5 i6 



SCIENCE. 



pelago of Terra del Fuego offers for the existence of man, 

 even compared to the neighboring regions on the Amer- 

 ican continent, we ask what cause has persuaded the 

 Fuegians to establish themselves there. To-day it is be- 

 yond doubt that these people ate not negroes, as Bory 

 Saint-Vincent believed, but that they belong to an Ando- 

 Peruvian race which inhabits the Andes and a part of the 

 pampas of Chili. They probably occupied, in olden 

 times, the noithern banks of the straits of Magellan, and 

 are but a remnant of the Aucas and the Araucanos of 

 Chili. Attacked by the Patagonians of the pampian 

 race, not as strong and more poorly armed than 

 their adversaries, they were obliged, at a time more 

 or less remote, to yield the place to their redoubtable 

 enemies and to take refuge in the inhospitable regions on 

 the other side of the strait, where the Patagonians, de- 

 testable navigators, left them in quiet. 



Then little by little have acted the forces of adapta- 

 tion, which all-powerlul habit, in returning their heredi- 

 tary effects, have adapted the Fuegians to the climate 

 and productions of their miserable country. 



Their industry is modified in the same way, and to- 

 day it is reduced to the construction of miserable boats, 

 and to the manufacture of several weapons and utensils 

 necessary to their sad existence. The boat built of a 

 mass cf shapeless pieces of wood, covered with can- 

 vas in the shape of the skins which they custom- 

 arily employ, the boat which can be seen on the 

 basin in the neighborhood of their enclosure, makes us 

 shudder when we think that these savages venture in this 

 frail machine on the agitated waters which wash their 

 country. In regard to the colleclion of arms and utensils 

 which can be seen in a neighboring shed, it indicates a 

 certain ingenuity, but shows well to what a miserable 

 condition these poor creatures are reduced. 



These Fuegians, eleven in number, four men, four 

 women, and three children, have been brought to Europe 

 by M. Waalen, established for many years at Punta- 

 Arenas, capital of Patagonia. 



M. Waalen, who goes to fish for seals in the waters 

 of Terra del Fuego, finds himself in connection with 

 these savages. He was able, by gorging them with 

 food, by treating them with prudence, for they are not 

 always tractable and would be able to cause great ob- 

 structions, to induce them to remain on his ship, from 

 which they were transshipped on a Hamburg steamer 

 which makes the passage between Valparaiso and 

 Europe. It was while the ship touched at Havre that M. 

 Geoffroy Saint Hilaine, informed by a despatch, saw 

 them and bronght them here. M. Waalen deposited in 

 the hinds of the Chilian Governor of Punta-Arenas, a 

 sum of 12 to 15,000 francs, as security, binding himself 

 to return these savages to their country after they had 

 made a tour through the principal capitals of Europe. 



What impression will they carry back of their sojourn 

 among civilized people? If we are to judge of this by 

 the Fuegians that Captain Fitz-Roy returned after a 

 sojourn of three years in Europe, the impression will 

 be a very fleeting one. These natives, three in number, 

 two men, York Minster and Jemmy Button, and a young 

 girl, Fuegia, seemed almost entirely civilized. Captain 

 Fitz-Roy landed them in the middle of their tribes, fur- 

 nished them with implements and tools of all sorts, built 

 them a house, cleared up a corner of ground, and left 

 them in the company of a missionary. When he returned, 

 several months after, he found no trace of their install- 

 ment, and had to take on board the poor missionary, who 

 ran the greatest danger. Of his three pioneers, two, 

 York Minster and Fuegia who became his wife, parted 

 in plundering their comrade, and the latter, who had 

 taken a wife in his tribe, became a filthy and disgusting 

 savage, delighted with his condition, scarcely knowing 

 how to speak English, and who showed witli pride to the 

 officers of the expedition the implements of bone and of 

 flint which he had manufactured. 



It seems, after this experience, that it is impossible to 

 draw these savages from their debasement, and yet they 

 have an intellectual capacity, latent, it is true, which ap- 

 pears superior to that of Australians. They learn 

 languages with remarkable facility, and have a spirit of 

 imitation carried to extremes, which ought to be utilized 

 in order to teach them things well. The future will tell 

 us if those who are at present in the Garden of Acclima- 

 tion, will derive any profit from their sojourn among us. 

 Our opinion is that they will be delighted at finding 

 themselves in their own homes, and the remembrance of 

 all that they will have seen will remain in their minds 

 as a dream which will not perhaps be wholly agreea- 

 ble. — ( Translated from La Nature^ 



ON A NEW SYSTEM OF BLOWPIPE 

 . ANALYSIS* 

 By Lieut. -Colonel W. A. Ross (late R. A.) 

 (I) THE USE OF ALUMINIUM PLATE FOR VOLATILLZ- . 

 ING SUBSTANCES. 



Volatile metals and sulphur compounds, &c, are, in the 

 old system, treated before the blowpipe, as is well known, 

 upon the s.upport of a parallelopiped of charcoal held 

 horizontally in the direction of the blast from the blow- 

 pipe, the disadvantages of which are : (a) that black sub- 

 limates as those now known to be obtainable from arsenic, 

 antimony, lead, &c, are undistinguishable on the black 

 charcoal, {b) The greater part of the sublimate from 

 most volatile metals is blown away by the blast — a seri- 

 ous objection when, as is often the case, there is only a 

 t rifling proportion of such metals present in a mineral or 

 compound, (c) When the charcoal becomes incandes- 

 cent, the most interesting portion of the sublimate (that 

 next the assay) is often thus resublimed and lost, (d) 

 The white charcoal ash is so mixed up with sublimates 

 as often to conceal them, and, in cases of minute quanti- 

 ties, to mislead the operator into supposing there is a sub- 

 limate at all. (e) In the treatment of a compound con- 

 taining two or more volatile metals, sulphides, or oxides, 

 the sublimates obtained therefrom are mechanically, and 

 perhaps sometimes chemica'ly, combined, and then can- 

 not be separated, so as to be distinguished from each 

 other, by means of the blowpipe, or in any other way at 

 the time, on the spot. (f) It is impossible to obtain a 

 blowpipe sublimate from charcoal free from the silica, &c, 

 of the ash, by scraping it off for supplementary examina- 

 tion, (g) Most charcoals, after blowpipe treatment for any 

 length of time, split up in'o cracks and deep fissures, 

 into which the sublimate or the assay falls and is lost. 



Here are several objections to the use of charcoal as a 

 blowpipe support ; most of them serious, some fatal to a 

 thorough pyrological examination of volatile substances ; 

 and yet it has obtained ever since Von Swab invented the 

 chemical employment of the blowpipe in 1738 (in which 

 year he thus treated an ore of zinc at Delarne in Sweden), 

 and is still used at Freiberg. 



In 1869 Napoleon m had offered, or I understood him 

 to have offered, a premium of €1000 to any one who 

 could discover an efficient solder for aluminium, and 

 being then on sick-leave in India, I thought of employing 

 my leisure in attempting this discovery. t 



After investigation, I imagined (from burning my 

 fingers so often), that the reason an aluminium solder 

 could not be made, was the enormous heat-conducting 

 powers of the metal, which transferred the heat from a 

 blowpipe-flame so quickly away over the entire substance 

 of a fragment of given bulk, that no one part of it could 



♦British Association, York, :88i. 



t In reply to a question, Col. Ross answered that he had not discovered 

 a new solder, hut that on one occasion last year (1880) he actually did suc- 

 ceed in soldering two small pieces of aluminium together, and that he has 

 a description of the process in his notes. 



