Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/591

 himself the functions of judge, police officer, and executioner. He is distinguished by his peculiar dress, and by his helmet, which, reaching down to his shoulders, quite conceals his face. It is made of basketwork, so that the wearer can breathe freely, and is painted in front as a terrible face. When any person is accused by his neighbor or otherwise blamed, he must pay the duk-duk a sum of money as damage, and this officer goes in person to the house of the accused to see that all is made right. If the accused will not settle, his house is burned or he is speared. Women and children dare not look at the duk-duk, for fear they will die on the spot, and therefore run away and hide, whenever they know, from the peculiar cry he utters to give notice of his approach, that he is coming. Men may be initiated into the mystery of this office when they reach a certain age, on payment of a prescribed sum, and, if they do not do this, they must keep out of the way of the duk-duk. The initiated must never speak of the secrets of the mystery out of the spot that is consecrated to it, and the uninitiated must not go to that spot.

Temperature of the Glacial Period.—Some geologists hold that the glacial phenomena were the result of warmer, not of colder, conditions of climate than now exist. Their views are briefly summarized by M. Millot, of the scientific faculty of Nancy, France. For the production of glaciers in temperate latitudes an active evaporation at the equator, to furnish moisture to be condensed into snow on the mountains, is above all things necessary. Thus, the quantity of ice produced will be within certain limits proportioned to the heat received at the equator. No heat, no evaporation; no snow, no glaciers; on the other hand, there will be no glaciers if it is too hot for the snow to be deposited on the mountain-tops. This was probably the case before the glaciers appeared. Then, as the heat of the sun gradually diminished, as it is supposed to be doing regularly, the glaciers begun on the mountains, small, but growing, for the evaporation at the equator was still infinitely greater than it is now. So it may have continued for ages, the snow condensing on the mountain-tops, and the sun lifting up immense quantities of water to be condensed. This was a period of maximum favorable conditions for glaciation. Then, the sun still cooling, the amount of evaporation fell off, till it ceased to afford the excessive supply, and the glaciers became stationary, then retrograde till they were reduced to the relatively insignificant proportions in which they now appear. This theory explains the deposition of glacial moraines in the midst of tree-ferns and a Mediterranean vegetation; for, while the glaciers were extensive in consequence of the immense precipitation everywhere but immediately upon them, a warmer climate prevailed than is now enjoyed in the same regions. This theory explains also how Arctic animals, finding suitable conditions of existence in the glaciated districts, came to be mixed up, as is shown by their remains, with the herbivorous animals of milder climates, which were separated from them only by a line. This theory, unlike all other theories of the glacial period, does not require the supposition of any interruption of the regular, normal order of climatic development and events.

Arts and Customs in New Guinea.—Mr. Coutts Trotter, in an address before the Royal Geographical Society, stated that while the people of New Guinea are still in the "Stone age," their artistic faculty is strongly marked, especially among the western tribes. This is shown conspicuously in the carved ornamentation of their canoes, houses, implements, and weapons. Their tastes are further seen in the habit of adorning themselves with flowers and leaves—of crotons, dracænas, coleus, begonias, scarlet hibiscus, and the anise scented clausena. They are also alive to the advantages of trade, the tribes on the western coast having for centuries been exchanging the varied products of the country with the Malays, Bughis, Chinese, and others, for cotton cloths, iron and copper wares, knives, beads, mirrors, indigo, and arrack. In conducting their inland trade among themselves, they assume that inter-tribal war is the normal condition of man, and adopt ingenious devices to mitigate inconveniences. But even the plan of