15° 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. X. No. 242 



that the two are one and the same people ; that a great number of 

 these ancient monuments were built at the time of the discovery of 

 America by the Europeans and subsequent to it ; and that the 

 archceological districts, as determined by the investigations of the 

 mounds and other ancient works and remains, conform, to a cer- 

 tain extent, to the localities of the tribes or groups of cognate In- 

 dian tribes at the time of the discovery. Conclusions on early mi- 

 grations of Indian tribes can only be drawn to a limited extent. 

 The publication of the general report, which may be expected 

 within a few years, will contain the material from which these im- 

 portant conclusions have been drawn. 



Indian Basketry. — The annual report of the National Museum 

 for 1884 contains several interesting ethnological papers. Prof. O. T. 

 Mason gives a sketch of the basketry of North American aborigines, 

 which is amply illustrated with drawings of specimens and en- 

 larged portions of the basket-work, in order to illustrate exactly the 

 manner of weaving. Mason discusses the methods in use all along 

 the coast of western America from the Arctic Ocean to California, 

 in the interior, and among the tribes of the Atlantic coast, and dis- 

 tinguishes three types of basketry, which he calls the twined, the 

 coiled, and the woven ones. The first is most frequently found on 

 the north-west coast. Coiled basket-work is almost exclusively 

 used by the northern Tinne and by the Apache, while many tribes 

 apply all methods of manufacture. A great difficulty in determin- 

 ing the areas of characteristic forms is encountered through the de- 

 ficiency of the methods of many collectors, and the fragmentary 

 state of collections ; many specimens which are seemingly charac- 

 teristic of one tribe having in reality a far wider distribution, while 

 other characteristic types are wanting in the collections. 



Of THE Eskimos. — There are two other papers of the same charac- 

 ter in the National Museum report for 1 884, — one by the same author, 

 on Eskimo throwing-sticks ; and one by Mr. John Murdoch, on bows of 

 the western Eskimo. The standpoint from which these subjects have 

 been treated is the same as the one indicated above. A list of the 

 specimens upon which these studies are founded, such as is attached 

 to Professor Mason's paper, ought not to be omitted in publications of 

 this kind, and the fact that it is wanting detracts somewhat from the 

 value of Mr. Murdoch's interesting paper. It is necessary for the 

 reader to know how many specimens of each locality were studied 

 in order to form a judgment as to how far the difference in form 

 may be typical or accidental. 



A Myth of the Okinagen Indians. — Mr. A. S. Gatschet 

 publishes an interesting myth of the Okinagen Indians in the 

 Globus. He relates how the animals climbed on a chain of arrows 

 to heaven in order to obtain the fire. The bird Tskan made a 

 strong bow of the rib of an elk which he killed by eating its heart. 

 Then he killed the coyote with his arrows, but the latter was re- 

 vived by the fox. Then he shot one arrow into the sky. The next 

 arrow he shot stuck in the end of the first one. Thus he continued 

 until a chain was formed reaching from heaven to earth. All ani- 

 mals climbed up this chain, and the beaver obtained the fire. An 

 analysis of this interesting legend shows that its elements are found 

 among a great number of tribes of Selish lineage and among 

 their neighbors, but it seems that the myth of the ascent to heaven 

 is characteristic of Selish mythology. Gatschet tries to interpret 

 this legend, and thinks the bird Tskan represents the moon, the 

 coyote the sun ; but this seems improbable, as the myth is ex- 

 tremely complicated, and is probably derived from a great number 

 of sources. It is desirable that the mythology of the native tribes 

 of the upper Columbia should be collected systematically, for the 

 analysis of tradition is one of the most important methods of study- 

 ing the history of the native races and the psychology of nations. 



BOOK -REVIEWS. 



Synopsis of the Flora of the Laramie Group. (Extract from the 



Sixth Annual Report of the U. S. Geol. Surv.) By Lester 



F. Ward. Washington, Government. 4°. 



This synopsis is published in advance of the completion of the 



author's great monograph on the Laramie flora, and is a timely 



and important contribution to our knowledge of the thousands of 



feet of debatable strata between the Cretaceous and Tertiary. The 



literature of the Laramie group is already large and widely scattered. 



and Mr. Ward has conferred a boon upon future students of this 

 formation by his clear and comprehensive review of previous re- 

 searches and opinions. 



