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honest one would think of breaking it any more than we would a seal to a letter. We saw all the empty houses closed up in this way, and it lent the pueblo a terribly deserted appearance." All of the poetry of the scene was taken out by the remark of one of Dr. Shufeldt's companions, an eminent professor, as they turned to go away, that "he had seen enough of that mass of hovels on a dung-hill, inhabited by people whose habits and customs are too frightful to think of." In fact, every law known to sanitary science seemed to be violated at the pueblo.

another, and the chimney-pots and openings on the roof; there bristled up in many directions the tops of the ladders; there were the Zuñis themselves on the roofs with others in the streets, bearing on their heads the very jars, the like of which I had so often seen my artist friends in the National Museum illustrating; in short, here was Zuñi, for it has not its counterpart in all the world. At our approach a dozen dogs raised the alarm, and off scampered a group of half-naked children of both sexes with their black, negro-like heads of hair (the biggest part of some of them) blowing in the wind. Strange as it may seem, our first inquiry was, how came the hill there upon which this ancient pueblo was erected? The plain for miles about it is almost as level as the surface of a lake. Imagine the impression it made upon us when, after our examination, the undeniable fact stared us in the face that although Zuñi may have originally been started on a slight rise in the plain, yet its present elevation-between thirty and forty feet above the datum plane-is due largely in some places to the accumulated excrement of the burros, and I suspect, too, to some degree, the refuse from the houses! This condition can better be seen at the pueblo of Las Nutrias, where the entire lower stories of some of their houses are covered above their roofs by a like guano deposit, while additional stories have been built on and above them. In Zuñi this condition is more particularly the case on the side of the pueblo facing toward the missionary-house. In this situation the side of the hill has been cut away to make room for a garden, and its composition is easily studied. I am not aware that this fact has been published before; but it seems hardly possible that a thing so evident has been overlooked. We were disap-tute of Industrial Arts has been established pointed at finding the pueblo so nearly deserted. Not more than one house in ten was occupied, as every able-bodied man and woman was at this time of the year away planting wheat, as we saw them at Las Nutrias. Upon leaving home, a Zuñi closes the little low door to his house by piling a quantity of stones up in front of it. He also takes the precaution to plaster up with clay the opening upon the roof. Such fastening is considered a sacred seal, and no

The Fine Arts in Burmah.—Several of the fine arts flourish to a certain degree in Burmah, although none of them are as highly developed as they are in India. Weaving is very ancient and is widely diffused throughout the country, yet the weavers of the finest and most highly adorned fabrics are foreigners, the descendants of slaves brought from Manipur. In drawing, Burmans who are trained to any art are masters of the pencil, although they have little idea of perspective or of the balance of light and shade. While the details are conventional, the general idea is the creation of the workman, and the pictures are often full of life and humor. Decoration of funeral-pyres with paintings, sometimes extremely grotesque, is an important branch of this art. Brass-founders make images of Gotama, bells of various characters, and the flat, crescent-shaped gongs which are used for religious purposes. Wood-carving has a very extensive range of variety in character. Some of the work in foliage and figures in the Buddhist monasteries is remarkably beautiful, as well in the delicacy of the curves as in the lightness and grace of the open tracery. An Insti

at Rangoon, to develop this industry. A curious and intricate effect is obtained in carving some articles in ivory, when "the outside of the specimen is carved with foliage and flowers, through the interstices of which the inside is hollowed out nearly to the center, where a figure is carved in situ. The figure looks as if it had been carved separately and inserted into a flowery bower, but closer examination shows that this is not the case, and the men may be at any time seen carv

ing the figure through the opening of the tracery." Every village larger than a hamlet has its goldsmith and silversmith. In the filigree ornaments made by goldsmiths, the burnished gold retains its proper color, but the other gold is dyed red with tamarind-juice, a barbaric custom to which the Burmese cling tenaciously. The reason given for it is that no other metal but gold will assume this particular ruddy color when treated with tamarind-juice; it may in fact be regarded as the hall-mark of Burmese jewelry. The silver - work of Burmah is much esteemed by connoisseurs all over the world; the artists treat this metal so as to obtain the greatest possible effect that the nature of the material allows. The trade is not a paying one, but the leading artists are devoted to their art, and are quite content if they gain enough to live on, provided that they keep their position at the head of the craft. Many of them are proficient in niello-work, in which the design appears as if drawn in silver outline on a black ground.

An Earthquake Experience.-A French gentleman residing at Mendoza, in the Argentine Republic, gives a graphic description in "La Nature" of the earthquake that took place there on the 30th of March, 1885, at about half-past ten in the evening. He was reading and smoking, when one of the sashes of his window opened all at once and immediately closed again with noise. He thought a dog had come in through the window, and bent over to look for the intruder under his desk. The window opened again, and he was obliged to hold on to his desk, while his chair leaned over with him. He straightened himself again, and was thrown to the right. At the same time his jaws came together and he bit off his pipe-stem, while he felt a pain in the pit of his stomach, like that of sea-sickness. Then the thought occurred to him that it was an earthquake. Six seconds afterward he heard a noise like that of a distant locomotive letting off steam, followed by the howling of dogs and the noise of the wind through the plantain-trees. Then he saw the angle of the wall veer slowly to the left, then return to its place, so speedily that he was scared and ran to the door to get out. The door would not open. The

dogs kept on howling louder than ever. He burst the door open, and, running out, found all the people in the streets, mostly in their night-dresses. Three violent shocks were felt. The writer of the account believes that a fourth shock would have destroyed the town. The sky was afterward obscured with fog; and, for thirty seconds after the last shock, a subterranean noise was heard like the rumbling of a railroadtrain in the distance.

NOTES.

