June 12, 1885.] 



SCIENCE. 



485 



TEN KATE'S EXPLORATIONS IN WEST- 

 ERN AMERICA. 



After devoting himself for a number of years to 

 the special study of somatology, and also to the more 

 general acquirements necessary for an ethnologist, 

 Dr. H. Ten Kate, jun., born in La Hague, set out on 

 different expeditions to study some tribes and nations 

 in natura. He accompanied Prince Bonaparte to 

 Lapland and Finland in the summer of 1884, and in 

 the present year has undertaken an extensive trip to 

 Surinam, aided by subsidies from a number of sci- 

 entific societies. The expedition which he undertook 

 through the south-west of the United States and the 

 north-west of Mexico was performed in the space of 

 about thirteen months, — from November, 1882, to De- 

 cember, 1883, — and resulted in many valuable discov- 

 eries and observations, described by him at length in 

 his recent volume written in Dutch, ' Reizen en on- 

 derzoekingen in Noord-Amerika ' (Leiden, Brill, 1885, 

 464 p., 8°), with map and two plates containing views, 

 portraits of Indians, etc. Having reached the west 

 through Texas and Arizona, he first paid a visit to So- 

 nora, and the southern extremity of the Californian 

 peninsula. He found there graves of the Pericu Indi- 

 ans, whose skulls and bones proved them to belong to 

 a race anthropologically distinct from the Cochimi, and 

 other tribes farther north in the same peninsula. He 

 left that dry country to pass through Sonora again, 

 and north to the Gila River, to the Mohave reserve on 

 Colorado River, to central Arizona, to the Papago 

 and Apache-Tinne settlements in the same territory, 

 to Zufii and the Pueblos of New Mexico scattered 

 along the Rio Grande. The aboriginal tribes last 

 seen by him were the southern Utes and the tribes 

 in the centre and the east of the Indian Territory. 

 We easily understand that the space of thirteen 

 months was but a short lapse of time, considering 

 the immense area travelled over, and the large num- 

 ber of Indian tribes and other objects of ethnologic 

 interest which came under his observation; but, 

 in reading the long and interesting report, we must 

 acknowledge that the traveller has made the best 

 use of the opportunities offered him. There is an 

 endless variety of remarks on botany, geology, zool- 

 ogy; on Indian dresses, customs, pictographs, color 

 adjectives ; on government, politics, history, and po- 

 litical economy of the countries visited. We also 

 meet at times with a few pungent remarks on the 

 traders, cowboys, politicians, and ' judges ' in the far 

 west, — observations which greatly help to brighten 

 the narrative, and enhance the interest we take 

 in it. 



Several smaller articles auxiliary to this report 

 were issued by Dr. Ten Kate before its appearance. 

 Their purpose is to give scientific accounts of Indian 

 craniums, bodily admeasurements, tribal names, etc. : 

 they are written in French. 



suggested that bowlders and gravels found in differ- 

 ent parts of Australia are of glacial origin, the evi- 

 dence is vague, and no clear proof of glaciation has 

 been brought forward. During a recent ascent of the 

 highest ranges in Australia, — parts of the Austra- 

 lian Alps, — where he discovered a peak which he 

 named Mount Clarke, 7,256 feet high, he found 

 traces of glaciation in the form of roches moutonnees 

 throughout an area of about a hundred square miles. 

 The best preserved of the ice-worn surfaces were 

 found in a valley named by the author the Wilkin- 

 son valley, running from north-east to south-west, 

 immediately south of Miiller's Peak and the Abbot 

 Range. No traces of ice-action were found at less 

 than 5,800 feet above the sea. The rocks showing ice- 

 action are all granite ; and the fact that the surfaces 

 have been polished by glaciers is said to be proved by 

 the great size of such surfaces, by their occurrence on 

 spurs and projecting points, by many of them being 

 worn down to the same general level, and by their 

 not coinciding in direction with the joints that trav- 

 erse the rock. Dr. von Lendenf eld's paper closed 

 with a comparison of the evidence of glacial action 

 in Australia with that in New Zealand. 



Prof. T. G. Bonney considered that more evidence 

 was necessary in order to establish the point con- 

 tended for by Dr. von Lendenf eld. All his proofs were 

 founded on granite, which had a constant tendency 

 to form rounded bosses. The fact that the supposed 

 roches moutonnees occurred on spurs, rendered the 

 matter still more doubtful, seeing that in small glaci- 

 ated tracts such surfaces were chiefly found in valleys. 

 It was a remarkable, and to him a very suspicious, 

 fact that no moraines or perched blocks were noticed : 

 in fact, the only point of importance adduced in favor 

 of the author's view seemed to be the difference in 

 the direction of the joint-planes and of the rounded 

 surfaces ; and this he thought insufficient. 



Mr. W. T. Blanford agreed with Professor Bonney, 

 and mentioned examples of the occurrence in the 

 plains of India, where glaciation was out of the ques- 

 tion, of granite surfaces simulating roches mouton- 

 nees, and of larger dimensions than those cited by 

 the author. It seemed to him not impossible that 

 Dr. von Lendenfeld was right ; but the evidence 

 brought forward was certainly not sufficient. The 

 circumstance most in favor of a glacial origin for 

 the supposed roches moutonnees was their restriction 

 to a particular elevation. 



THE GLACIAL PERIOD IN AUSTRALIA. 



1st a paper on this subject recently read to the 

 Geological society of London, Dr. R. von Lendenfeld 

 said, that, although several previous writers have 



THE RECENT CHOLERA CONFERENCE 

 IN BERLIN. 



At the recent cholera conference in Berlin. May 

 2-8, the principal disputants were Koch and Petten- 

 kofer, the former asserting, and the latter denying, the 

 specific character of the so-called ' comma ' bacillus 

 of cholera. 



The following summary of the position of each, 

 taken from reports that have just reached us, may be 

 of interest to our readers. 



Koch's grounds for his assertions he sums up as 

 follows : 1. The constant occurrence of the bacillus 



