ANTHROPOLOGY. T99 
These considerations, then, seem fully grae se 8 account ‘ig 
a paucity of life in the deeper part of the Mediterranean bas 
they will, of course, equally apply to the case “of any oe 
inland sea, so far as the same conditions apply. And it is not a 
little interesting to find that my old friend and fellow-student 
Edward Forbes was perfectly correct as to the recta of ani- 
mal life—so far as regards the Ægean Sea, in h n 
researches were prosecuted — to a depth of ea 300 fathoms ; 
the error, which was rather that of others than his own, being in 
the supposition that this limitation applies equally to the great 
ocean basins, Lee as well as present. The researches in which 
it has been privilege to bear a part have shown that as 
regards the latter there is pap no ig E limit to ani- 
mal life; while the results of my inquiries into the influence of 
the physical conditions of the ko in limiting the ba- 
thymetrical diffusion of its fauna, will not, I venture to “hope, be 
without their use in geological theory.” 
Tae Connecticut VALLEY IN THE HELDERBERG Era.— Prof. 
Dana states in an article in the ‘‘ American Journal of Science 
and Arts” for November, that the observations of Hitchcock and 
Percival, with his own, lead towards the view that in the Helder- 
berg era the Connecticut valley, through its whole length from 
north to south, was a wide crinoidal and coral growing sea, sep- 
arating eastern from western New England. 
ANTHROPOLOGY. 
Inp1an Rope anp CLora.— The Apocynum cannabinum, In- 
dian hemp, or silk plant, as it is sometimes called, is very exten- 
sively used by the Indians of Arizona for the manufacture of twine 
- and cloth. The bark of the plant is tough and strong and some- 
thing like flax. The Indians cut the plant when ripe and rab it 
so as to separate the fibres, with which they make very strong and 
beautiful fishing lines, and a fine thread which they use in sewing 
and also make into cloth. Inthe Department of Agriculture, there 
is a fine specimen of rope made of this fibre by the Ute Indians, 
which I obtained from them and presented to the Department. In 
the Smithsonian Collection there are also good specimens of strings 
and a fishing net made of this plant by the Indians of Arizona. 
Near Camp Lincoln in Arizona we obtained, from some old Aztec 
ruins, cloth that had been manufactured by hand from this plant. 
The root gives out a very bitter milky fluid that is used as a 
medicine by the Indians. — Dr. Epwarp PALMER. 
