Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/293

Rh been caused by the fact that most of the tribes seemed to have arrived from the West Indian Islands and the Orinoco, and to have followed one another to the interior, where each tribe took charge of a river, while almost impenetrable forests intervened between their settlements. In answer to a question, Mr. Im Thurm stated that, though stone implements were made, they were not used for any practical purpose, and that there was no trace of their having been used in any religious service. They were made as curiosities. He found no trace among the red-men of any acknowledgment of a higher power.

Origin of the Whale.—Professor Flower remarked, pertinently to a description by Dr. Struthers in the Biological Section of the British Association, of the Tay whale, that the whale carried its pedigree on its own body and in every part of its structure. It had been thought that mammals might have passed through an aquatic and marine stage before they came to the land. But observations of the anatomy of the whale showed that this could not have been the case. There could be no question whatever that the whale had been derived from a four-footed animal. It was a characteristic of a mammal to have a hairy covering. Whales were at one time thought to be an exception, but it was shown, in almost every one that had been examined, that at some period of its life it must have had a rudimentary covering, which was generally found in the neighborhood of the upper lip; that covering was functionless and often lost before birth. Another remarkable feature was the teeth. All these whales were furnished with a set of teeth, rudimentary but complete, and not characteristic of the fish, but of a more completely developed land mammal. These teeth entirely vanished at an early period, sometimes before birth; and they were entirely functionless.

Insect Habits.—Sir John Lubbock contributed to the recent meeting of the British Association a paper on some recent observations on the habits of ants, bees, and wasps. One of the most interesting points connected with the economy of ants was the manner in which they recognized their friends. Not only would the ants in any nest, however large, distinguish between their own companions and other ants belonging to the same species, but this had been shown to happen even after a separation of more than a year. Mr. McCook had thought the faculty was due to scent, but Sir John deduced reasons for believing it to be otherwise. As regarded the longevity of ants, he had two which he had kept ever since 1874. They were then full grown, and must therefore be twelve years old. They were both queens and continued to lay eggs, showing no signs of age, excepting, perhaps, that they were a little stiff in the joints. His experiments did not confirm the idea that these insects had any sense of direction, except perhaps in the same sense in which we might be said to have one. In continuation of previous experiments. Sir John had taken forty ants, fed them with honey, and put them down on a gravel path fifty yards from their nest. They wandered about in all directions, and it was obvious that they had no idea which was the right way home.

Prolongation of Local Anæsthesia.—The discovery has been made by Dr. J. Leonard Corning, of New York, that local anæsthesia produced by the subcutaneous injection of the hydrochlorate of cocaine may be prolonged by annulling the local circulation. The results of three experiments, described by Dr. Coming in the "New York Medical Journal," were to show, first, that simple arrest of the circulation in the part, shortly after injection of the anaesthetic, is sufficient to intensify and prolong the anæsthesia; second, that if the injection is made after exsanguination and compression, there is little diffusion of the anæsthetic, and consequently a commensurate diminution in the number of nerve-filaments exposed to the influence of the solution; and, third, that, if the injection is made a few moments before exsanguination and the application of the tourniquet, a sufficient amount of saturation of tissue is obtained to expose a large number of nerve-filaments to the influence of the anæsthetic; and yet, if the delay is not too long, there is no danger of diluting or dissipating the