Page:Science vol. 5.djvu/566

 undoly extol llie gowi features of the state and Ihu imjiortance of the geological survey. The report for ISH'l contains a catalogue of the flora (789 specins) of the Alpiac or cen- tral-eastern portion of the state.

��NOTES AND NEWS. In ail appcTidii to Professor De»l«r'9 ' Biograph- ical Kketchre of the gnuluates of Yii\e eoUes^,' Prof, H. A, Newton has glvt-ii some figures r'li->wing the morlAllty among the grnduates of ihe early yeara of the college. The gntiliiates considered are those of the years 1702-14, 483 ici all. To avoid irregulari- ties, the results have been grotipetl in sets of tea years. The actual nuaiberi) of deaths are compared with the numbers computed fruiu the American and cum bin ed experience tables.

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��The most noticeable fact shown by lliU table is that below Ih^ age of seventy the actual mortality so lankly eiceeded the tabular, the excess being over twenty per cent of the expected mortality. This mortality experience Is decidedly different from that of the persons tvlio have been members of Ii>e Divin- ity school of Yale college I Nea-Englander. April, 1878). For tliem, betweeu the ages of forty and seventy, the labular fxetedrd the actual mortality by nearly forty per cent of the former. This enormous difference Is quite nnlformly distributed, and la evi- dently not principally due to chance. It cannot be due to great diflerence in the two groups of men. It must rather be iscribed to a difference In the habits of living In the e!'.:hteenth and nineteenth centuries. — It appears from Nature that preparation Is already making for the niei-tingnf ihe Brillsli asso- clDllou in Birmingham in 188n. It Is stated that Ihe meeting will probably be under the presidency of SIrWiltlnm Dawson of Uontresl.

— Dr. Andrfe of Leipzig, according tn Niilure, discussed before a recent meeting of llie Anthropo- logical society of Vienna the question whether iron was known in America in pre-Columbian times. Meteoric iron was certainly in use among>l certain Indian tribes and the Eskimo, hut Dr. Andn^e thinks that they werir wholly unacquainted with the art of

��forging iron. This conclusion is based t among others, that while there is ample proof tl the Indiana [the author under this term is iucludinr the Mexicans and Peiuvlaii'l knew liow to obtain and employ gold, silver, tin, co|>i)er, quicksilver, etc., we hear nothing of iron-mines in the liisiory of the civilizali'm of ancient America. The language Itself pi-ovei thi!>, for there is no expression fur iron. Some writers, it is true, speak of the word panilfjtie aa that for iron, but it really means metal in general. More- over, in prebistoric, or rathnr pre-Columbian, grave*, especially in the rainless regions of Peru and northern Chili, ornaments of all kinds, wcsjioue, and imple- ments an* found; but no objects in iron have b discovered, although the Indians plact»l their > valued articles in their tombs. [Ueieoricii however, been found in several mounds In Ohio I Mr. F. W. Putnam of the Pesbod.v n bridge, both in a natural state and haniinet«d;^ the latter form used for the same purpose* copper, both for implements and ornaments ] Aiidrfe thiiik.4 there Is no reason to believe that | tools employeil in the great inasonry-works of t such SB ihat at Tiabnanaco, were other thiui thot use in the rest of Peru, which were of ehttmjA species of bronze. The chiseU found in I'eruvj graves soon become blunted when used r strut; but It is i^uggesied that there waa en of sharpening them easily. Indians certainly h J worked a hard stone like nephrite without Iron; there is no Improbability, says the writer, in ory that the^e chisels were employed, when n lectthe patient temperament of the Indians, wbofl generations were accustomed to the repetition of l| same work, to Indolently pursuing a uniform t and aUo that gulla carat lapldem.

— Dr. G. A. Fischer, in his proposed Jouniey J Lado on the upper Nile, will start, according t Athenaeum, frum PanganI, and endeavor to open direct route to Speke Gulf. Ills movements ■ arriving in Uganda will depend npfin circumstaitet It is just possible, that, owing to the proce«ding9^ a German coloniiation society, Dr. Fi>cher may t find it eaiy to recruit carriers at Zanilbar. ~ per which he read at the German geographical con- gress at Hamburg, Dr. Fischer spoke sensibly agntml some of the ntoplan schemes of his coantrynitfl^ He pointed out more especially that Europeans ei not become acclimatised In equatorial Africa, e: perhaps at an altitude of more than five tboii*a feet, and that even the Itilerior tableland* i from malaria only where tbey are barren, and conse- quently useie-is for purposes of colonization.

— Twenty-tbree maps, fourteen by seventeen cen- timetres, of excellent execution, clear and not ai crowded lellerlng, form a most convenient poclM atlas, the twenty-first ellllon of which, entiri-ly r inoileited. has just been insned from the geographiej establishment of Justus Perthes in Outha. European touri«t. nothing coubl be morcconvenin as more than half the maps relste to that coiiilna and only three to North America and tha UtUI^ Slates

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