14 FIELD AND FOREST. 



it in his face, which done he kicked the dead dody of the victim 

 down the steps so that it soon came to the bottom. Whereupon an- 

 other wretched person was laid on the altar and the same ceremony 

 repeated. 



The substitution of stone for wood in making the collar may be as- 

 cribed to various causes, as the absence of the desired material, the 

 facility for working in wood &c. It is difficult to get correct inform- 

 ation relative to these religious customs of a nation whose language in 

 hieroglyphs seems so far to defy interpretation, and in the absence of 

 any sustaining evidence, these statements of father Cogolludo are 

 placed before the attention of Archaeological students for what they 

 are worth. 



E. Foreman. 



Potomac-Side Naturalists' Club. 



April 2nd, 1877. (210th Meeting.) 



Mr. Ward exhibited a curious specimen of a woody tuberous rhiz- 

 oma, (afterwards dertermined as Smilax rotundifiolia). 



Dr. Schaeffer called attention to the large number of trees along the 

 Potomac which were cut off by the ice in the freshet of the present 

 Spring, and stated that a large area of interval was similarly denuded 

 of trees, in the freshet of 1856-7. 



A discussion followed upon the geology of the District, and the op- 

 portunity for its study, afforded by the quarries along the canal. 



April 1 6th, 1877. (211th Meeting.) 



Dr. Vasey read a paper upon the distribution of trees in the U. S. 

 Thirty-seven genera, with forty-five species are properly sub-tropical, 

 and confined to Florida, closely akin to the Flora of the West Indies 

 and South America. 



Along the Mexican border, apparently invaders, are found eighteen 

 genera with one hundred and thirty species. We find peculiar to the 

 eastern slope, forty-one genera with sixty-six species ; peculiar to the 

 western slope thirteen genera; common to both, thirty-five genera. 

 This paper will be given Field and Forest. 



