20 
THE NATURALIST AND COLLECTOR 
objects and uses are manifold. In the 
first place it strives to throw our 
knowledge of the facts which underlie 
the similarities discerned, into the few¬ 
est possible general propositions, sub¬ 
ordinated to one another according to 
their greater or less degree of gener¬ 
ality; and in this way it answers the 
purpose of a memoria techniea, without 
which the mind would be incompetent 
to grasp and retain the multifarious 
details of anatomical science.” One 
can not be too well assured, that no 
such things as species, in the old mean¬ 
ing of the term, exist in nature any 
more than have genera or families an 
actual existence. Species are purely 
and simply modifications, which once 
were, if not still, inseparably con¬ 
nected together. There is no more 
reason to suppose that each species of 
bird is a separate creation of nature, 
than to hold that each of the varieties 
of the human race is a separate pro¬ 
duction, apart from the rest of man¬ 
kind, but, that during the process of 
evolution, they have been so influenced 
by their separate environments, as to 
cause a vast difference, not only in 
their structure, but in their habits as 
well, making morphology or the science 
of form, the only true and correct basis 
for a classification of our birds. 
— C. C. Purdum, M. D. 
Loss of sleep, in some of the lower 
animals at least, has been shown by 
experiments of Uarie de Manaceine 
to be more difficult to endure than 
starvation. Dogs have been starved 
more than 20 days and have lost 
more than 50 per cent in weight may 
recover; but dogs of 2 to 4 months 
of age loss of sleep for 4 to 5 days 
proved fatal. The temperature of the 
sleepless animals fell as much as 
fourteen degrees and food was refused 
during the last two days. 
The origin of the Indians is one of 
the problems which the archaeologists 
are struggling with more or less success. 
A German anthropologist, Dr. Emil 
Schmidt, has recently made an attempt 
to put together some of the fragmen¬ 
tary facts known concerning the an¬ 
cient inhabitants of the Mississippi 
valley and Atlantic coast of the United 
States. Beginning with the mound 
builders, he gives his reasons for be¬ 
lieving them to be the ancestors of the 
now existing Indian tribes, and, spec¬ 
ifying' further, he thinks the Cherokees 
descended from the mound builders of 
the Ohio valley. The original seat of 
the Huron-Iroquois he traces to the re¬ 
gion north of the Great Lakes and that 
of the Algonquin family somewhere to 
the north of Hudson’s bay, where the 
Cress are now found speaking a pure 
and ancient dialect. These two tribes, 
he thinks, moved slowly southward, 
driving the mound builders from Ohio 
and penetrating into Virginia. There 
they met the Dakotas and a fierce war 
resulted in which the latter were al¬ 
most entirely destroyed. The Gulf 
States were peopled by the Mus- 
koghean tribes coming from the south. 
Of special interest is the much debated 
question whether in this country there 
was a paloeolithic or “rough stone” 
age. Dr. Schmidt, from the evidence 
at hand, takes a negative view on this 
subject, leaving room for the inference 
that the appearance of the ancestors of 
the Indians on this continent is of com¬ 
paratively recent date. 
- Exchange. 
“Opaline laminee” is a new vitrified 
material, which can be made into 
plates of any size and used for decora¬ 
tive tiles. It is made from 54 per cent 
of silica, 39 per cent of baryta, and 7 
per cent of soda. 
