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SCIENCE 



[Vol. IV., No. 87, 



cient in all these things she is not regarded as fit for 

 marriage, which occurs when she is ahout twenty. 

 At the conclusion of the paper, which Dr. Tylor 

 called ' most tantalizing,' many questions were asked, 

 and in response to these many additional facts were 

 given. That great respect for woman prevailed 

 among the Omahas, was emphatically asserted hy 

 Miss Fletcher. Articles of taboo were common ; each 

 gens having a certain group of objects which must 

 not, on any account, be touched. Dreams play a 

 very important part in an Indian's life : to him, 

 dreams are as real as any part of the actual world 

 about him. Mrs. Smith, spoke of a custom among 

 the Iroquois, of placing near the mouth of the dead 

 baby when buried a cloth saturated with the moth- 

 er's milk. Friday afternoon's reading began with a 

 paper by Miss F. E. Babbitt, describing certain very 

 rude quartz objects found in situ in undisturbed 

 gravel-banks in central Minnesota. Dr. Abbott, in 

 connection with this paper, described and exhibited 

 some of the objects found by him in the Trenton 

 gravels. In the next paper, Rev. S. D. Peet endeav- 

 ored to show the importance of a study of the 

 architecture of prehistoric nations as a means of dis- 

 covering their degree of civilization, and subdividing 

 the stages of progress. 



A much-neglected and yet not unimportant depart- 

 ment of ethnology was brought before the section in 

 a paper by Mr. A. W. Butler, on local weather-lore, in 

 which he presented a collection of sayings respecting 

 the weather, current in southern Indiana, excluding 

 all that are of more wide-spread use. The last paper 

 of the afternoon, by Mr. A. E. Douglass, described 

 in a very complete manner some of the mounds of 

 the Atlantic coast of Florida which the author had 

 explored. Both shell and earth mounds are found 

 quite evenly distributed along the coast from the 

 mouth of the St. John's River to the southern part 

 of Lake North. The shell mounds are for the most 

 part situated upon narrow strips of land which sepa- 

 rate the numerous lagoons from the sea. Some are 

 of great size: one shell ridge is eight miles long; and 

 one mound, which covered three acres, was made up 

 entirely of the little shells of Donax variabilis. 

 These large mounds were constructed at different 

 times. The earth mounds occur inland. Two of 

 the mounds are composed wholly of bits of rock; and 

 one large mound has, three feet below the surface, a 

 pavement of stone which extends entirely across it. 

 Implements and other objects are often found in the 

 mounds of the St. John's River, but not in the more 

 southern mounds. Mr. Douglass's account was quite 

 detailed, and a very interesting and valuable addition 

 to our knowledge of the subject. 



On Monday 7norning the section first listened to a 

 paper by Mrs. Erminnie A. Smith, on disputed points 

 concerning Iroquois pronouns. She spoke of the 

 peculiar difficulties which arose from the manner in 

 which the pronouns were used in Iroquois, — some of 

 them being arbitrarily used; different words some- 

 times requiring unlike pronouns for the same person 

 and number; and there were other peculiarities 

 which had misled students of the language. Another 



difficulty and source of error was found in the use of 

 gender. The early writers recognized but two gen- 

 ders, a noble and an ignoble; while the author had 

 found three, as in English. Some of the pronouns, 

 as that of the third person, answering to our ' he, she, 

 it,' are always incorporated; while others, as indeter- 

 minate pronouns, are always expressed independently. 

 The grammar of Pere Marcoux was criticised by the 

 author, and certain errors pointed out. Dr. Tylor 

 remarked, in connection with this paper, upon the 

 importance of studying the treatment of gender in 

 any savage language with great care. Not all peoples 

 recognize the division of living or other objects into 

 male, female, and neuter. The Zulus have many 

 classes, or genera, into one or another of which any 

 given object falls; but they do not make any distinc- 

 tion of male and female. Miss Fletcher said that 

 among the Sioux the same pronoun was used for 

 both sexes, the gender being determined by the con- 

 text. 



A very long and extremely interesting account was 

 then given by Mr. F. W. Putnam, of the explorations 

 which he and Dr. Metz had carried on under the aus- 

 pices of the Peabocly museum at Cambridge. These 

 investigations had been chiefly devoted to the study 

 of a group of mounds near Madison ville, Ind., known 

 as the Turner group. The very careful manner in 

 which the exploration of the mounds had been car- 

 ried on — the earth taken away and examined shov- 

 elful by shovelful — was shown, and the results of 

 the work enumerated and illustrated by diagrams 

 and photographs in great number. Neither time, 

 labor, nor money had been spared in the prosecution 

 of the work; and as a result one of the most remark- 

 able series of objects ever discovered in America had 

 been obtained, and also many new facts respecting the 

 structure of the mounds themselves. For example, 

 it was found that in stratified mounds the layers were 

 always horizontal, not, as usually represented, curved. 

 Singular ash-pits, masses of burned clay, layers of 

 stones, and other features were mentioned and illus- 

 trated. Among the objects taken from the largest 

 mound of the group were the following, some of 

 them never found before in the mounds : shell beads, 

 disks, and rings, which were obtained in thousands ; 

 cones cut from alligator-teeth; ornaments cut from 

 plates of buffalo-horn, mica, and native copper; ob- 

 jects of native silver, and even gold, and meteoric 

 iron; pearls, most of them pierced, and injured by 

 heat (not less than fifty thousand of these were found) ; 

 small stone dishes beautifully carved to represent 

 some animal form; and last, and perhaps most impor- 

 tant, terra-cotta figurines of exceedingly artistic form, 

 and strangely Egyptian in character. These objects, 

 it should be noted, are all of an ornamental character: 

 no other sort was found in this mound. A brief 

 paper by Miss C. A. Studley described some of the 

 crania from this mound, and others near it. 



In the next paper, Dr. P. R. Hoy showed how 

 grooved stone axes and similar implements could be 

 manufactured by the use of a common hammer- 

 stone, and showed specimens that had been so made 

 by a friend. The specimens, which Dr. Hoy asserted 



