I did not find upon the Rose Atoll reef rim a single specimen of branched Acropora related to A. muricata, nor did I see Acropora arcuata or A. leptocyathus, which are dominant forms on the seawashed edges of reefs elsewhere in Samoa.

Holothuria were fairly common, as were also small specimens of the giant clam Tridacna, and among echini a few Cidaris and black long-spined Diadema were seen; and the bright green seaweed Caulerpa was here and there found in the troughs between the ridges of lithothamnium; yet apart from the pink lithothamnium all other organisms were a negligible factor on the upper surface of the atoll rim.

It is important to observe that among the hundreds of loose boulders, or "negro heads," scattered over the flat upper surface of the atoll rim there are a few which still retain their connection with the floor and project above it as "mushroom" rocks, thus indicating either that the atoll rim has risen 6 to 8 feet or that sea level has sunken to this extent. The evidence, however, supports the view that sea level has become lowered, and not that the atoll rim has arisen; for there is no visible tilting of the rim, and, moreover, all the volcanic islands of American Samoa are surrounded by a bench of volcanic rock which is uniformly about 10 feet above present high tide level and is backed by volcanic sea cliffs, thus indicating that these islands have remained stationary while sea level has become lowered.

In this connection it may be of interest to observe that with the exception of Mangareva, which is volcanic, and Makatea, which is elevated, coral limestone, all of the atolls of the Paumotus exhibit. a bench of old limestone now several feet above present high tide level. It will also be recalled that David and Sweet in their account of the Geology of Funafuti3 conclude that in this atoll there must have been either a land-elevation or a sea-sinking of at least 9 to 10 feet. In 1913 we observed a sea bench of about 3 feet around both the volcanic and continental islands of Torres Straits.

As there are fossil corals and lithothamnium in the highest parts of the boulders and mushroom-rocks on the rim of Rose Atoll, it 3 Funafuti Report, 1904, p. 84.

appears that the climate was tropical when the sea stood at least 8 feet higher than at present and cut the bench around all the volcanic islands of American Samoa.

In the Funafuti boring the percentage of magnesium in the core ranged from 4 per cent. at a depth of 4 feet to 16 per cent. at 15 and 26 feet, below which it declined to 3 per cent. at a depth of 60 feet. Judd attributes this high percentage of magnesium to the supposed leaching out of calcium by the sea water, but we now know that the surface waters of the tropical Pacific are supersaturated in respect to calcium carbonate, and that calcium carbonate is therefore practically insoluble in this surface water. Judd admits that there is much lithothamnium in this upper part of the core of the boring, but unfortunately he made no analysis of the magnesium contents of any lithothamnia at present growing upon the Funafuti reef; and, judging from the conditions at Rose Atoll, I am inclined to believe that the magnesium in this upper part of the Funafuti boring is due solely to its being largely composed of lithothamnium, and not to any leaching out of calcium carbonate. This conclusion is supported also by the fact that in the Funafuti boring between 100 feet and 637 feet in depth the magnesium carbonate was nowhere greater than 5.4 per cent. ; yet if calcium leached out in water about 26 feet deep, why did it not leach out at these greater depths where conditions of temperature and carbon dioxide are more favorable for solution than on the surface?

Wilkes, 1852, Narrative of the U. S. Exploring Expedition, Vol. I, p. 155, states:

Some boulders of vesicular lava were seen on the coral reef (of Rose Atoll) they were from 20 to 200 pounds in weight and were found among blocks of coral conglomerate. (See also Couthouy, 1844, Boston Journal of Nat. Hist., vol. 4, p. 138.)

I was unable to find any volcanic rock upon Rose Atoll, and it seems probable that Wilkes or Couthouy mistook some dark-colored scoreaceous-looking, weather-worn limestone boulders for lava.

SUMMARY.

The visible parts of the rim of Rose Atoll is composed of lithothamnium rather than of coral, and is apparently chiefly constituted

of the same pink-colored species of lithothamnium (Porolithon) now found growing over the shallows of the reef flat.

The atoll rim was once at least 8 feet higher than at present, and has been cut down to present sea level by the lowered ocean of modern times.

In common with Rose Atoll, all the volcanic islands of American Samoa indicate that sea level was once at least 8 feet higher than at present.

The rock of the atoll rim contains from about 14 to 19 per cent. of magnesium carbonate, due to its being composed largely of lithothamnium, but not due to any appreciable dolomitization of the limestone after its formation.

As fossil corals and lithothamnium are found in the highest parts of the remnants of the old atoll rim, it appears that the climate of American Samoa was tropical at the time when the rim stood at least 8 feet higher than at present.

TOBIT'S BLINDNESS AND SARA'S HYSTERIA.

