Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/649

Rh and the bodies of the dead are boxed up in wooden coffins and elevated on four posts. On the islands the soil is not permanently frozen, and graves might be easily dug, but wood is scarce. Here the bodies might easily be buried, were it desirable. But, then, why bury the dead, if there are no wild animals to disturb the remains? The islands have no such animals, and hence the natives laid their dead away in nooks and crannies of the rocks.

Mr. Dall describes as follows the method adopted by the Kaniags and Alëuts in preserving dead bodies: First, an opening was made in the pelvic region, and the internal organs removed. The cavity was then filled with dry grass, and the body placed in running water. This in a short time removed most of the fatty portions, leaving only the skin, bones, and muscles. The knees were then brought up to the chin, and the whole body secured as compactly as possible by cords. The bones of the arms were sometimes broken to facilitate the process of compression. The remains were then dried. When thoroughly dried, the cords were removed, and the body usually wrapped in a shirt made of the skin of aquatic birds, with the feathers on; over this were wrapped pieces of matting, varying from coarse to exceedingly fine. Over this sometimes a water-proof material, made from the split intestines of the sea-lion, sewed together, was placed. Outside of this were usually the skins of the sea-otter, or other fur-animals, and the whole was secured in a case of seal-skins, coarse matting, or similar material, secured firmly by cords, and so arranged as to be capable of suspension.

Age of the Niagara Gorge.—It has for thirty years been the received opinion of geologists that the whole of the gorge of the Niagara, from Queenstown to the Falls, was excavated since the glacial period, and the work here done has been assumed to be a more or less accurate measure of the time elapsed since that period. But Mr, Thomas Belt, on a visit to Niagara last year, discovered what he takes to be sufficient evidence for asserting that the post glacial gorge extends only from Queenstown up to the whirlpool, and that between the latter point and the Falls the Niagara flows in its preglacial bed. The author holds that the present river is cutting back the gorge much more slowly than Lyell estimated; that, instead of one foot yearly, the retrocession is not more than, if it is as much as, one foot in ten years; and that, allowing for the comparative softness of the rocks below the whirlpool, we must put back the occurrence of the glacial period to at least 200,000 years ago, supposing the entire gorge from Queenstown to the Falls to have been excavated since that time. "But if," says Mr. Belt, "the conclusion at which I have arrived is correct that the gorge, from the whirlpool to the Falls, is preglacial, and that the present river has only cut through the softer beds between Queenstown and the whirlpool, and above the latter point merely cleared out the preglacial gorge in the harder rocks—then 20,000 years, or even less, is amply sufficient for the work done, and the occurrence of the glacial epoch, as so measured, will be brought within the shorter period that, from other considerations I have argued, has elapsed since it was at its height."

Have Animals a Sense of Humor?—A writer in Nature, George J. Romanes, brings together some instances tending to show the existence in some animals of a sense of humor. A young orang-outang in the London Zoölogical Gardens used frequently to amuse the spectators by inverting on her head her feeding-tin, and the animal was evidently gratified when her conduct called forth a laugh. A Skye terrier belonging to Mr. Romanes, "while lying upon one side and violently grinning, would hold one leg in his mouth." The animal was much pleased whenever this "joke" was duly appreciated, but would become sulky if no notice was taken of it. This dog was fond of catching flies upon the window-panes; but, if ridiculed when unsuccessful, he was evidently much annoyed. Having failed repeatedly on a certain occasion to catch a fly, he eventually became so distressed that "he positively pretended to catch the fly, going through all the appropriate actions with lips and tongue, and afterward rubbing the ground with his neck as if to kill the victim. So well," continues Mr. Romanes, "was the whole process