Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/292

282 by experiment that these insects also were infected, and assisted in the spread of the disease. He forwarded cultures of his bacillus to the Pasteur Institute at Paris. Experiments made on rabbits and guinea pigs proved that the dead bacilli, if injected in sufficient number, are deadly; smaller quantities, however, act as a vaccine, and protect the subject against stronger inoculation. Experiments with larger animals, such as horses, were equally successful. "That the most remarkable therapeutic value attaches to anti-plague serum, as now elaborated at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, is shown by the success which has recently followed its application in undoubted cases of plague at Amoy, by Yersin, now director of a Pasteur Institute at Wha-Trang in Annam.

Marriage of the Dead.—Among the many curious practices that Marco Polo came across in his travels in the far East, the Tartar custom of marrying the dead deserves notice. He says: "If any man have a daughter who dies before marriage, and another man have had a son also die before marriage, the parents of the two arrange a grand wedding between the dead lad and lass, and marry them they do, making a regular contract! And when the contract papers are made out they put them in the fire, in order that the parties in the other world may know the fact, and so look on each other as man and wife. And the parents thenceforward consider themselves sib to each other just as if their children had lived and married. Whatever may be agreed on between the parties as dowry, those who have to pay it cause to be painted on pieces of paper, and then put these in the fire, saying that in that way the dead person will get all the real articles in the other world." This custom is also noted by other writers, even as late as the beginning of the eighteenth century. It is said to have been adopted by Jenghis Khan, for political reasons, and is named in his Yasa, published in 1205

The Three "R's" of Prehistoric Man.—M. Ed. Piette has published an interesting discovery in L'Anthropologie, (vol. vii, 1896, p. 385). He found in a cave at Mas-d'Azil, in the department of Ariège, a quantity of pebbles, rounded, oblong, and flattened, such as are taken from river beds. They were variously painted with peroxide of iron; some had their whole surface colored, and others again showed a border around the margin, or were dotted and striped in different designs. Crosses, serpentine patterns, and even trees could be traced out. M. Piette thinks that according to these devices the pebbles stand for numerals, symbols, pictographic signs, and alphabetic characters. He gives loose rein to his fancy in interpreting them, especially the last named. He reaches the startling conclusion that some are probably syllabic signs, used for inscriptions or in building up words. Twenty-five colored plates accompany the memoir, and give food for speculation on these cabalistic memorials of a bygone era.

Animals on the March.—Among the animals that take long journeys in great numbers are the springbok, the American bison, the musk ox, and, in smaller bodies, wild horses and the antelopes of the steppes. Journeying mostly over the plains, they nearly always move in a wide front, a way of marching that gives an equal chance to all in browsing. Some species of birds also migrate on foot. The guinea fowls always go in single file, a favorite mode of travel in Central Africa, where paths have to be cut through the dense scrub or impassable forests. The European wild geese are the champion walkers among birds. Belying the stigma attached to their name, they show much forethought in their pedestrian expeditions, which are undertaken either to accompany their young, or during the molting season. Unhasting, yet unresting, they march ahead in column, often ten geese abreast, careful not to jostle their neighbors, with head erect in the air. From time to time the leaders give the signal to halt and feed, and then to "fall in" again and continue on the road. Abroad, before the days of railways, dealers in poultry, making use of this marching power, often saved expense by letting the geese transport themselves. Droves numbering nine thousand have walked over the road from Suffolk to London. At Antwerp not long ago large flocks were seen marching up the plank to a steamer bound for Harwich, and then gravely descending to the lower deck to range themselves in an