Apbil 29, 1887.J 



SCmNGE. 



411 



William Eimbeck will continue the transconti- 

 nental triangulation from Mount Nebo, near Salt 

 Lake, and is expected to reach that station about 

 May 20. Assistant James B. Baylor has com- 

 pleted his season's work of three months, having 

 occupied twenty-three magnetic stations between 

 Key West and Washington. For absolute measures 

 of declination, dip, and intensity, this is considered 

 good work for stations covering so large an area. 

 In connection with the physical and hydrograph- 

 ical survey of New York bay and harbor, a much- 

 needed work is now progressing, which consists in 

 running a line of precise spirit-levels from the 

 permanent tide-gauge of the coast survey, at 

 Sandy Hook, by way of Keyport, Staten Island, 

 Newark Bay, across New York harbor and the 

 Narrows, up Long Island, through Brooklyn to 

 Long Island Sound, across East River to Governor's 

 Island, and up the Hudson River to Dobbs Ferry. 

 A detailed topographical survey of the west half 

 of the District of Columbia is now nearing com- 

 pletion, the results of which are to be published 

 in atlas form on a scale of four hundred feet to 

 the inch. The Patterson will leave San Francisco, 

 about May 1, for survey-work in Alaska waters, 

 where she will remain all summer. 



— Mr. Carroll D. Wright, chief of the U. S. 

 bureau of labor statistics, is now in Massachusetts, 

 collecting statistics as to marriage and divorce in 

 the United States. It will probably be a year be- 

 fore the data can be prepared in the form of a 

 • report. The bureau has considerable work in 

 progress at present. The report on convict-labor 

 will be issued in about three weeks. The report 

 on labor-strikes will be ready this fall. Another 

 subject of inquiry now in progress is in relation 

 to the moral and economic condition of working 

 women and girls in the great cities of the country. 

 The bureau will also make inquiries into the cost 

 of the distribution of food-staples, — how the 

 cost of food is increased by transportation-rates, 

 and other facts bearing on the general subject. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



*^*The attention of scientific men is called to the advantages 

 of the correspondence columns of Science /or placing promptly 

 on record brief preliminary notices of their investigations. 

 Tvjenty copies of the number containing his communication 

 will be furnished free to any correspondent on request. 



The editor will be glad to publish any queries consonant tcith 

 the character of the journal. 



Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. The 

 writer's name is in all cases required as proof of good faith. 



Ethnologic results obtained upon an expedition 

 in the south-west' of the United States. 

 In the subsequent columns I have gathered the 

 results which I obtained in the furtherance of ethno- 

 logic studies during a three-months' trip in Louisi- 



ana, Texas, and the parts of Mexico adjoining the 

 Bio Grande del Norte. 



I left Washington City on Oct. 5, 1886, and 

 stopped on my way to the Mississippi only one day, 

 to view the sites of the ancient Alibamu and Creek 

 towns at the confluence of Coosa and Tallapoosa 

 rivers, Alabama. The authors of the eighteenth 

 century report three towns in the vicinity of the 

 French fort Toulouse, — Odshi-ap6fa (or ' Hickory 

 Ground '), Taskigi, and Oktchayudshi ('Little Oktchd- 



yi')- 



Accompanied by a guide, I found the French 

 fort, or what remains of it, at about four miles dis- 

 tance from Wetumpka, but several circumstances 

 prevented me from discovering the sites of any of 

 the settlements above named. The authors men- 

 tioned give no accurate description of their sites. 

 The whole peninsula is sometimes flooded by high 

 water from the Coosa River, which rises over fifty 

 feet after long rains in the north of Alabama state,, 

 and necessarily destroys the vestiges of old habita- 

 tions ; and the country has become overgrown with 

 pine-woods and shrubbery. 



At the confluence of Tensaw and Little rivers with 

 Black or Washita River there are four curious 

 mounds in an advanced state of disintegration. One 

 of them is of enormous height, and, as the tradition 

 goes, had once a little pond on its top. According 

 to another tradition, this was the spot where the 

 retreating Natchez Indians defended themselves 

 against the pursuing French troops in 1731. This 

 looks more like the theory of some ambitious- 

 archeologist. 



Three miles east of Pineville, Rapides parish, La.,. 

 I then visited the site of a Cha'hta village and cem- 

 etery. It lay on the ground which formerly made 

 up Solabella's plantation, and, although the village' 

 was abandoned but ten or fifteen years ago, nobody 

 could tell me the Indian name of it. Wherever the 

 chimneys of the cabins stood, there was a little 

 mound or eminence ; and upon every grave in the 

 burial-ground stood a plum-tree, which the mourners- 

 used to plant to mark the head of the deceased. The 

 main camping-place is now overgrown with horse- 

 mint. The majority of these Indians had gone to a. 

 mission in the Cha'hta Nation some time before the 

 secession war, a half-blood Cha'hta chief, Jim 

 Fletcher, having prompted them to go there. For- 

 merly these Cha'htas had annual ball- games with the 

 Biloxis, two hundred of whom inhabited a village on 

 the north-east bank of Red River, thirty miles above 

 Alexandria. The ground is now owned or held by a 

 Mr. Smith, and these Biloxis all went either to the 

 Cha'hta Nation or among the Caddos, Indian Terri- 

 tory. 



The Biloxi Indians, whom I saw and studied, live 

 on Indian Creek, five or six miles west of Lecompte, 

 Rapides parish. The unhealthy location of their 

 present abode in the pine-woods, flooded in the 

 rainy season, has of late subjected them to the rav- 

 ages of fever. There they stay, on the property of 

 Mrs. Martin, and make a living by working for 

 wages. Most of them are small, sturdy people, show 

 no trace of tattooing, and generally speak English 

 more than their native tongue. I studied their lan- 

 guage at Lecompte, and found at once that it be- 

 longed to the Dakotan or Siouan family. About 

 twelve Biloxis speak or understand it : all the others 

 • — fifteen or twenty — know English only. They 

 know nothing about earlier migrations of their tribe» 



