May 22, 1885.] 



SCIENCE. 



415 



which can be speedily utilized at the first opportunity, 

 is here well shown. Jos. F. James. 



Cincinnati, April 28. 



Prehistoric fishing. 



In Professor Rau's interesting work on prehis- 

 toric fishing is a series of Indian bone and horn fish- 

 hooks, ending with a figure that I sent him of one 

 found on an early site on the line of Onondaga 

 county, N.Y. I was especially interested in this ob- 

 ject ; because it was the first thing found there that 

 seemed to show any knowledge of Europeans, al- 

 though the site was connected with later sites, near 

 by, by several peculiar relics. The general form of 

 the hook, with its distinct barb, was so like some 

 of the present day, that I naturally thought the Indian 

 maker had at least seen a white man's hook. The 

 series in Professor Rau's work gave rise to doubts, as 

 the main difference in this and others figured was in 

 the barb. I was thus led to see the force of Dr. Rau's 

 remark in his introduction: "I would not venture to 

 say that barbed fish-hooks had been unknown in 

 America in ante-Columbian times; I simply state 

 that none have fallen under my notice." 



In looking over some drawings of relics made about 

 three years ago, my attention was arrested by one 

 which I had labelled ' horn perforator.' The more I 

 looked, the more the conviction strengthened that it 

 was the barb of a fish-hook. Borrowing the frag- 

 ment, I drew it again, after care- 

 ful examination, and then sent the 

 fragment to Dr. Rau for inspec- 

 tion. He says, "It certainly has 

 the appearance of the barb of a 

 fish-hook." The fragment is one 

 inch and five-sixteenths long by 

 about one-twelfth of an inch thick ; 

 from the point to the present end 

 of barb, fifteen-sixteenths of an 

 inch ; while the width at the barb 

 is about five-sixteenths; that of 

 the shank, one-eighth of an inch. 

 It is very sharp. There seems to 

 have been a defect in the material, 

 which caused the sharp point of 

 the barb to break off, and which 

 weakened the hook itself. This came from an early 

 site where I have gathered many articles myself, and 

 all are clearly prehistoric. The large copper spear fig- 

 ured by me for Dr. Abbott's ' Primitive industries ' 

 came from the same field. 



Yet I think the New- York Indians seldom used 

 hooks. All the early references are to fishing with 

 nets and spears; and our Indian village sites are sel- 

 dom on the shores of deep lakes, almost always by 

 streams, or near the shallow rifts of rivers. Stone 

 fish-weirs are not uncommon, probably used as they 

 were farther south. One of three deep bays which 

 I measured was a work of great magnitude. Nets 

 were much used, and I have found the flat sinkers 

 on sites far away from the water. These were small, 

 however. The large ones, measuring six to seven 

 inches across, I have only found on the river-bank. 



A small cylindrical sinker of brown sandstone, 

 grooved around the centre, was probably used on a 

 line. The ends are rounded. A rough tube of cop- 

 per, two and a half inches long by three-fourths in 

 diameter, found by the Oneida River, I have thought 

 might have been attached to a line, as well as the 

 polished stone plummets. 



The polished slate arrows of the Seneca and Oswego 

 rivers, and of one part of Lake Cham plain, I think 

 may prove to be fish-knives, being much like adouble- 



bladed knife of broad form. They would have been 

 admirable for opening and skinning fish, had savages 

 been so fastidious. W. M. Beauchamp. 



The ruddy glow around the sun. 



In November, 1883, at the time of the remarkable 

 after-glows, I noticed that there was a broad, reddish 

 ring around the sun even at mid-day. Soon after, I 

 briefly described the appearances in Nature. Since 

 then, I have constantly observed this phenomenon. 

 The sky is very bright for about ten degrees from the 

 sun ; then comes the ruddy zone about twenty degrees 

 wide, the deepest color being at about the natural 

 distance of halos. My observations show that at this 

 place there are but few days of the year when the 

 chromatic glow is not visible ; but it varies in inten- 

 sity not only from day to day, but even from hour to 

 hour. About a year ago I discovered that an in- 

 crease in the depth of color preceded a fall in the 

 temperature, and the formation, first of a structureless 

 haze in the upper atmosphere, and, soon after, of 

 cirrh us-clouds. At other times storms came on with 

 no increase in the depth of color. Soon it became 

 evident that the latter cases were when rain fell, and 

 the general temperature was not low. Hail and 

 sometimes snow storms were accompanied by great 

 depth of color. During the summer of 1884, I passed 

 several weeks in Maine. On two occasions the col- 

 ored zone appeared around the sun as distinctly as it 

 ordinarily does here. Both times the appearance of 

 the glow was followed by violent thunder-storms, with 

 high winds and hail. 



While temperature would not affect the diffractive 

 power of particles of volcanic dust directly, yet it is 

 possible that at a low temperature the dust parti- 

 cles, on account of the condensation of the air, may 

 be enough nearer to each other to give a perceptibly 

 greater diffractive power to the mass of air in which 

 they are suspended. But so often has an increase in 

 the depth of the circumsolar glow preceded the for- 

 mation of clouds, that it seems far more probable 

 that the glow is caused by the precipitation of at- 

 mospheric moisture at low temperatures. If dust is 

 involved in the process, it is probably only by its in- 

 creasing the depth of color, or by its facilitating the 

 precipitation of moisture. 



In substance, these views have been expressed ver- 

 bally to numerous persons for more than a yt-ar past. 

 They are published now not merely as a matter of 

 theoretical meteorology, but also for a practical 

 purpose. The observations here recorded make it 

 probable that the glow may be utilized as a prognos- 

 tication of hail. It goes without saying, that it will 

 be of great value to many, especially to those who 

 have much exposed glass on the roofs of green- 

 houses, etc., to be able to predict hail and a fall in 

 the temperature. It is true that other localities than 

 those named may not show the same phenomena. 

 The subject is worthy of the careful study of the 

 signal-service, and of meteorologists generallv. 



G. H/Stoxe. 



CARL THE ODOR VON SIEBOLD. 



The death of Carl Theodor Ernst von Sie- 

 bold, the last survivor of three distinguished 

 brothers, deprives German}^ of one of her most 

 honored men of science. His investigations 

 had ceased, owino- to illness and the encroach- 



