226 
ASTRONOMY: C. E. ST. JOHN 
pattern and one in which it bears no necessary relation to the structure. 
Yet these Indians are consistent enough to make a false insert upon 
which the decoration is placed. In short, there are very strong reasons 
for concluding that the Blackfoot borrowed the decoration from their 
northern neighbors and that these tribes arrived at it by adjusting the 
decoration to the structure. 
Another cut of moccasin among some tribes south of the Great Lakes 
requires no insert on the instep, but has a long unsightly puckered seam, 
extending down the middle of the foot to the toe. This is usually con- 
cealed by overlaying with a long narrow band of embroidered skin. 
This style extends over into the tribes of the Plains to the west where 
we find it upon moccasins of a pattern having no seams to hide. 
Again, the Apache of New Mexico and Arizona have a moccasin with 
a long narrow insert reaching down the top of the foot to the toe. This 
gives two converging seams which are concealed by fringes and very 
narrow embroidered bands. Then among their northern neighbors we 
find moccasins without any insert whatever bearing exactly the same 
decoration. 
Thus, in moccasin decoration we find three different examples of 
decorative designs developed from the structure. 
We may summarize this investigation as revealing several good 
examples of the genesis of specific decorative designs. With one pos- 
sible exception, they differ from the previous genetic studies of design 
in that the origin was not strictly in attempts at reaHstic art but merely 
grew out of attempts to embellish surfaces of fixed contour and to 
conceal unsightly lines. 
The data in full will appear in the Anthropological Papers of the 
American Museum of Natural History, 
THE SITUATION IN REGARD TO ROWLAND'S PRELIMINARY 
TABLE OF SOLAR SPECTRUM WAVE-LENGTHS 
By Charles E. St. John 
MOUNT WILSON SOLAR OBSERVATORY. CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON 
Received bj^ the Academy. March 6, 1916 
The appearance of the Preliminary Table of Solar Wave-lengths marked 
an epoch in the history of spectroscopy and for twenty years it has been 
an instrument of precision in the hands of the solar and stellar investi- 
gator, to such a degree that it has become an integral part of the lit- 
erature of spectroscopy. In the transition to the international system, 
all that is of permanent value in this work of great magnitude and im- 
