692 General Notes. [ November, 
there has been no diminution in the number of the Indians of the 
North American continent since the first settlement. The author took 
the ground that the works which are supposed to have taken great num- 
bers to accomplish them were rather the results of long-continued labor. 
This statement in opposition to the almost unanimous opinion of writers 
on our Indians was the subject of considerable attention. Professor 
Marsh in his address before the section of biology took occasion to say 
that while the primates originated on the American continent, the ab- 
sence of higher fossil forms argues their subsequent migration, and con- 
sequently the impossibility of man’s having originated in our hemisphere. 
The Davenport (Iowa) Academy of Natural Science has issued volume 
ii. part i. of its Proceedings. Among the valuable contributions to ar- 
cheology, the one which will attract the most attention is the descrip- 
tion, by the Rey. J. Gass, of his discovering in a mound tablets of soft 
shale, having elaborate inscriptions scratched on them. One represents 
a hunting party, another a cremation scené, and a third is a supposed 
calendar. à 
In addition to the antiquities already mentioned from Porto Rico and 
described in the Smithsonian Report for 1876, Professor Baird has just 
received from Mr. Lewis Jones R. Brace, of Nassau, N. P., drawings of 
celts, images, and stools, differing from those already described only in 
etail. Among the specimens are two wooden stools, one of which is 
the long-tailed variety sent by Messrs. Gabb and Frith. The other is a 
short-tailed variety, and resembles very much a shallow dish. I have 
seen similarly shaped, so-called mortars or metates from Central America, 
made to resemble a quadruped, the head projecting in front and the tail 
twisted around for a handle. 
The Smithsonian Annual Report for 1876, just published, is in some 
respects the most interesting number ever issued. 
Dr. Paul Broca, the distinguished anthropologist, presided over the 
French Association this year. In his opening address he gave a résumé 
of the fossil races of Western Europe, dividing them as follows : — 
1. Canstadt Race, the oldest (dolicocephalic). 
2. Cromagnon Race ( ce > 
3. Furfooz Race (brachycephalic). 
Authors of anthropological treatises and papers, desiring to have 
them noticed in Baird’s Annual Record, will please send copies to 
Professor S. F. Baird or to O. T. Mason, Washington, D. iim Oe È 
Mason. 
GEOLOGY AND PALZONTOLOGY. 
Discovery or Jointep Limes IN Tritosites.— In a paper en- 
titled Notes on Some Sections of Trilobites from the Trenton Limestone, 
published in advance of the report of the New York State Museum of 
Natural History, Mr. C. D. Walcott describes and figures jointed limbsin 
( 
