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284 their heads, while others placed supports under it at each successive lift. Stout poles tied together like shears were then brought into play, while the lifters took sharp-pointed poles, about eight feet long, and standing in their former positions, lifted the pole (which was immediately supported by the men with the shears) by means of these sticks, until it attained an angle of about forty-five degrees. The butt was then gradually slipped into its place and the gangs at the ropes, who had been inactive all this time, got the signal to haul, when, amid the most indescribable bellowing, hallooing, and yelling, the pole was gradually and surely elevated to the perpendicular position. When the setting was completed, the crowd adjourned to the house of the owner, who feasted the people, and afterward took the place of Eitlahgeet, great chief. Next he distributes his property, a task requiring great discrimination. Often he adopts a new name. When he proclaims to the crowd that he is quite impoverished and has distributed all his effects, they appear to be delighted, and regard him as indeed a great chief.

The Races of Peru.—According to Señor F. A. Pezet, the aboriginal or Indian race which populated Peru, 12,000,000 souls strong when the Spaniards conquered the country, still holds its own, although it has to a great extent degenerated through the miseries which, during centuries, it endured at the hands of its conquerors. It represents to-day about fifty-seven per cent of the entire population. In the interior of Peru it has kept in many places quite pure, not having mixed with any of the other races that have been brought into the country. There are tribes existing to-day with the old Inca Indian features quite distinct, and among these people there is a great and natural intellect. The other great race is the European, or white, imported from Spain at the time of the conquest, which has ever been on the increase since then. It represents to-day about twenty per cent of the population, and is spread over the whole country, but particularly on the coast. As the Peruvian Indian was made to slave at the mines for his Spanish master, the Spaniards had to introduce Africans to till the ground and work on the cotton and sugar estates along the coast. No Africans have come to the country since slavery was abolished in 1854, and the race has been confined to some of the agricultural districts, and is now rapidly dying out. In its place are the "mestizo" and "zambo," cross-breeds of blacks with whites and with Indians. The cross-breed of whites with Indians has produced the "cholo" race, which of all castes is to-day the most numerous. These mixed races represent about twenty-three per cent of the whole population. Of some fifty thousand Chinese imported since 1854, to be agricultural laborers, the greater part have settled for good, and not a few have embraced the Christian faith and married with Indians, cholos, zanibos, mestizos, blacks, and whites, thereby forming a diversity of castes.

Ventilation at the Top and at the Bottom of Rooms.—The impression, which is very common, and is even held by engineers, that impure air, on account of its superior weight, accumulates to excess in the lower parts of rooms, while the upper parts are free from it, and that ventilation should be applied near the floor rather than near the ceiling, is controverted in the Sanitarian by Dr. W. H. Thayer. The property of gases to diffuse and intermix with one another, irrespective of relative densities, is lost sight of by these authorities. Dr. Thayer finds that the carbonic-acid gas of respiration and illumination will eventually be equally diffused through the atmosphere, although it is retained at the upper part of a room as long as the high temperature continues; and that it never, under any circumstances, is precipitated in excess in the lower part of the room. This conclusion, partly drawn from the philosophy of the matter, has been amply verified by experiments. Dr. H. Cresson Stiles, of the Metropolitan Board of Health, having analyzed the air of many public schools, hospitals, theatres, and churches, found the air taken from near the ceiling always more highly charged with carbonic acid than that in the lower parts of a room, with the difference often very marked. St. Ann's Church, Brooklyn, which was ventilated on the "bottom ventilation" theory, was found to be badly ventilated, with the carbonic acid in the gallery at the close of the service in larger quantity than near the floor. The