SCIENCE. 



[Vol. X. No. 239 



including the Huronian, Grand Cafion, Llano, Montalban, and Ta- 

 conian (of Hunt), Animikie, and other divisions, shall be'accorded a 

 name different from any of these (such as ' Eozoic ' or ' Protero- 

 zoic '), and allowing the greatest amount of liberty in the future, 

 when it shall be determined whether this division shall be entitled 

 to rank as one or several of the first order having numerous 

 subdivisions as above mentioned, or with, or including, any of 

 them of the second order like the class Laurentian. No attempt 

 shall be made at this time to pre-judge this question, and these 

 names and this classification shall be regarded simply as the best 

 that can be accomplished at the present time." 



This plan would seem to be possible of acceptance both by those 

 who, like Dr. Hunt, recognize many divisions, and by those who 

 recognize but two; The only sacrifice of individual opinion re- 

 quired would be as to the rank of such divisions, which the reporter 

 doubted whether any geologist wished unreservedly to affirm. 

 When the exact rank of the proposed new division is generally ac- 

 cepted, if it be a group, the now all but universally accepted word 

 ' Archsan ' can be dropped or otherwise assigned. 



As to the resolution approving the action of the committee, if it 

 only received two or three affirmative votes, it is equally true that it 

 received no negatives. Persifor Frazer. 



Philadelphia, Aug. 25. 



The Pronunciation of ' Arkansas.' 



I HAVE read with much interest Mr. Robert T. Hill's vigorous 

 protest, in the last number of Science, against the mispronunciation 

 of this word. Nevertheless, it seems to me that Mr. Hill, whose 

 personal acquaintance with New England is comparatively recent, 

 has been unintentionally not quite fair to " intelligent New England 

 circles," in making them responsible for the " later and improper 

 pronunciation." I am a New Englander by education, myself, and 

 was taught, before I went to school, to pronounce the word 

 properly. In school, however, Qur teachers insisted on the ' revised 

 version.' 



I am pretty well convinced that the mispronunciation was the in- 

 vention of a class of school-teachers, unfortunately too common in 

 New England, whose training for teaching the ' English branches ' 

 is so specialized as to carefully exclude every thing relating to foreign 

 languages (including even the English of Old England). Not a few 

 other examples might be quoted of similar ' school-ma'am ' pro- 

 nunciations. ' Glou-C(?5-ter ' and ' Wor-c«-ter ' are beginning to re- 

 place the proper sounds among the younger generation of ' com- 

 mon-school ' scholars in New England, at least, and ' Norwich ' and 

 ' Hara/ich ' are well established. It seems to me that we really do 

 need more such protests as Mr. Hill's, before the rage for angliciz- 

 ing does away with the historical pronunciation of more of our 

 geographical names. 



In regard to the word ' Cheyenne," I suspect that Mr. Hill has 

 laid the blame on the wrong shoulders. How the western plains- 

 men (who, one would suppose, would have inherited the correct 

 pronunciation, or something like it, from the old coureurs de bois), 

 came to call the ' Dog Soldier ' band of Indians ' shy-ens,' instead 

 of ' chiens ' I cannot say. I do know, however, that this was 

 the established plains pronunciation. We can scarcely blame the 

 New England lexicographers,' — or whoever first wrote the word, 

 — therefore, for failing to recognize the French word under the 

 universal Western pronunciation. JOHN MURDOCH. 



Smithsonian Institution, Aug. 27. 



Eskimo and the Indian. 



In an article on the Eskimo of East Greenland in the current 

 number of the American Naturalist (p. 749), it is stated that the 

 eminent savant Dr. Rink has recently advanced the idea that the 

 ' kayak ' of the hyperborean American aborigines is but a develop- 

 ment from the birch-bark canoe of the neighboring Indian tribes. 

