26 Canadian Record of Science. 



pin test when I arrived. He stood there fainting and 

 trembling from mingling exhaustion and pain. 1 



For those candidates who are initiated at the opening of 

 the dance, the feeling is simply that of intense physical 

 pain. But those who undergo the test after forty-eight 

 hours of fasting, and after taking part in the. ceremony day 

 and night without sleep, frequently faint under the agony, 

 and have to be cut down. This involves their going through 

 the torture de novo in order to become braves. 



Such is the Sun Dance. The young bucks never shrink 

 from the crucial test of valour, but seem rather to court it- 

 It seems strange, however, that -he degree of nerve and in- 

 difference to suffering which this dance engenders, should 

 not develop in the Indians a greater courage. Yet the 

 youth who bears with unflinching pluck these terrible ago- 

 nies, is taught never to fight, when on the warpath, unless 

 he considers himself to be at an advantage. 



An Abstract of the Presidents' Addresses. 



By R. W. Boodle. 



Whether the Presidents of the British and American 

 Associations speak as the representatives of the lay world 

 to the world of science (and this was their chief duty dur- 

 ing the earlier years of the British Association), or whether 

 their annual addresses are primarily intended as a means 

 of popularizing the recent progress of science — they are 

 naturally listened to with profound attention. Neither Sir 

 Lyon Playfair's address at Aberdeen, nor Professor J. P. 

 Lesley's at Ann Arbor, 2 however, falls within these cate- 

 gories. The former is of an eminently practical nature, 

 devoted to pointing out the defects of popular education as 

 it exists in Great Britain at the present moment. On the 



1 It sometimes takes an entire day for the pin to make its way 

 through the flesh outwards. 



2 The two addresses bear date : Sir Lyon Playfair's, September 9 ; 

 Professor Lesley's, August 26. 



