Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/151

Rh nomad, unacquainted with the use of metals, and protecting himself with the skins of wild beasts from the inclemencies of the climate." What his society was like, Professor Schrader thinks may be gathered from the remains left by the "pile-villagers" of the Swiss lakes, whom he regards as Aryans. Both Professor Penka and Professor Schrader express the belief that Europe, and not Asia, was the original home of the Aryan family. Penka considers the starting-point of Aryan emigration to have been Scandinavia, while Schrader suggests the northeastern lands of Europe generally as the most probable locality. The evidence, according to Professor Sayce, is now tending to show that the districts in the neighborhood of the Baltic were those where the race or races who spoke the Aryan languages originally dwelt, and that the Aryan invaders of Northwestern India were only a late and distant offshoot of the primitive stock who were speedily absorbed into the earlier population of the country as they advanced southward.

A Highway in the Himalayas.—One of the native explorers of the Himalayan regions of India lying beyond the British boundary, says Sir J. H. Lefroy, in his British Association address, "describes a portion of his track at the back of Mount Everest as having been carried for a third of a mile along the face of a precipice at the height of fifteen hundred feet above the Bhotia-kosi River upon iron pegs let into the face of the rock, the path being formed by bars of iron and slabs of stone stretching from peg to peg, in no place more than eighteen inches and often not more than nine inches wide. Nevertheless, this path is constantly used by men carrying burdens."

Currency of the Cannibal Islands.—Mr. Walter Coote has described some curious moneys of the New Hebrides and the Solomon Islands. On one of the islands he noticed a neatly-kept house, which he was told was the money-house. Entering it, he found a number of mats hanging from the roof, beneath which a fire was constantly kept up, under the effect of which they became covered with a black, glistening coating and adorned with festoons of soot. It was a man's business to keep the fire always burning, and so low as not to scorch the mats. A well-colored mat is worth about as much as a well-grown, vigorous boar. This is the strangest of all kinds of money, for it must never be taken from the money-house, even when the title in it is transferred from one owner to another. The inhabitants of Santa Cruz Island use for money rope-ends, about an inch thick, and ornamented with scarlet feathers, which are worn about the waist. The traveler could not obtain new coins of this kind, but found them current everywhere. The specimens he bought were already old, and the feathers grown dingy. The money of the Solomon Islands consists of neatly-worked pieces of shell of about the size of our shirt-buttons. They are strung on strings about four yards long, and are distinguished under the names of red and white money. Dog-teeth are of higher value, and comparable to our gold coins. They are usually worn on a string around the neck. Mr. Coote saw a necklace of this kind that was valued at about a hundred dollars. Marble rings are also worn on the breast for ornaments, and as valuable money. The currency-table of these islands would be about as follows:

 10 cocoanuts = 1 string of white-money. 10 strings of white-money = 1 string of red-money, or 1 dog-tooth. 10 strings of red-money = 1 isa, or 50 dolphins' teeth. 10 isa = 1 fine woman. 1 bahika, or marble ring = 1 head with the head-antlers, or 1 good hog, or 1 useful young man.

Theory of Lubricants.—In a British Association paper on the theory of lubricants, Professor Osborne Reynolds referred to some experiments by Mr. Tower, which showed that, when the rotating journal with its box was immersed in a bath of the lubricant, the resistance was not more than one tenth of its value in ordinary oiling, and that the journal was less likely to heat at higher than at lower speed; and that if, after running the journal for some time in one direction, a reversal was made, great heating would result. This was to be