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Fragments of Science.
=Pre-Columbian Musical Instruments in America.=--In a recent article
in the Popular Science Monthly (November, 1898), entitled Was Middle
America Peopled from Asia? I insisted that if there had been any
invasion, peaceful or otherwise, sufficient to have affected even in
the slightest degree the arts, customs, and religious beliefs of
middle America, then, associated with these influences, we should find
traces of Asiatic utensils, implements, structures, such as sandals,
weapons, pottery, wheels, plows, roofing tiles, etc.; in other words,
just those objects most intimately associated with man. I especially
considered the absence of stringed musical instruments and coincided
with Dr. Otis T. Mason in the belief that there was no evidence of a
pre-Columbian stringed musical device. This question has been
variously discussed and the following references bear on the subject:
A short note in the American Antiquarian for January, 1897, by Dr. D.
G. Brinton, entitled Native American Stringed Musical Instruments. The
author frankly admits, however, that the cases cited may all have been
borrowed from the whites or negroes. Mr. M. H. Saville in the American
Anthropologist for August, 1897, described A Primitive Maya Musical
Instrument, though he makes no pronounced statement of its
pre-Columbian origin. Dr. Mason, in the American Anthropologist for
November, 1897, discusses the question under the title Geographical
Distribution of the Musical Bow, and in this paper says, "I have come
to the conclusion that stringed musical instruments were not known to
any of the aborigines of the western hemisphere before Columbus." In
my paper I insisted that "had this simple musical device been known
anciently in this country, it would have spread so widely that its
pre-Columbian use would have been beyond any contention." Mr. Saville
finally, in the American Anthropologist for September, 1898, shows
apparently the existence of a pre-Columbian stringed musical device in
a paper entitled The Musical Bow in Ancient Mexico, and presents his
proof in the form of a reproduction from an ancient Mexican codex of
an orchestra of six performers. One of the figures, according to Mr.
Saville's interpretation, is holding a musical bow in his left hand
while with his right hand he is striking the cord with a forked stick.
Claiming no skill in the interpretation of these quaint and
concentrated Jack-of-heart figures, I readily yielded to the authority
of Saville in this matter, and so acknowledged in a footnote in my
paper which I was enabled to insert after the pages were made up.
Within a few days I have received a letter from Mrs. Zelia Nuttall,
the eminent American paleographist, to whom we are indebted for the
most profound researches in connection with these ancient codices. In
this letter Mrs. Nuttall refers to Sahagun's great manuscript, wherein
she says: "The native musical instruments are repeatedly enumerated.
The turtle's shell figures among them, _but there is no trace of a
stringed musical instrument ever having been known or employed in
ancient Mexico_." (The Italics are hers.) Mrs. Nuttall then says that
the object held under the arm of the musician which has been
recognized as a musical bow is undoubtedly a turtle's shell. In
support of this view she sends me a tracing of the figure from the
original manuscript which is now in Vienna, in which the entire object
under the arm of the player as well as the forked stick is colored
blue (Fig. 1). A photograph is also inclosed from another ancient
Mexican manuscript in course of publication by Mrs. Nuttall. In this
(Fig. 2) the player has the turtle's shell and is pounding on it with
a pronged stick, horn, or branch, while in the other hand he holds a
rattle and at the same time sings, the notes being graphically
portrayed as they come from his mouth. It will be observed that it is
the plastron or ventral surface that he is striking, as shown by the
notches in its forward and hinder edges, though the plates are
incorrectly drawn. In the figure given by Mr. Saville the player is
holding the turtle's shell in precisely that position that would
enable him to strike the plastron. Even in Mr. Saville's figure the
marginal plates of the shell are plainly indicated. By holding the
figure face downward the shell is thrown in a normal position with the
back uppermost, and what was mistaken for the string of the instrument
is the outline of the back of the turtle correctly delineated. With
the above figures I give the outline of the left arm and body of a
friend who posed for me while holding a large South American turtle
under his arm. I have drawn the plates of the carapace to more clearly
indicate the position of the turtle's shell. In the original codex,
as before remarked, this portion is colored blue. In this attitude the
flat plastron forms the drumhead, so to speak, the carapace acting as
a resonator. I am sure that Mr. Saville will agree with me that Mrs.
Nuttall's attribution is the correct one.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.]
[Illustration: FIG. 2.]
