530 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. V., No. 125. 



undul}' extol the good features of the state 

 and the importance of the geological survey. 

 The report for 1882 contains a catalogue of 

 the flora (789 species) of the Alpine or cen- 

 tral-eastern portion of the state. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



In an appendix to Professor Dexter' s ' Biograph- 

 ical sketches of the graduates of Yale college,' Prof. 

 H. A. Newton has given some figures showing the 

 mortality among the graduates of the early years of 

 the college. The graduates considered are those 

 of the years 1702-44, 483 in all. To avoid irregulari- 

 ties, the results have been grouped in sets of ten 

 years. The actual numbers of deaths are compared 

 with the numbers computed from the American and 

 combined experience tables. 



Table showing the mortality, actual and expected, by 

 decades of years, among Yale graduates, 1702-44. 







Mortality 



Mortality by 



Ages. 



No. of deaths. 



by American 



combined ex- 







table. 



perience table. 



14 to 25 . . . ". 



28 



18.60 



17.64 



26 to 35 .... 



41 



36.03 



36.17 



36 to 45 .... 



48 



37.73 



40.12 



46 to 55 .... 



71 



46.87 



54.02 



56 to 65 .... 



93 



68.17 



77.02 



66 to 75 .... 



98 



93.52 



97.72 



76 to 85 .... 



65 



83.40 



79.93 



86 to 95 .... 



27 



51.31 



37.72 



96 to 103 ... . 



2 



- 



- 



Total 



473 



435.63 



440.34 



The most noticeable fact shown by this table is 

 that below the age of seventy the actual mortality so 

 largely exceeded the tabular, the excess being over 

 twenty per cent of the expected mortality. This 

 mortality experience is decidedly different from that 

 of the persons who have been members of the Divin- 

 ity school of Yale college {New-Englander, April, 

 1873). For them, between the ages of forty and 

 seventy, the tabular exceeded the actual mortality by 

 nearly forty per cent of the former. This enormous 

 difference is quite uniformly distributed, and is evi- 

 dently not principally due to chance. It cannot be 

 due to great difference in the two groups of men. It 

 must rather be ascribed to a difference in the habits 

 of living in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 



— It appears from Nature that preparation is 

 already making for the meeting of the British asso- 

 ciation in Birmingham in 1886. It is stated that the 

 meeting will probably be under the presidency of 

 Sir William Dawson of Montreal. 



— Dr. An dree of Leipzig, according to Nature, 

 discussed before a recent meeting of the Anthropo- 

 logical society of Vienna the question whether iron 

 was known in America in pre-Columbian times. 

 Meteoric iron was certainly in use amongst certain 

 Indian tribes and the Eskimo, but Dr. Andree thinks 

 that they were wholly unacquainted with the art of 



forging iron. This conclusion is based on the fact, 

 among others, that while there is ample proof that 

 the Indians [the author under this term is including 

 the Mexicans and Peiuvians] knew how to obtain 

 and employ gold, silver, tin, copper, quicksilver, etc., 

 we hear nothing of iron-mines in the history of the 

 civilization of ancient America. The language itself 

 proves this, for there is no expression for iron. Some 

 writers, it is true, speak of the word panilgue as that 

 for iron, but it really means metal in general. More- 

 over, in prehistoric, or rather pre-Columbian, graves, 

 especially in the rainless regions of Peru and northern 

 Chili, ornaments of all kinds, weapons, and imple- 

 ments are found; but no objects in iron have been 

 discovered, although the Indians placed their most 

 valued articles in their tombs. [Meteoric iron has, 

 however, been found in several mounds in Ohio by 

 Mr. F. W. Putnam of the Peabody museum in Cam- 

 bridge, both in a natural state and hammered; in 

 the latter form used for the same purposes as native 

 copper, both for implements and ornaments ] Dr. 

 Andree thinks there is no reason to believe that the 

 tools employed in the great masonry-works of Peru, 

 such as that at Tiahuanaco, were other than those in 

 use in the rest of Peru, which were of champi, a 

 species of bronze. The chisels found in Peruvian 

 graves soon become blunted when used on the hard 

 strut; but it is suggested that there was some method 

 of sharpening them easily. Indians certainly have 

 worked a hard stone like nephrite without iron; and 

 there is no improbability, says the writer, in the the- 

 ory that these chisels were employed, when we recol- 

 lect the patient temperament of the Indians, who for 

 generations were accustomed to the repetition of the 

 same work, to indolently pursuing a uniform task, 

 and also that gutta cavat lapidem. 



— Dr. G. A. Fischer, in his proposed journey to 

 Lado on the upper Nile, will start, according to the 

 Athenaeum, from Pangani, and endeavor to open up a 

 direct route to Speke Gulf. His movements after 

 arriving in Uganda will depend upon circumstances. 

 It is just possible, that, owing to the proceedings of 

 a German colonization society, Dr. Fischer may not 

 find it easy to recruit carriers at Zanzibar. In a pa- 

 per which he read at the German geographical con- 

 gress at Hamburg, Dr. Fischer spoke sensibly against 

 some of the Utopian schemes of his countrymen. 

 He pointed out more especially that Europeans can- 

 not become acclimatized in equatorial Africa, except 

 perhaps at an altitude of more than five thousand 

 feet, and that even the interior tablelands are free 

 from malaria only where they are barren, and conse- 

 quently useless for purposes of colonization. 



— Twenty-three maps, fourteen by seventeen cen- 

 timetres, of excellent execution, clear and not over- 

 crowded lettering, form a most convenient pocket 

 atlas, the twenty-first edition of which, entirely re- 

 modelled, has just been issued from the geographical 

 establishment of Justus Perthes in Gotha. For a 

 European tourist, nothing could be more convenient, 

 as more than half the maps relate to that continent, 

 and only three to North America and the United 

 States 



