THE NATURAL SCIENCE JOURNAL. 
0 
spearhead of a uuiform deep red jasper, 
found on Keweenaw Point, Mich. He 
also possesses a gouge, found on the 
shore of Dennis Pond, Dennis, Mass. 
It is eight inches long, well proportioned, 
and smoothly wrought of handsome ser¬ 
pentine. 
A unique knife is owned by Mr. James 
Angus of West Farms, New York; it is 
large, sub-oval in shape and made from 
a piece of silicified wood in which the 
concentric rings are w^ell displayed in 
different colors, the exact center of the 
original wood being also the exact cen¬ 
ter of the knife. 
Miss Anna F. Rice of Wollaston, 
Mass., is the fortunate possessor of a 
prehistoric bead of good size, made from 
a harlequin opal, which was found in 
Mississippi, and which will be the sub¬ 
ject of a special article in this journal. 
Beads of turquoise and other hue ma¬ 
terial have not infrequently been found 
in the southwestern portion of the United 
States and in Mexico and Central 
America. 
Some of the handsomest Archaeologi¬ 
cal specimens ever found have been dis¬ 
covered among the Aztec ruins near 
Toluca, Mexico. They are of a greenish 
obsidian with a smooth satin lustre and 
running into deeper shade and lighter 
tints. The wTiter once saw a magnifi¬ 
cent sacrificial knife thirteen inches long 
made of this beautiful material. 
Well-made axes of white quartzite are 
much sought after, though infrequently 
found. 
Several pipes have been found, made 
of a crystalline chrondroditic limestone, 
identical with that used in some of the 
interior work of St. Patrick’s cathedral, 
n New York City. This material is very 
attractive to the eye of the collector, but 
as it is easily worked, it has also been 
found to be attractive to tlie maker of 
bogus relics. 
Perhaps the most prized material used 
by ancient man in the manufacture of 
his implements, is the jade or nephrite, 
used by natives in many parts of the 
world, but principally in Alaska and New 
Zealand. Well formed and perfect axes 
of this material and of unimpeachable 
authenticity, bring as high as twenty to 
thirty pounds in England. A lady in 
Fairhaveu, Mass., has a part of an axe 
made of jade, procured by a sailor, in 
Alaska, who being aware of the desira¬ 
bility of the material, but not of its 
Archmological value, had it cut up into 
small pieces, and distributed among his 
friends. 
G-enuine aboriginal relics of choice 
material and in perfect condition are con¬ 
stantly becoming harder to obtain, and 
should consequently be well treasured 
and taken care of by those who possess 
them, for as one of our prominent Arch¬ 
eologists used to say, “The man who 
made this is dead.” 
The editors of the Zoological Record 
have recently drawn up a table that indi¬ 
cates approximately the number of the 
living species of animals. The following 
are the figures given : Mammals, 2,.500 ; 
reptiles and batrachians, 4,400 ; tunicata, 
900; brachiopods, 150; crustaceans, 
20,000; m 3 H’iapods, 3,000; echinoderms, 
3,000 ; coelenterata, 2,000 ; protozoans, 
6,100; birds. 12,500; fishes, 12,000; 
mollusks, 50,000; biyozoans, 1,800; 
artchnids, 10,000; insects, 230,000; 
vermes, 6,150; sponges, 1,500. Gen¬ 
eral total, 366,000 distinct species. 
