Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/448

Rh 428 P L P L thickly peopled. Wars, infanticide, human sacrifices, and canni balism are doubtless among the causes of depopulation. (3) Where the scourge of syphilis had not spread before Christianity was received, and the love of ardent spirits has not corrupted the people, there the population has generally increased. It is found from a record of births and deaths in some parts of Samoa, and from periodical census returns as a result of actual counting from the whole of that group, that, apart from the destruction caused by war, the population there increases at the rate of about 1 per cent, per annum. Although Samoa has suffered more from internecine wars than any other Christian group in Polynesia, there are more natives now living there than when they were first counted in 1843, the number then being 33,901. The increase in Tonga has been 25 per cent, in twenty years. 1 On the island of Nine the in crease is more than 3 per cent, per annum. On several other groups there has been increase, though figures are not available. The rapid decline of population in Hawaii is entirely exceptional. Commerce, Information on this subject, as far as it is available, is given in the special articles on particular groups. The following is a fair specimen of the kind and extent of the commerce which has grown in Polynesia since Christianity has made the islands safe and profitable places for the residence of traders. 3 From Cook Islands, containing a population of about 8000, and three atolls which lie north of that group, viz., Tongareva, Rakaanga, and Manihiki, with a population of about 4000, the exports during 1883 were 150 tons of cotton free from seeds, 50 tons of coffee, 1000 tons of copra, 84 tons of pearl shell, and about 100,000 gallons of lime juice, besides 5000 crates of oranges, containing about 300 per crate. Mr Gill estimates the market value of this produce at 50,000, more than 4 per head for the native population. Part is purchased by merchants in Tahiti, and part goes to Auckland, New Zealand. There are not many islands whence fruit is exported, although, if there were markets within a few days sail, a large quan tity of fine oranges, pine-apples, and bananas might be provided. In 1878 the figures collected by the present writer relating to the trade in Samoa, Tonga, and several other islands in that neighbour hood, showed that the exports averaged annually about 4 each for the entire population, and that the imports were only a little less. Prehistoric Remains. The most remarkable of these are on Easter Island, which lies at the south-eastern extremity of Poly nesia, nearly 2500 miles from South America. This island is of volcanic formation, and is about 11 miles long by 4 miles wide. The present inhabitants belong to the Sawaiori race. Here are found, immense platforms built of large cut stones fitted together without cement. They are generally built upon headlands, and on the slope towards the sea. The walls on the sea-side are, in some of the platforms, nearly 30 feet high and from 200 to 300 feet long, by about 30 feet wide. Some of the squared stones are as much as 6 feet long. On the land side of the platforms there is a broad terrace with large stone pedestals upon which once stood colossal stone images carved somewhat into the shape of the human trunk. On some of the platforms there are upwards of a dozen images now thrown from their pedestals and lying in all directions. Their usual height is from 14 to 16 feet, but the largest are 37 feet, while some are only about 4 feet. They are formed from a grey trachytic lava found at the east end of the island. The top of the heads of the images is cut flat to receive round crowns made of a reddish vesicular tuff found at a crater about 8 miles distant from the quarry where the images were cut. A number of these crowns still lie at the crater apparently ready for removal, some of the largest being over 10 ^feet in diameter. In the atlas illustrating the voyage of La Perouse a plan of the island is given, with the position of several of the nlatforms. Two of the images are also represented in a i late. One statue, 8 feet in height and weighing 4 tons, was brought to England, and is now in the British Museum. In one part of the island are the remains of stone houses nearly 100 feet long by about 20 feet wide. These are built in courses of large il.it stones fitted together without cement, the walls being about 5 feet thick and over 5 feet high. They are lined on the inside with Upright slabs, on which are painted geometrical figures and repre sentations of animals. The roofs are formed by placing slabs so that each course overlaps the lower one until the opening becomes about 5 feet wide, when it is covered with flat slabs reaching from one side to the other. The lava rocks near the houses are carved into the resemblance of various animals and human faces, forming, probably, a kind of picture writing. Wooden tablets covered with various signs and figures have also been found. The only ancient imple ment discovered on the island is a kind of stone chisel, but it seems impossible that such large and numerous works could have been executed with such a tool. The present inhabitants of Easter sland know nothing of the construction of these remarkable works ; and the entire subject of their existence in this small and remote island is a mystery. 