54 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. [Vor. XXXIV. 
to the treatise, by Geo. F. Kunz, on * Gems and Precious Stones 
of North America," for further information. The author maintains 
that the Nahuatl term * chalchuitl” referred to turquoise and not to 
jade and emerald, as stated by E. G. Squier. We note that Brinton, 
in his “ Prehistoric Archaology," applies the term “ chalchuitl”’ to 
jade alone. 
In the same journal A. F. Berlin describes a valuable collection of 
terra-cotta antiquities from the land of the Incas, and incidentally 
mentions the fact that these rare specimens had been safely trans- 
ported long distances by the careful and friendly natives, but were 
broken and otherwise injured by the New York custom inspectors. 
The first number of Vol. I of the Memoirs of the Bernice Pauahi 
Bishop Museum of Polynesian Ethnology and Natural History is 
devoted to Hawaiian Feather Work. The director of the museum, 
W. T. Brigham, refers to the early voyagers who found the art of 
feather working in a flourishing state in Hawaii during the latter 
part of the last century; he then describes and furnishes illustra- 
tions of the birds from which the feathers are obtained; the hel- 
mets, cloaks, and other articles of feathers are described in more or 
less detail, and lists are given of the specimens now known to exist 
in the various museums of the world. The monograph is very fully 
illustrated, two of the plates being in colors. 
GENERAL BIOLOGY. 
Physics of Cell Life. — Realizing the prematureness of any pres- 
ent attempt at a chemical understanding of cell phenomena, and 
believing that there is a large field for interpretation upon a purely 
physical basis, Dr. L. Rhumbler has devoted himself to a most prom- 
ising line of investigation — the study of the physics of the cell as 
explanation of its phenomena; an attempt to analyze cell life, as far as 
may be, into physical components, leaving the ultimate chemical prob- 
lems for the future. His previous papers deal with the shell-making 
of the rhizopods and with cell division; the present,’ with some of 
the phenomena of distribution of pigment in eggs and early larve. 
Assuming that protoplasm is a foam, much as claimed by Bütschli, 
and that the nucleus and the centrosomes at certain times absorb 
1 Physikalische Analyse von Lebenserscheinungen der Zellen II, III, Archiv 
J- Entwick. d. Organismen, Bd. ix, Sept. 5, 1899, pp. 32-100, Pl. IV. 
