Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/735

Rh orders; in the ill-nourished and drunken condition of the masses; in the state of superstition and brutality which made any measure of public health impracticable; in the bad management in epidemics, and in the incompetence of the medical faculty. There had been a great and manifest improvement in London. This could be credited to the increase of knowledge among the doctors and among the people generally; to vaccination and the modern plan of treating infectious diseases by the prompt separation of the patients; to the cheapness of food, clothing, and fuel, and the facility of obtaining fresh fruit and vegetables; to improved water-supply; and, although the system of sewage disposal was an undoubted evil, it had removed a great deal of filth from dwellings, and the balance was probably so far in its favor. The outlook in the future was obscured by increased overcrowding; the discharge of sewage into the Thames; and the increasing danger of the pollution of the water-supply by the accumulation of population along the valley of that river.

Clark University.—Clark University, Worcester, Mass., founded by Mr. Jonas G. Clark as an institution for the highest culture, was opened in October, 1889, in the departments of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, and psychology, under the presidency of G. Stanley Hall. The president is, for the time being, Professor of Psychology, and, with the assistance of Prof. Sandford, will assist students in the departments under that head by instruction, or by conference and guidance to literature; and will direct the work of special students in the history, methods, and organization of education, elementary, intermediate, and superior, lecturing on them during a part of the year. The professors are H. H. Donaldson in neurology, Edmund C. Sanford in psychology, Warren P. Lombard in physiology, F. Mall in anatomy, Albert A. Nicholson in physics. The methods of instruction include field-work, excursions, "coaching and cram classes," examinations, conferences, laboratory work, and lectures. The students are classified as independent, candidates for the degree of Ph. D., special students not candidates for a degree, medical students, and preliminary candidates or undergraduates.

Twenty fellowships and ten scholarships have been provided by Mr. and Mrs. Clark, affording free tuition to thirty persons.

Huron and Iroquois Burials.—In a paper on "Indian Burial in New York," read at the meeting of the American Association, Mr. W. M. Beauchamp said that several modes of burial prevailed in the Huron and Iroquois family at the same time; but at a later date the influence of contact with Europeans and of the custom of adoption was observed. Although the usual position in Indian burial was supposed to be a sitting posture, facing the west, the bodies in a large proportion of the New York graves, while sitting, faced the east. Many burials, both early and recent, were horizontal, and often without deposited articles. For secondary burial, bone-pits were common in the western part of the State, appearing like the Huron ossuaries of Canada, or rising into mounds. The eastern Iroquois, at least after the formation of their league, did not rebury their dead. They used raised tombs, sometimes a mound of earth, and often a wooden structure like a small house. Burial in circles was secondary; the bodies were laid with their feet toward the center. Graves lined with stones are not frequent, but stone heaps were raised over some graves. Bodies were rarely buried one above another, with an intervening layer of earth. When buried in mounds, or in the bone-pits, they might be placed promiscuously or arranged with care. The mode of sepulture was affected by superstition and in consideration of crime. The New York Indians have for a long time been burying their dead much in the manner of their white neighbors.

How the Woodcock feeds.—A writer in "Forest and Stream" gives the following account of the way he saw woodcock "boring" for worms one moonlight night: "The birds would rest their bills upon the mud and stand in this position for several seconds, as if listening. Then, with a sudden, swift movement, they would drive the bill its entire length in the soil, hold it so for a second, and then as swiftly withdraw it. Though I watched the birds carefully with the glass, I could not detect the presence of a worm in their bills when they were withdrawn. But a subsequent process gave me