POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



285 



be abundant in that locality, it would be 

 caught in a forked twig, the ends of which 

 were then tied together with a wisp of grass, 

 and the butt end of the twig afterward 

 planted in the soil. Thus treated, the lizard 

 soon died and became a natural mummy. 

 If, during the progress of the work, any one 

 found and carelessly tossed aside one of 

 these lizards, the Indians would throw down 

 their tools and search diligently until they 

 found it and secured it in this manner. A 

 similar belief to the one here recorded is 

 noticed in Nature by Mr. C. Bushe, as pre- 

 vailing in Ireland, with reference to water- 

 newts, which are there called man-eaters. 

 One woman to whom a specimen was shown, 

 said they were known to jump down peo- 

 ple's throats, to their certain destruction. 



Life in Morocco. — The present popula- 

 tion of Morocco, says Nature, is a puzzle al- 

 most as difficult, although on a smaller scale, 

 as that of China. The authors, Lieutenant- 

 Colonel Sir Lambert Playfair and Dr. Rob- 

 ert Brown, of the Bibliography of the coun- 

 try, give 4,000,000 as an estimate, but the 

 guesses of various authorities vary between 

 1,500,000 and 15,000,000. The roads shown 

 on the map are merely mule and camel tracks 

 made by the feet of the pack animals, un- 

 aided by any engineer. Ferries are rare, and, 

 of course, bridges are unknown in the inte- 

 rior. The distribution of towns and villages 

 is often at variance with the rules holding 

 for civilized countries. The villages are 

 built out of the way of the main tracks, be- 

 cause people never travel in Morocco for 

 the good of the inhabitants, and it is safer 

 to live off the path of the tax collector and 

 the government official, who demand free 

 food and quarters. The great number of 

 place-names on the map of so thinly peopled 

 a country is due to the fact that the tombs 

 of saints are such important landmarks that 

 they must be indicated, even if only a few 

 persons live beside them. All the places 

 beginning with Sidi (Lord, Master) are either 

 actually tombs, or the tomb has formed the 

 nucleus of the town or village. " Sok," an- 

 other affix of frequent occurrence, means 

 market-place, and many of the established 

 sites for periodical fairs are uninhabited be- 

 tween the gatherings of people from far and 

 near. Many of the place-names on the coast 



exist in two forms at least — the native word 

 and its Portuguese or Spanish translation; 

 Casabianca and Dar-el-beida (both meaning 

 white house), for example. 



Sirius and its Companion. — The slight 



periodical displacements of Sirius, first ob- 

 served about seventy years ago, were found 

 by Bessell in 1851 to be due to its revolution 

 in an ellipse, the largest diameter of which 

 is 2 - 4", which is accomplished in about fifty 

 years. Sirius was therefore concluded to be 

 a double star, with a satellite of considerable 

 relative importance, which, as it was not 

 seen, was supposed to be dark. The satellite, 

 which is not quite dark, was seen for the 

 first time in 1862 ; and can now, by taking 

 proper precautions, be found at will. The 

 period of revolution of the group has been 

 determined by M. Auwers at forty-nine years 

 and between four and five months, and the 

 orbit an ellipse, the greater axis of which is 

 2 - 42". Hence, according to the estimated 

 distance of Sirius, the two stars are about 

 twenty times as far apart as the distance of 

 the earth from the sun, or equal to the dis- 

 tance of Uranus. The mass of the whole 

 system has been computed to be 5 - 24 times 

 that of the sun, of which Sirius has 2 - 20 

 times and the companion 104 time. The 

 orbit of the companion is larger than that of 

 Sirius. The distance apart of the two stars, 

 now less than 4", will diminish for two years 

 longer, after which it will begin to increase 

 again, till in twenty-six or twenty-seven years 

 it will exceed 11". The discovery of the 

 system and of the rate of its revolutions af- 

 fords proof of the operation of the force of 

 gravity beyond the limits of the solar system. 



Origin of Cholera. — All the theories of 

 the origin of cholera, Mr. C. Egerton Fitz- 

 gerald suggests, may be right. The disease 

 will eventually be found to be a miasmatic 

 one, of which the hitherto undiscovered germ 

 can be conveyed through the air, by water, 

 excreta, infected bodies, and clothing. What 

 the special germ may be we as yet know not ; 

 but that it multiplies with enormous rapidity 

 under favorable conditions of heat, moisture, 

 and dirt there can be no doubt. Each indi- 

 vidual as he is attacked becomes a fresh 

 nidus, a hotbed for disease germs, which 

 seek and require only a suitable soil or cul- 