 In glancing through Petitot's ' Tchiglit (Mackenzie River) Diction- 

 ary,' I found what seems to be a confirmation of this theory. In 

 the Tchiglit dialect the word for boat is krayark, and the bark of 

 the birch used for canoes (icorce dii bouleau a pirogues) is called 

 kreyrork. A comparative study of the Eskimo and the neighboring 

 Indian dialects must certainly result in adding considerably to our 

 stock of knowledge regarding the interesting Innuit. A few ex- 



amples of Eskimo loan-words may be given here. In the dialect of 

 the Eskimo of Churchill River the word for ' dead ' is nipa, which 

 agrees with nipiw (Cree), nip (Chippeway), etc., being entirely 

 foreign to the stem tok, which pervades the Eskimo dialects from 

 Cape Farewell to the Anadyr. One of the Tchiglit words for ' rain ' 

 is nipaluk, evidently related to the Cree 7iipi (water). In Algonkin 

 we find this series : nipa (moon), nip (die), 7iipi (water) ; and it is 

 worthy of attention that this peculiar concatenation is repeated 

 with the Eskimo of whom I am speaking, viz., nipa (dead, in 

 Churchill River dialect), nipaluk (rain, i.e., water, in TchigUt), 

 niptartvark (a Tchiglit term for moon). In the far west we find 

 the words niadsschak (sun, in Kadiac), msitschak (sun, in Anadyr 

 Tchuktchi), madje (sun, on Kotzebue Sound), madzak (star, in 

 Kadiac), which bear a suspicious resemblance to maitsaca (moon, 

 in Tarahumara), matsake (moon, in Cora), media (in Cahita), and 

 metztli (in Aztec), and would seem to indicate the great north- 

 ward extension of Aztec influence along the coast of the Pacific. 

 Thorough research will no doubt reveal much that is interesting 

 and valuable in this regard. A. F. Chamberlain. 



Toronto, Aug. 25. 



Sea-Water Ice. 



In Science for August 19, under the heading ' The Formation and 

 Dissipation of Sea- Water Ice,' Mr. Ashe, in speaking of the forma- 

 tion of ice along the shore, and the accumulation of films of ice 

 upon that which is submerged, makes the following statement : 

 " Over this, at the surface of the water another film is formed, 

 which, on reaching the level of the submerged ice, is frozen to, and 

 remains with it in this position. This operation is repeated till the 

 result is that a perpendicular wall of ice forms, whose outer limit is 

 the low-water mark, terminated by a horizontal surface shorewards, 

 at the limit of high-water mark." 



If it is meant to convey the impression, as it would naturally be 

 supposed, that this is so in all parts of the world, I must flatly con- 

 tradict the statement for Cape Prince of Wales, Hudson Strait, 

 where I was stationed, at the head of a sandy bay, during the 

 winter of 1885-86, with the object of watching the formation and 

 dissipation of sea-water ice. Here the distance between high and 

 low tide mark was about three hundred yards, and, although some 

 ice did adhere to the sand, it always came to the surface in irregu- 

 lar pieces shortly after the tide had risen above it. These pieces 

 were often piled one upon another by the force of the wind, ac- 

 cumulated, and as the winter advanced they rose to the surface in 

 larger masses, until the ice in the bay had reached a variable thick- 

 ness under three feet, when the whole mass floated at each rising 

 of the tide as one piece, only cracking in a few places, and, with the 

 exception of its rough surface, no change of level could be noticed 

 between it and the ice always floating beyond low-tide mark. 



A higher tide than usual always forced its way through, within a 

 few feet of high-tide mark, the ice cracking with a loud report here 

 and there along the shore, the water again returning through these 

 cracks when the tide began to fall. 



Late in January a hole was cut through the ice between high and 

 low tide mark, when the sand was found to be perfectly soft, in 

 which living shell-fish were found. F. F. Payne. 



Toronto, Aug. 23. 



AnsTvers. 



14. An Expulsion of Sparrows. — It was probably a flock 

 of ' white-bellied swallows ' that W. A. G. saw circling about his 

 house on Staten Island, but they in no way caused the disappear- 

 ance of the sparrows as intimated. These swallows are here now 

 in great numbers, perching on telegraph wires and along the sea- 

 shore on beach, plum, and bayberry bushes, and on hazy mornings 

 many may be seen flying south along our shore line. As to the 

 English sparrows, a few still remain about the houses, but this is 

 their season of flocking, and in some fields, especially where grain 

 has been raised, they abound. I once knew of a double row of 

 elms where these birds congregated afternoons in late summer, and 

 chattered in great convention until the sun went down. They 

 were gathered from a large circle of country, and I think that W. 

 A. G. will find a similar meeting place, where the missing sparrows 

 will be assembled. Wm. T. Davis. 



Tompkinsville, S.I., Aug. 29. 



