Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 37.djvu/734

716 of asphalt, with a lap of about two inches on the inside, so allowing a connection with the asphalt finish of the cellar-floor and hermetically sealing the house from damp, noxious gases, and vermin. In residences you will probably consider you have done your duty by asphalt if you have thus specified for your damp course and cellar-floor; in the latter, by the way, three fourths of an inch of asphalt on three inches of hydraulic cement concrete will serve the desired purpose of a durable damp-proof floor. The yards of city residences are now frequently laid with asphalt, the material being peculiarly adapted to the roller-skates and tricycles of the younger members of a family. From a building, then, in which only one floor, the cellar, is required to be of asphalt, let us consider where every floor and the roof can be of this material; in printing-houses, lithographing establishments, breweries, sugar-refineries, and slaughter-houses, you will often find this material used throughout. This year, however, sees a novelty in construction with asphalt. Theophilus P. Chandler, Jr., architect, of Philadelphia, is using rock asphalt on every floor of a large apartment-house; the carpets will lie on the asphalt, being fastened down to narrow strips of wood set against the partitions when the asphalt is laid. Now, I fancy I hear you say, ' Well, asphalt is not pleasant in appearance.' Why, gentlemen, the mayor's private office in the great City Buildings of Philadelphia, the greatest municipal edifice in the country, is laid with asphalt with a border of colored tiles."

Some People of New Guinea.—Of the natives of the neighborhood of the Owen Stanley Range, New Guinea, Sir William MacGregor says that their features are decidedly good, and their faces indicate more character and strength than those of the average coast men. The cheek-bones in some are rather broad and prominent. The nose is generally of the Semitic type. They possess all the volubility of the Papuan race, and are less shy than tribes that have seen more of white men, but are apparently superstitious and easily frightened. "They informed us that they used both the bow and the spear, but we never saw one of them with a weapon, and I could not induce them to bring any to camp; not, as it appeared, as if they mistrusted us, but seemingly doubting whether it would not be misunderstood should any of them with arms in their hands meet any of our party away from camp." They always left the camp before nightfall. They would exchange food for salt, beads, and cutlery, but did not care much for tobacco, growing a good quality of their own. They also cultivate peas, beans, yams, sweet potatoes, and several varieties of bananas, and have abundant food.

Origin of the American Indian.—Prof. F. W. Putnam, in an address before the Archæological Association of the University of Pennsylvania, said, in reference to the origin of our Indians, that two well-defined groups of races are found in America. They have entirely different-shaped skulls. One group starts in Mexico and reaches to Peru. They are a short-headed people. They extended across from Mexico along the Gulf coast, up the Mississippi Valley and along the southern portion of the Atlantic coast, not crossing the Alleghanies and not being found north of the Great Lakes. They were the people that built the mounds and founded the civilization of Mexico and Peru. Another race, a long-headed people, inhabited the northern part of the country, and were the authors, among other articles, of certain objects found in Wisconsin. These two races have,met and mingled, and the result is the American Indian.

Results of M. Pasteur's Anti-rabic Treatment.—M. L. Perdrix's report of the antirabic vaccinations at the Pasteur Institute since 1886 divides the cases treated into three classes: those of persons bitten by dogs ascertained experimentally to be mad; of persons bitten by dogs decided by veterinary examination to be mad; and of persons bitten by dogs supposed to be rabid. The proportion of deaths after treatment is shown by the tables to be very small; for a total of 7,893 cases of all the classes, it was 0·67 per cent; but the proportion has decreased from year to year; it having been 0-94 per cent in 1886, 0·73 in 1887, 0·55 in 1888, and 0·33 in 1889. The decrease is attributed to a better appreciation of the