SIR W. TEMPLE, in his "Essays of Health and Long Life," recommends, as the strongest preservative against contagions, a piece of myrrh held in the mouth. It has been asserted that Eastern physicians invariably adopt this protection when attending the sick.

A MEMORIAL window to the late Sir William Siemens, erected by his brother engineers, was unveiled in Westminster Abbey, November 26, 1885, with addresses by the Dean and Sir F. Bramwell.

THE article by Professor Rood, entitled "The Problem of Photography in Color," published in the last "Monthly," and credited to the "Photographic Bulletin," should have been credited to Anthony's Photographic Bulletin."

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M. PAGÈS, in the course of his experiments in photographing the movements of that the foot of the animal, being half the horses, has been struck by the observation time at rest on the ground, must, during the other half the time, be in much more rapid motion than the animal itself. He estimates of sixty metres, or about two hundred feet, that in the gallop the foot reaches a velocity a second.

DR. C. V. RILEY, Entomologist of the Department of Agriculture, and Honorary Curator of Insects in the National Museum, has given to that institution his extensive private collection of North American insects, representing the fruits of his labors in collecting and study for many years.

THE Mexican Government is said to be

contemplating the establishment of a meteorological station among the highest mountains of the country, at an elevation of nearly twenty thousand feet above the level of the

sea.

Instruments for its use, as far as possible to go a year without stopping, are being made at Zürich, Switzerland.

"NATUREN," of Christiania, Norway, calls attention to notices that have been given of Scandinavian observations in the past, of

phenomena parallel with the "after-glows" of 1883-84. A series of these glows, observed in 1636, was ascribed at the time to the eruption of Hecla, which occurred in that year. From May to September, 1783, the heavens were illuminated by a constant red glow, and the sun had the appearance of a faint disk. This was attributed to a violent eruption of the Skaptar Jökul, Iceland, which occurred in the spring of the same year.

A CORRESPONDENT of "Nature," who has

tried various schemes of automatic ventilation and found them all to fail at times, though usually working well, announces his conclusion that there is no rule in the matter without exception. This means that ventilation should receive personal attention, and be always under observation.

OBITUARY NOTES.

DR. THOMAS ANDREWS, an Irish chemist, died about the 1st of December, 1885, in the seventy-second year of his age. He was born in Belfast in 1813. In preparing himself for the medical profession he studied chemistry under several eminent masters. He took a part, as vice-president, in the organization of the Northern College, now Queen's College, Belfast, and was its first Professor of Chemistry. His name is identified with many most important investigations and discoveries. Among them are the composition of the blood of cholera-patients; the determination of heat evolved during chemical action; the true nature of ozone, in which he established the theory now universally held; and the continuity of the liquid and gaseous states of matter, a series of investigations which led directly up to Pictet's, Cailletet's, Wroblewski's, and others', successful liquefaction of all the gases.

XAVIER ULLESBERGER, a Swiss paleontologist, died recently at Ueberlingen, on the Lake of Constance, seventy-nine years old. He was the discoverer of the lake villages at Nussdorf, Maurach, Uhldingen, and Sipplingen; and he obtained a large collection of prehistoric objects, which is preserved at Stuttgart.

THE death is announced, at the age of eighty years, of Professor Giuseppe Ponzi, the Italian geologist.

PROFESSOR CHARLES E. HAMLIN, of the Agassiz Museum of Natural History, died at Cambridge on the 3d of January. He was about sixty years old.

ALFRED TRIBE, an English chemist, died November 26, 1885, aged forty-six years. He acquired his first knowledge of chemistry when, as a boy, waiting on the students at the Royal College, he repeated some of

the experiments he saw performed, in the kitchen at home. He was assistant to Dr. J. H. Gladstone for twenty years, and head of his laboratory. He was Demonstrator of Chemistry at St. Thomas's Hospital, Lecturer on Metallurgy at the National Dental Hospital, and Lecturer on Chemistry and Director of Practical Chemistry in Dulwich College. He was an assiduous investigator, and published a large number of papers, some under his own name, and others in conjunction with Dr. Gladstone.

MR. EDWIN ORMOND BROWN, Assistant Chemist to the British War Department, died December 12th. He had been connected with the arsenal at Woolwich for about thirty years, and had been instrumental in the improvement of gun-cotton and other explosives.

DANIEL DAVID BETH, the chief of the Dutch African Expedition, died at Katumbella, on the 19th of May, 1885. He took part in an expedition to the interior of Sumatra, 1877 to 1879, where he became interested in the examination and prospective development of the coal-fields of the island. In 1882 he busied himself to secure a proper representation of the colonial products at the Amsterdam Exposition. In 1884 he started on his African expedition, which had especial reference to the Kunene River, and the mountain-range lying north and west of it.

DR. SAMUEL BIRCH, the chief of British Egyptologists, and founder and President of the Society of Biblical Archæology, died December 27th. He was born in 1813, and was appointed to the Department of Antiquities in the British Museum in 1836. He was at first specially interested in Chinese antiquities, but, without giving up his tastes in that direction, became pre-eminently an Egyptologist. Besides preparing numerous works and papers of his own, he contributed translation of the "Book of the Dead," a dictionary of hieroglyphics, and a grammar to Bunsen's great work on Egypt. He was also connected, officially and personally, with the publication of "Records of the Past," twelve volumes of translations of the more important texts from the Egyptian and Assyrian monuments.

M. LOUIS RENÉ TULASNE, a French mycologist, whose fame would have been greater had he been less modest and enjoyed better health, died at Hyères on the 22d of December, 1885. He became a member of the French Academy in 1854, but was forced by his delicate constitution to retire from active life in 1864. During the twenty-five years to which his work was limited, be made many important investigations in the fungi and the lichens, the science of which, it is said, he reformed as well as augmented.

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