492 



SCIENCE, 



[Vol. IV., No. 9- e 



On Bailique and Brigue I found the forests 

 very different from any I had hitherto seen in 

 the tropics. These islands, like all the others 

 in this part of the country, are flooded at high 

 tide daring part of the year ; and, as a conse- 

 quence, they are very like great banks of mud 

 covered with the rankest kind of vegetation. 

 This vegetation varies with the locality. All 

 around the borders, Brigue is fringed with tall 

 assai palms, bamboos, and various kinds of 

 tall trees, all of which are hung with a dense 

 drapery of sipos (lianes) and vines, which form 

 an almost impenetrable covering. Inside of 

 this are several palms, the most common being 

 the ubussti (Manicaria saccifera). The next 

 in order are the murumuru (Astrocaryum mu- 

 rumuru), urucury (Attelea excelsa, the nut of 

 which is used for smoking rubber) , and ubim 

 (Geonoma) . But, unlike most tropical forests, 

 this one has very little or no undergrowth, ex- 

 cept upon the borders. Most of the ground 

 was under from one to six inches of water, 

 while the exposed places were covered with fine 

 sediment deposited b}^ the standing muddy 

 waters of the Amazon. I walked several miles 

 through this forest without finding any palms 

 except the ones mentioned. The little ground 

 above water was covered with the tracks of 

 deer, pacas, cutias, and of many kinds of 

 birds, mostly waders ; but the deathlike still- 

 ness was unbroken, save for the little crabs 

 that climbed vacantly about the fallen palm- 

 leaves, or fished idly in the mud for a living. 



This vast expanse of muddy water, bearing 

 out into the ocean immense quantities of sedi- 

 ment ; the por or '6ca, breaking so violently on 

 the shores, and carrying away the coarser ma- 

 terial to the open sea, and buying uprooted 

 forests beneath newly formed land ; the rank 

 vegetation of islands and varzea rapidly grow- 

 ing and as rapidly decaying in this most humid 

 of climates ; the whole country, submerged for 

 a considerable part of the 3 T ear by the floods 

 of the Amazon, — impress one with the proba- 

 bility of such phenomena having been in past 

 ages, and still being, geological agents worthy 

 of study and consideration. Across the mouth 

 of the Amazon, a distance of two hundred 

 miles, and for four hundred miles out at sea, 

 and swept northward by ocean-currents, beds 

 of sandstone and shale are being rapidly de- 

 posited from material, some of which is trans- 

 ported all the way from the Andes, while in 

 many places dense tropical forests are being 

 slowly buried beneath the fine sediment thrown 

 down by the muddy waters of the great river. 

 John C. Branner. 



Geological sui'vey of Pennsylvania, Scranton, Penn. 



HISTORY OF ALMANACS. 



The derivation of our English word ' almanac ' 

 seems doubtful. The word possibly came from 

 almonar/ht, Saxon words meaning ' the observation 

 of all the moons.' In Roman times the priests 

 announced once a month to the people what days 

 should be observed as holidays, basing tbeir calcula- 

 tion upon the movements of the moon. In this way 

 almanacs arose to give information of church feasts. 

 Then superstition entered, and caused an interest to 

 be taken in the movements of the planets. As the 

 earth was held to be the centre around which moved 

 the moon, the planets, and the stars, and as the 

 moon was seen to have an influence upon the tides, 

 the inference was drawn that human affairs could 

 but be affected by these outside bodies which were 

 supposed to have been created for the benefit of the 

 world alone. 



The earliest calendars known were cut upon rods 

 of wood or metal, some of the Roman calendars on 

 blocks of stone. The earliest written almanacs were 

 of two classes, — the first containing astronomical 

 computations ; and the other, lists of saints' days, and 

 other matters pertaining to the church. Both are 

 sometimes found united; although the latter claimed 

 greater antiquity, being prefixed to most ancient 

 Latin manuscripts of the Scriptures. We reproduce 

 from the ' Glossaire arche*ologique ' of Victor Gay a 

 church calendar of the fourteenth century, in which 

 the leaves are made of box-wood, the pages repro- 

 duced giving the calendars of January and December. 

 The first printed calendar was issued in 1472, by 

 Johannes de Monte-Regio ; and before the end of that 

 century they became common on the continent. In 

 England they were not in general use until the mid- 

 dle of the sixteenth century ; and the making of cal- 

 endars interested the best mathematicians of the 

 time, which was not the case a little later. 



From the earliest times, calendars were filled with 

 advice to physicians and the farmer: the farmer is 

 told when to plant, and the sick man when to take 

 physic. We quote here from an almanac published 

 in 1628, in London, by Daniel Brown, — "Wilier to 

 the Mathematickes, and teacher of Arithmeticke, and 

 Geometry," — the titlepage of which bears the in- 

 scription, ' Astra regunt homines et regit astra deus,' 

 the paragraphs on 



" Judiciall Astronomy. 

 "It hath beene an order and a custome (amongst 

 the most excellentest and wisest Physitions, to 

 choose the Moone for the principall. Significatrix of 

 the sicke Person, and according unto her motion, 

 situation, and configuration (with other Planets) 

 haue giuen judgement on the increasing, mittigation 

 and alteration of the disease ; which of the Physition 

 is called Crisis, that is a swift and vehement motion 

 of a disease, either to life or death, and it hapneth 

 about the supreame intention of a disease. And 

 Galen (in commento de diebus Criticis) sayth. A 

 Physition must take heed and advise himselfe of a 

 certaine thing that faileth not neither deceiveth, 



. 



