November 21, 1S84.] 



SCIENCE, 



469 



the Andes ; and its leaves, which are gathered 

 and dried with great care, have been used by 

 the natives as a stimulant and narcotic since 

 the days of the Incas, by whom it was held in 

 great esteem. This plant should not be con- 

 founded with the more familiar Theobroma 

 cacao, the seeds of which afford chocolate and 

 cacao-butter, nor with the cocoanut, whose 

 tree supplies food, drink, light, clothing, 

 and shelter to the natives of some tropical 

 lands. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



**# Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. The 

 writer's name is in all cases required as proof of good faith. 



The stone age in prehistoric archeology. 



Itf a recent number of Science, it is stated (p. 438), 

 that at a meeting of the Academy of natural sciences 

 of Philadelphia, Sept. 25, Dr. Brinton exhibited cer- 

 tain stone objects from Tunis, presented by the 

 Marquis de Nadaillac. Among them was one re- 

 sembling the ' stemmed scrapers ' found in this 

 country. "This form," the writer goes on to state, 

 "is characteristic, in France, of the later produc- 

 tions of the stone age, especially of that epoch called 

 by the French archeologists ' the epoch of Roben- 

 hausen.' Chronologically, this is regarded as the 

 first epoch of the appearance of man on the globe, 

 the previous implement-using animals being probably 

 anthropoids." This is a most amazing travesty of 

 the views of de Mortillet and the archeologists of his 

 school. It may safely be asserted that no one holds 

 any such opinions as these, with the possible excep- 

 tion of the' writer of the notice in question; 



At the Prehistoric congress held at Brussels in 

 1872, Gabriel de Mortillet first proposed his sys- 

 tem of classification of the age of stone. In it the 

 name ' epoch of Robenhausen ' is given as synonymous 

 with 'age of polished stone,' or 'neolithic period;' 

 while the paleolithic age is subdivided into four grand 

 divisions, called, in the inverse order of their anti- 

 quity, those of La Madelaine, of Solutre, of Moustier, 

 and of St. Acheul, each characterized by its own 

 peculiar type of instrument. This classification was 

 still further extended by him to the age of bronze, in 

 a table exhibited at the G-eographical congress held 

 at Paris in the summer of 1875. A full account of 

 it was given in the Materiaux, vol. x. p. 372. Since 

 then the system has been almost universally adopted 

 by prehistoric archeologists ; and it is thoroughly 

 explained and admirably illustrated in the ' Musee 

 prehistorique,' ^published by Messrs. Gabriel and 

 Adrien de Mortillet, in 1881. In 1883 the elder de 

 Mortillet published, in the library of contemporary sci- 

 ences, his 'Le prehistorique antiquite de l'homme.' 

 In this the views he was known to hold in regard to 

 the so-called 'tertiary man,' or, as he more logically 

 entitles him, 'the precursor of man,' are set forth in 

 detail. A critical notice of this work was given by 

 the writer in Science for March 30, 1883. The work 

 is divided into three parts, — ' the tertiary man,' ' the 

 quaternary man,' and ' the man of the present ' 

 (homme aetuel)', and the doctrine is maintained that 



"it is only at the commencement of the quaternary 

 that man shows himself not absolutely identical with 

 us, but so near that we cannot refuse to him, under 

 a proper nomenclature, the name of man." De Mor- 

 tillet's peculiar views, with whicli only a very few 

 anthropologists sympathize, are confined to the exist- 

 ence of an intelligent ' implement-using anthropoid ' 

 in tertiary times. To this question he returns with 

 renewed vigor in his journal, L'homme, of the 25th of 

 last September, apropos of the excavations made at 

 the celebrated locality of Thenay (near Tours) by a 

 committee of the French association for the advance- 

 ment of science. These were preparatory to a dis- 

 cussion of the question of the tertiary man at the 

 meeting held last year at Blois. 



Whether it was 'man,' or 'an intelligent anthro- 

 poid,' who fabricated stone implements in tertiary 

 times, may well be a question; but there is no doubt 

 whatsoever that they were men very like those first 

 found by Europeans on this continent, and Mr. Jacob 

 Messikommer will help any one, as he did the writer, 

 to disinter their relics from the peat-moor of Roben- 

 hausen. Henry W. Hatxes. 



Boston, Nov. 10. 



Forgotten conclusions of science. 



Your comments on the forgotten conclusion of 

 an investigator on rectal anaesthesia reminds me 

 of a discussion, in the section of physics at the Amer- 

 ican association, over a paper of Professor Graham 

 Bell's, on a possible method of communication be- 

 tween ships at sea. Several eminent men and some 

 distinguished foreign visitors took part in the dis- 

 cussion. It led out into suggestions of telegraphing 

 across the ocean without wires, and experiments of 

 communication across rivers, and across the strait 

 between Southampton and the Isle of Wight. 



As my recollection serves me, Professor Morse 

 went over all these experiments more than thirty 

 years ago, and supposed at one time he could carry 

 his telegraph across rivers and streams by means of 

 two wires, one running up and the other down stream 

 along the shores, and then dipping into the water. 

 I remember seeing a cut illustrating it. Professor 

 Bell's paper was a new adaptation of the old idea; 

 but the discussion, and all, seemed to me to be wholly 

 oblivious of the experiments and conclusions of 

 Professor Morse. P. J. Farjstsworth. 



Clinton, Io., Nov. 8. 



The lamprey as a builder. 



During the month of June I had an excellent op- 

 portunity to observe the manner in which the lam- 

 prey eel ( Petromyzon marinus) builds a stone dam for 

 the deposit of spawn and for the protection of the 

 progeny. 



The location of the structure was in the Saco River, 

 within the ripples near the foot of the lower falls, 

 three miles from the sea, and near the level of mean 

 high water. It was nearly at right angles with a 

 shore-wall of granite, and was about fifteen feet long 

 and from one to three feet in height. Its position 

 and triangular shape in vertical section were well 

 adapted for securing a change of water, and a hiding- 

 place among the stones for the young. 



When I first noticed the movements of the eels, they 

 were diligently at work, their system of operation 

 being very methodical; but I was not able to deter- 

 mine whether there was any action by single pairs, as 



