Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 1.djvu/864

 NOTES AND NEWS 793

some remarkable collections representative of Australian ethnology. The museum at Sydney, under the curatorship of R. Etheridge, and the one at Adelaide in charge of Dr Stirling, are especially good owing to the interest of th'eir curators in ethnology. Lately the Western govern- ment sent a' collecting party into the interior under the leadership of Mr Alex. Morton, curator of the Tasmanian Museum. This expedi- tion was successful and secured among other things a series of carved bullroarers, which are sacred objects there. Lack of funds hampers the work in Australia as elsewhere, and the field is yet largely unknown. Much valuable material remains to be investigated even in the Eastern colonies, while northwest Queensland is especially rich."

Dr Herrmann Meyer in Central Brazil— A letter from Dr Herrmann Meyer, printed in the Vcrhandlungcn of the Berlin Geographi- cal Society (Nos. 5 and 6, 1899), gives an account of that traveler's movements down to March last. Dr Meyer was then at Cuyaba, about to set out for the more serious part of his journey, but he had already trav- eled extensively in the southern provinces of Brazil and gives useful in- formation regarding the present state of affairs in them and also in Mato Grosso. He had visited all the German colonies in the south, and reached the military colony of Alto Uruguay and the district of Misiones ; he had also paid a visit to the Detale Indians on the Rio de Varzea, but found that they had retained little of their original character, having become much mixed with the Negro stock. At Nonohay, on the Upper Uruguay, and in several other localities, there are settlements of the same race, which is said to be related to the Caingang of Parana and Santa Catarina. From Pelotas, in the south of Rio Grande, Dr Meyer went overland to Montevideo, and then via Buenos Aires to Diamantino and Cuyaba. Colonel Castro had sought in vain for the legendary " Martyres " mines, but had been shown a supposed ancient burial-place of the Indians near the Kulisehu. He was about to start anew in search of the old mines of Arayes. Two Americans, named Williamson, had gone to the Xingu by the Kulisehu, but had not since been heard of ; while, lastly, an Italian, Dr Pasini, had descended the Arinos and Tapajos in company with a surveyor, and had made an accurate chart of those rivers down to the Sal to Augusto. Dr Meyer hoped to obtain for publication some account of their journey. He had been already engaged in anthropological researches, and prepa- rations for his journey to the Xingu were completed. He hoped to announce its successful termination by the end of the year, either from Cuyaba, Goyaz, or Para.

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