BY PAUL HAUPT.

(Read April 23, 1921.)

In the apocryphal book of Tobit, which seems to have been written by a Persian Jew for the encouragement of his coreligionists in Palestine at the beginning of the Maccabean rebellion about B.C. 167, we read that Tobit's son, Tobias, cured his father's blindness. with the gall of a fish he had caught in the Tigris, while the liver and the heart of that fish, burned on embers of incense, expelled the demon Asmodeus who had tormented Tobias's bride, Sara, for years. This demoniacal possession may have been hystero-epilepsy: hysterics and epileptics were supposed to be possessed by demons (cf. Mark 9, 17–26).

The "New Standard Dictionary" says that in Lesage's opera (!) "Le Diable Boiteux" Asmodeus is the name of the demon who conducts Don Cleofas in his nightly adventures. In this satirical novel, which appeared in 1707, Asmodeus is identified with the capricious god of sexual passion, Cupid, and his lameness is said to be due to the fact that he had an encounter in France with the demon of selfishness, Pillardoc. The fight was fought in the aërial regions, and Asmodeus was hurled to earth. Cupido is a personification of desire, passion, concupiscence which is symbolized in the Biblical story of the Fall of Man by the Serpent (PAPS 50, 505).1 1 AAJ Haupt, "The Aryan Ancestry of Jesus" (Chicago, 1999) = The Open Court, vol. 23, pp. 193-209.-AJP American Journal of Philology.AJSL= American Journal of Semitic Languages.—ASKT = Haupt, "Akkadische und Sumerische Keilschrifttexte."-BA="Beiträge zur Assyriologie."-AV=Authorized Version.-BK Brockhaus's "Konversations-Lexikon, Neue revidierte Jubiläums-Ausgabe."-BL = Haupt, “Biblische Liebeslieder" (1907).-BT Lazarus Goldschmidt, "Der babylonische Talmud."— CD= Century Dictionary.-DB Hastings, "Dictionary of the Bible."-EB = Cheyne-Black, "Encyclopædia Biblica."-EB11 "Encyclopædia Britannica," eleventh edition.-ET Expository Times.—GJV = Schürer, “Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes.”—JAOS = Journal of the American Oriental

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The common opinion that Asmodeus is depicted in the Talmud as lustful and sensual is unfounded. Nor does the Book of Tobit state

that Asmodeus was enamored of Sara.

Also in the twelfth canto (1. 6600) of Wieland's romantic epic "Oberon," which was published in 1780, Asmodi is identified with Cupid. The libretto of Weber's famous opera "Oberon" was adapted by the English dramatist and antiquary, James Robinson Planché, from Wieland's "Oberon." Wieland's poetic masterpiece is based on the old French chanson de geste of "Huon de Bordeaux," which we have in a beautiful illustrated adaptation in modern French by Gaston Paris (1898). The old French text was edited by Guessard and Grandmaison in 1860. The fairy dwarf Oberon (Old French "Alberon ") is identical with Alberich in Wagner's "Nibelungen" and the "Erlkönig" of Herder, Goethe, and Schubert. Alberich means king of the elves, and Herder's Erlkönig" is due to a misunderstanding of the Danish ellerkonge, which does not mean king of the alder-trees, but king of the elves. Dan. ellerkonge stands for elverkonge, with progressive assimilation of the v.

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In Jewish legends the lameness of Asmodeus is explained differently. Asmodeus is said to have been captured by Solomon's captain of the host, Benaiah ben-Jehoiadah. On the way to Solomon the demon brushed against a palm-tree and uprooted it; he knocked against a house and overturned it. When, at the request of a poor woman, he turned aside from her hut, he broke a bone. He wept when a bridal procession passed by, and laughed at a man who Society. JBL = Journal of Biblical Literature.-JE="Jewish Encyclopædia.”—JHUC = Johns Hopkins University Circular.—JQR = Jewish Quarterly Review-JSOR Journal of the Society of Oriental Research.-MK = Meyer's "Konversations-Lexikon."-OLZ = "Orientalistische Literaturzeitung."-PAPS= Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society.-RB = Riehm-Bæthgen, "Handwörterbuch des biblischen Altertums."-RE3=“Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche."-RV = Revised Version.-WZKM="Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes."— ZDMG="Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft."Cant. Haupt, "The Book of Canticles" (Chicago, 1902) = AJSL 18, 193– 245; 19, 1-32.-Est. = Haupt, "The Book of Esther" (Chicago, 1908) = AJSL 24, 97-186.-Nah. Haupt, "The Book of Nahum" (Baltimore, 1907) = JBL 26, 1-53.-Pur. Haupt, " Purim " (Leipsic, 1906) = BA 6, part 2.

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