The Laramie group is described as an extensive, brackish-water 

 deposit, situated on both sides of the Rocky Mountains, and ex- 

 tending from Mexico far into the British North American territor)-, 

 having a breadth of hundreds of miles, and representing some 4,000 

 feet in thickness of strata. When this deposit was made, an im- 

 mense inland sea must have existed, whose waters occupied the 

 territory now covered by the Rocky Mountains. These waters 

 were partially cut off from the ocean by intervening land areas, 

 through which, however, one or more outlets existed, communicat- 

 ing with the open sea at that time occupying the territory of the 

 Lower Mississippi and Lower Rio Grande valleys. That this 

 great inland sea spread over this entire territory, is not at all dis- 

 proved by the absence of Laramie strata from large parts of it, 

 since these parts are situated, in most cases, in mountainous regions 

 where the upper strata might be expected to have been generally 

 eroded away. 



This Laramie sea existed during an immense period of time, and 

 was finally but very gradually drained by the elevation of its bed, 

 through nearly the middle of which, longitudinally, the Rocky 

 Mountains and Black Hills now run. The exceeding slowness of 

 this event is shown by the fact, so clearly brought out by Dr. White, 

 that the marine forms of the Fox Hills strata, as they gradually 

 found themselves surrounded by a less and less saline medium 

 on the rising of the intervening land area, had time to become 

 transformed and adapted to brackish-water existence, while these 

 new-formed brackish-water species, when the sea at length became 

 a chain of fresh-water lakes, had time again to take on the charac- 

 ters necessary to fresh-water life. 



Dr. White recognizes the fact that the upheaval of the strata that 

 formed the bottom of this sea took place, not in one uniform pro- 

 cess of elevation, but in a prolonged series of rhythmic fluctuations 

 of level, whose algebraic sum constituted at length a mountain up- 

 lift. But the numerous coal-seams, one above another, that charac- 

 terize the greater part of these beds, and equally the successive de- 

 posits of vegetable remains at different horizons, speak even more 

 eloquently than any animal remains can, of the oscillator}' history of 

 the bed of this sheet of water. 



There may have been, and doubtless were, many islands scattered 

 over the surface of this sea in Laramie time, and the evidence gen- 

 erally warrants us in assuming that a low, level country surrounded 

 the sea, with marshy and swampy tracts. The islands and shores 

 were heavily wooded with timber that can be as certainly known in 

 its general character as we can know the timber of our present 

 forests. But that for the greater part of the Laramie period there 

 also existed at no great distance a large amount of elevated land, 

 there can be no doubt. The deposits are chiefly siliceous in the 

 southern districts, and argillaceous in the northern, but the nature 

 of their deposition points unmistakably to the existence of large and 

 turbulent rivers, that fell into the quiet sea and brought down from 

 areas of rapid erosion immense quantities of silt corresponding to 

 the nature of the country over which they flowed in their course. 

 Where these elevated sources of this abundant detritus were lo- 

 cated is one of the great problems for the present and future geolo- 

 gists to work out. 



The author points out that the apparent impossibility of referring 

 the Laramie group to either the Cretaceous or the Tertiary is not 

 the fault of the investigators, but of the facts ; for the real disagree- 

 ment is in the organic forms and the nature of the deposits, so that 

 omniscience itself could never harmonize them with the forms and 

 deposits of other parts of the world : in other words, the Laramie 

 fauna and flora have been developed under physical conditions so 

 nearly unique that it is extremely improbable that they obtained 

 elsewhere on the globe at the same time. And even supposing 

 such a coincidence possible, if the Laramie invertebrate forms are 

 the modified descendants of antecedent marine forms, there is no 

 probability that the conditions at any other point on the earth's sur- 

 face could be so nearly identical with those obtaining there, that 

 precisely the same modifications would take place to adapt the 

 marine forms to the brackish-water habitat. The chances are there- 

 fore infinity to one against the existence of other beds that shall 



