Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 34.djvu/145

Rh Twenty-four prescriptions for hair-washes, oils, depilatories, and dyes are given. Among them is one "to stimulate the growth of hair, prepared for Sesh, the mother of his Majesty King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Teta the blessed," which carries us back to the beginning of historic time, for Teta was the second king of the first dynasty, and his mother, Sesh, may have been the queen of Menes, the founder of the empire. Under the heading of "The Beginning of the Mystery of Medicine, Knowledge of the Motions of the Heart, and Knowledge of the Heart," are described the vessels "from it [the heart] to all parts"; "and it is the beginning of the vessels to each organ." Concerning the animal spirits, we are told that these vital spirits "enter one nostril, and penetrate to the heart through the tube which carries them into the body-cavity"; and "there are four vessels going to the two ears together, two on the right side, two on the left side, carrying the vital spirit into the one right ear, the breath of death into the left ear; that is, it enters on the right side, the breath of death enters on the left side."

Preglacial Cave-Men in Wales.—Dr. H. Hicks read in the British Association accounts of some explorations which he had carried on in certain Welsh caves as affording evidence of occupation by pleistocene men and animals before the glacial beds which occur in the area had been deposited. It was found that, although the caverns are now four hundred feet above the level of the sea, the materials within them had been disturbed by marine action since the pleistocene animals and man had occupied them. At Stet Cave a small, well-worked flint flake had been discovered beneath twenty feet of glacial beds. It seemed clear that the contents of the cavern must have been washed out by marine action during the great submergence in mid-glacial times, and then covered by marine sand and an upper bowlder-clay. The author believed that the flint implements, lance-heads, and scrapers found in the caverns were also of the same age as the flint flake; hence they must all have been the work of preglacial man. Prof. Boyd Dawkins accepted the evidence of the antiquity of man, and fully agreed with Dr. Hicks's conclusions. To Mr. W. Pengelly this was a "delicious discovery," inasmuch as he had long stood to a great extent alone in the opinion that the nodule flint tools in Kent's cavern were of preglacial make. The explorations are to be continued.

Subjects for Industrial Training.—Mrs. Laura Osborne Talbot thus described to the American Association her experiences of the effects of a little industrial teaching upon thirty vagrant boys whom she, with some other ladies, had induced to attend for three years an industrial class at Howard University one morning in the week: We were limited in every way, but we found these children of the lowest kind were delighted to work with tools, and some of them have set up little carpenter-shops of their own, and support themselves in that way. The moral uplifting was the best result of all, and it is not likely that these boys will become members of our criminal class. Each boy as he entered the class was taught in the tailor-shop to mend his clothes, and in the shoe-shop to mend his shoes. One lame colored boy from the orphan asylum became so skillful in shoemaking that he could not only make his own shoes, but could cut up the larger, half-worn shoes and make them over for baby feet. All of this I term the best kind of economy, especially in a city like Washington.

Contents of a North Carolina Mound.—Mr. J. M. Spainhour has described, in the Elisha Mitchel Scientific Society, some relics that were discovered in the excavation of a mound in Caldwell County, N. C. Within the mound was found a skeleton lying upon its face, with the head resting in a large seashell, the inner surface of which was carved with hieroglyphics. Around the neck were large beads made of sea-shells. The arms were extended and bent at the elbows, so as to bring the hands within about a foot of the head. Around each wrist was a bracelet, composed of copper and shell beads, alternating. The copper beads appeared to have been hammered into thin sheets and rolled around the string, a part of which was preserved. Near the right hand was an iron implement like a chisel or punch, not sharp-pointed, but smaller at the end away from the handle. The left hand was resting