1 This fact is stated on the authority of the Rev. Mr Moulton, a niissionary residing there, and it is the result of counting. From figures supplied by the Rev. W. W. Gill, B.A. On the island of Tonga-tabu, Tonga group, there is a remarkable monument. Two large rectangular blocks of stone, about 40 feet in height, stand perpendicularly, with a large slab lying across from one to the other. On the centre of the horizontal stone is a largi- stone bowl. The island upon which this monument is found is 01 coral formation slightly elevated. .These immense stones must therefore have been conveyed thither by sea. The present inhabit ants know nothing of their history, or of the object which they were intended to serve. In Ponape, one of the islands of the Caroline group, there are extensive ruins, the principal being a court about 300 feet in length, the walls of which are formed of basaltic prisms and are about 30 feet in height. Inside, on all four sides, next the wall is a terrace 8 feet high and 12 feet wide. The court is divided into three by low walls, and in the centre of each division there is a covered chamber 14 feet square. The walls above the terrace are 8 feet thick, anil some of the stones are 25 feet long by 8 feet in circumference. Tin- basaltic columns of which this structure is built were apparently brought a distance of 10 miles from the central ridge of the island. There are other ruins of smaller extent on Ponape, and also on the island of Kusaie in the same group. Ponape and Kusaie are rem nants of larger islands which have been partially submerged. While the smaller islands around which the coral polypes built up the atolls have disappeared, these two remain as monuments of the past. North-west from Ponape, in the llariana or Ladrone Islands, there are other remains in the shape of stone columns about 14 feet high, with a semi-globular stone nearly 6 feet in diameter on the top of each, the rounded side being uppermost. Thus in four different and widely separated parts of Polynesia there are relics of prehistoric people. These together form one of the greatest puzzles the ethnologist has to deal with. (S. J. W. ) POLYPE. In its Greek and Latin forms the word polypus was first used as descriptive of the CUTTLE-FISH ! (q.v.). In speaking of the Acalephx Aristotle says, &quot;They i hold their prey as the polypus does with its feelers,&quot; and there is no doubt that in this and other passages he referred to the octopus. The word was also, though less generally, applied to the woodlouse (Oniscus) the reason for both usages being equally evident. Though the former meaning persists in the word puulpe, yet by the beginning of the 18th century it seems to have been for gotten, and the word was by analogy transferred to a group of animals then beginning to attract much attention. Reaumur and Bernard de Jussieu were the first to fix the usage of the word polype as applicable to hydroids, corals, and Polyzoa. In following up the discoveries of Marsigli and Peysonelle in regard to the little coral organisms, Jussieu used the name polype definitely to describe those Sertularians, Alcyonians, sea-mats, &c., which were then (1742) known as animals. Trembley had previously rediscovered Leeuwenhoek s Hydra, and described it as a freshwater polype in a work which appeared in 1744. A polyzoon too, discovered both by Trembley and Baker in 1741, was called by the former Polype a Panache. We find the word used with the same content as Jussieu had assigned to it by Ellis in 1755, by Cavolini in 1783, and by others. In 1816 Lamouroux published his Histoire des Pali/piers Coralliyenes, in the preface of which he speaks of the varied character of this group of animals &quot; nomiue s Hydros par Linne&quot; et Polypes par Re aumur.&quot; In his own use of the term he applied it to sponges, hydroids, corals, and Flmtrve. Lamarck too used the word very widely, and spoke of Poly pel as (1) ciliati, including some Infusorians and Rotifers; (2) danmlati, including Hydra, Coryne, &c. ; (3) vaginati, including Difflugia, Sponyilla, Tubnlaria, MiUeporea and Madrepores, Alcyonia, Cristatella, Flustra, &amp;lt;tc. ; and (4) nntantes, including Pcnnatula, Viryularid, Encrinus, &c. Sometimes, however, he used the word in a ! three classes of polypes: (1) fleshy Actinias and Lucer- ! narix ; (2) gelatinous Hydra, Cristatella, Coryne, Vorti- cella, Arc.; and (3) CoraUiferx, Sponges, Madrepores, Millepores, Tubularvi, Sertidaria, Alcyonidge, Flustrx, &c. Subsequently he improved on this and recognized (1) an Actinia group, (2) a group like Hydra and Sertularia, and i (3) Polypes a Poh/pierx, which he again divided into
 * more restricted sense. Cuvier (1819-1830) distinguished