 bands should burst. There is no survival of this custom e.xcept in 

 the exaggerated hospitality, generally rustic, in whch the host 

 persists in petitions that the guests should continue to eat, with- 

 out reference to their apparent wishes. Modern etiquette shows 

 marked improvement in never suggesting either selection or quan- 

 tity of provender. 



The conclusion of our dinner raises again the vexed question con- 

 cerning the retirement of the lady convives to leave the men alone. 

 Of course, it is well understood that the object among the hard- 

 drinking Englishmen of the last generation was to permit their sit- 

 ting for the excessive consumption of wine without the disturbing 

 restraint of the sex. The French, being less addicted to intoxica- 

 tion, and perhaps more professedly attached to the presence of the 

 fair, did not admit this usage. It, however, is a partial survival of 

 the ancient practice, still observed in most savage tribes, in which 

 the women never eat in company with the men. A relic of this is 

 found in the order of Bishop Grosseteste in 1450: "Streytly for- 

 bede ye that no wyfe [that is, woman] be at your mete." In this 

 country, and indeed now in civilized Europe, there is less addiction 

 to heavy drinking, with a greater desire for smoking after repletion : 

 so a convenient compromise has been effected by which the gentle- 

 men adjourn to a smoking-room, while the ladies segregate them- 

 selves for gossip. 



It is well to have an agreement as to who is to take the lead in 

 departure, by which the party is broken up. A difficulty of this 

 kind occurred when Dom Pedro, Emperor of Brazil, was a few 

 years ago invited to an entertainment at the White House in Wash- 

 ington. At a late hour, when some of the guests, becoming weaiy, 

 were about to take their leave of the President's wife, she remon- 

 strated, saying correctly that it was the etiquette for the crowned 

 head to depart first, and all others must await his pleasure. Now, 

 the Emperor had asked the question about our etiquette in this re- 

 gard of an honest Senator, who was confused about the ' receiving 

 party ' being always composed of the persons of greatest dignity, 

 and pronounced that Pedro must stay until all not of the household 

 had departed. It was not till about 3 o'clock in the morning that 

 the dead-lock was broken by the illness, real or pretended, of one 

 of the worn-out ladies. 



Another disease has been classed among the germ diseases. 

 Dr. Arthur Nicolaier of Gottingen states it as his belief that teta- 

 nus, whether in man or beast, is the result of a micro-organism of 

 the rod form, whose spores are widely scattered over the earth. 

 This microbe favors the production, of poisons in the system into 

 which it is introduced, which act similarly to strychnine. 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS IN WASHINGTON. 



How the Washington Scientific Societies were founded ; the Old Scien- 

 tific Club ; the Philosophical, Anthropological, Biological, Chemical, 

 and Geographic Societies ; the Cosmos Club ; the Proposed Pub^ 

 lication of Quarterlies. — Micmac Pictographs ; Colonel Mallery's 

 Investigations Last Year. — ■ The New Naval Observatory Building 

 to be erected at once. 



The Washington Scientific Societies. 



-A FEW years ago the Scientific Club was the only organization 

 of that character in Washington. It met fortnightly at the houses 

 of its members, Ustened to the reading of papers, and closed with 

 a collation. It had many very interesting meetings, at which im- 

 portant papers were read ; but the zeal of its members was not as- 

 great as its organizers had hoped for. The reason for this seemed 

 to be, that, nearly all the scientific men in Washington being 

 specialists, they were greatly interested only in those lines of inquiry 

 in which they were themselves engaged, and in such others as were 

 directly or remotely related to them. But the papers at any given 

 meeting of the Scientific Club might interest only a very few of 

 those who were present. There was no way to fit the subjects to 

 the audience, or vice versa, where both were so diversified. It was 

 therefore thought best to have specialized societies instead of one 

 general one, and a beginning was made by the organization of the 

 Philosophical Society. It met fortnightly, as the Scientific Club 

 had done, but in a hall instead of at a private residence, and the 

 collation was omitted. The meetings were well attended, the en- 

 tire time was occupied with valuable and interesting papers, and 

 the zeal of the members grew instead of diminishing. The Philo- 

 sophical Society in due time carried the idea of specialization a step 

 farther, and organized a mathematical section, at whose meetings 

 papers upon pure and the more abstruse mathematics and its ap- 

 plications were presented instead of in the meetings of the full 

 society. There is no lack of material for the fortnightly meetings 

 of this section, or of interest on the part of its members. 



The next of the Washington scientific societies to be organized 

 was the Anthropological. The almost exhaustless amount of valu- 

 able archseological remains that were being discovered and col- 

 lected for preservation, the successful work of the Bureau of Eth- 

 nology, and the labor of classifying, arranging, and discussing the 

 collections, caused the employment of a great number of scientific 

 men in different branches of Anthropology, and they formed a 

 society for the discussion of these topics. It has been as successful 

 as its less specialized predecessor, the Philosophical Society. There 

 is never any lack of interest, or any difficulty in securing sufficient 

 papers to fill up in their reading the full two hours that the society- 

 is in session on every alternate Wednesday evening during the sea- 

 son. 



For like reasons, and attended with an equal measure of success, 

 the Biological Society, the Chemical Society, and the Geographic 

 Society have been organized. The last-named, although the 

 youngest, already has more than two hundred members, and all of 

 its meetings during the past season have been successful ones. 

 Mr. Gardiner G. Hubbard is the president of it. 



When the Philosophical Society was formed, the social element, 

 which had been one of the attractive features of the old Washing- 

 ton Scientific Club, disappeared. The meetings being held in a 

 hall instead of in private residences, and the entire time of the 

 meetings being occupied with the reading of papers, the members 

 found that they had very little opportunity to become acquainted 

 with each other; and so, in order that the social advantages might 

 not be lost, the Cosmos Club was formed. It began in a modest 

 way, taking rooms in an upper story of the Corcoran Building, and 

 furnishing them comfortably and tastefully, but not expensively. 

 There were reading, writing, smoking, billiard, and card rooms ; 

 the first supphed with the leading daily and weekly papers of this 

 country, and with the principal magazines and periodical scientific 

 publications of the United States and Europe. The initiation fees, 

 and annual dues were moderate, and the Cosmos Club flourished 

 from the beginning. It is now established in its own house in one 

 of the most central and beautiful locations in Washington, and is 

 the resort of the scientific men in Washington. Once a month,, 

 during the winter, a loan exhibition of paintings, objects illustrating 



