4 
THE NATURAL SCIENCE JOURNAL. 
coming visit be might obtain access to a 
brace of fine sporting guns belonging to 
his father, she said: “As for the two 
muskets belonging to his grandfather, I 
can bury them in the garden.” 
Here we have an ancestral trait, an 
expression of a custom common to the 
red-man. “ Bury them,” doubtless the 
first idea of concealment that came to 
her mind; in the ground, the usual hid¬ 
ing-place and safe treasury of the Indian 
for his most valued possessions, when it 
became desirable to conceal them. Wit¬ 
ness the numerous caches unearthed in 
various localities ; deposits of unfinished 
blanks, hidden stores of finished arrow¬ 
heads ; here a few celts cunningly hid¬ 
den beside a large boulder, there an 
immense quantity of chipped flint dises. 
In the instance recorded, possibly tlirough 
innate unconscious association because 
the object to be concealed was a weapon, 
did the ancient idea come to mind the 
more readily and forcibly. 
A broad field is open for the observa¬ 
tion and study of these curious ancestral 
traits, Among mankind the large ma¬ 
jority of such instances pass unrecorded, 
instances which if noted and preserved 
would all be of more or less value to 
Anthropology. And how very strange and 
inexplicable are all such phenomena ! As 
Montaigne truly says, in speaking of 
inherited peculiarities of feature, fig¬ 
ure, character, constitution, habits, and 
so forth, “We need not trouble our¬ 
selves to seek out miracles and strange 
difficulties; methinks there are such in¬ 
comprehensible wonders amongst the 
things that we ordinarily see as surpass 
all difficulties of miracles.” To which 
Richard Proctor adds : ‘ ‘ And certainly 
few of the phenomena of nature are more 
wonderful than these, in the sense o^ 
being less obviously referable to any 
cause which seems competent to produce 
them. Many of those natural phenom¬ 
ena which are regarded as most striking- 
are in this respect not to be compared 
with the known phenomena of heredity.” 
AET m WAEP AND WOOF- 
Lee Roy J. Tappax. 
“ The seat of majesty Adraste brings 
With art illustrations for the pomp of kings, 
To spread the pall beneath the regal chair. 
Of softest wool, is bright Acclipe’s care.” 
— Odyssey, IV. 
A mong the arts of the ancients, none 
figured more prominently then, and 
none possess greater interest to-day, than 
that of weaving. From all available re¬ 
cords in the form of exhumed pictorial 
representations and orignal manuscript, 
we are led to believe the weaving art was 
one of the most ancient institutions among 
the Hindos, Egyptians and Chinese, by 
whom it has been practiced for thousands 
of years. Indeed, according to Pliny, 
the very invention of weaving is attribu¬ 
table to Egypt. Certain other records 
show one Arkite Ghiden Ghelen, of 
three score years and ten, to have been 
the inventor of the first loom. However 
this may be, antique manufacturing 
methods, although essentially primitive, 
were productive of the most remarkable 
achievements, the fruit of the weaver’s 
efforts invariably comparing most favor¬ 
ably and ofttimes excelling modern pieces 
in point of fineness and delicacy. 
This perfection could only have been 
attained by those to whom the creation 
of the beautiful was a source of pleasure, 
rather than an arduous task performed 
solely for the securing of monetary gains ; 