[Illustration: FIG. 3.]
EDWARD S. MORSE.
=Rebreathed Air as a Poison.=--The following extracts are taken from
an article by Dr. John Hartley, in the Lancet: "The fresh-air
treatment of consumption" appears to be made up of three essential
factors: (1) the discontinuance of the supply of bacilli from without;
(2) the supply of an abundance of nutritive material to the tissues;
and (3) the supply of an abundance of fresh air uncontaminated by the
products of respiration. This seems to mean that the tissues, if not
too enfeebled, may be trusted to deal with the bacilli already present
if their metabolism is kept going at high pressure. Fresh air is now
the "official" remedy in the treatment of tubercle. Why is it so
ignored in the case of other diseases? Has the pneumonic or bronchitic
no need of special ventilation because his microbe is of a different
breed? The air was intended not only for phthisical patients or
patients suffering from pneumonia but for _all_--diseased and healthy
alike--and it is still the natural medium in which the poisonous
products of tissue metabolism excreted by the lungs are further broken
down and rendered harmless. Dr. A. Ransome has done great service not
only by his onslaught on "air sewage" but also by his coinage of the
term; for a thoroughly good opprobrious epithet resembles a good
wall-poster in its power of arresting and enchaining the attention of
the many. It was long ago pointed out that certain constituents of
expired air are intensely powerful nerve poisons. These considerations
should surely make us look on rebreathed air and sewer gas, not as
mere carriers of accidental poisons, such as influenza and pneumonia
and the like, but as _poisons per se_, and I wish to be allowed to
record a few very imperfect observations made by myself during some
years past chiefly on the subject of rebreathed air, with certain
inferences which I think tend, however feebly and imperfectly, to show
that the poisons we expire have _per se_ very definite effects on
tissue metabolism and need not a mere perfunctory admixture with fresh
air but very large and very continuous dilution before they are
rendered innocuous--that is to say, innocuous to _all_; for while some
persons appear to be almost immune, others seem intensely susceptible.
The first observation I will allude to was made in the autumn of 1896,
in cool weather. I had to take a long night journey by rail after a
long and hard day's work. The train was full and the compartment I
entered was close; so, as I was tired and fagged, I sat in the
corridor by an open window, well rugged up, throughout the journey.
The compartment was completely shut off from the corridor by a glass
door and windows, through which I could freely inspect its occupants.
Two remarkably fresh-complexioned, wholesome-looking young fellows got
into the compartment at York. They formed a remarkable contrast to the
pallid and fagged-looking travelers already there. The windows and
ventilators were carefully closed, and the newcomers, with the rest,
settled off to sleep and slept soundly for nearly four hours, with the
exception of a few minutes' interval at Grantham. When aroused on
nearing London they, like the other occupants of the compartment, were
haggard and leaden-hued, their fresh color was entirely gone, and they
looked and moved as if exhausted. I examined my own face in the
lavatory mirror at the beginning and end of the journey and could see
but little alteration in my color; if anything, it was rather improved
by the end of the journey. The second case occurred early in 1897. I
was asked to see a woman, aged about forty-eight years, who had been
treated in a neighboring town for many weeks for bronchitis and asthma
following influenza. She had relapsed about a week when I first saw
her. She was then sitting up in bed; her face was leaden-colored, her
skin was clammy and sweating, with a feeble, quick pulse, and the
heart sounds were indistinguishable owing to wheezing; there was some
crepitation at the bases. The temperature was about 101° F. The
weather was cold, but after wrapping her up, with a hot bottle to her
feet, the window was well opened. Her color improved in a few minutes
and the sweating ceased soon after. But it and the blueness returned
if the window was shut for any time. It was directed to be kept open
night and day, and I could see from my house that this order was
carried out. Although on one night the thermometer showed 14° F. of
frost the chest was clear of noises and she was convalescent in eight
days. If fresh air needs warming she ought to have died. Why do most
men feel so tired after an afternoon's work in a crowded out-patient
room? Why is a long journey in a full railway carriage, even with a
comfortable seat, so exhausting to many people? Personally an hour or
two in a full carriage with the windows shut will give me numbness in
my feet and legs and knock me up for the day, while a railway journey
in an empty carriage with open windows does not affect me at all. But
most people will be willing to admit that any kind of crowd is tiring.
It is to me difficult to resist the impression than an overdose of
waste products, whether of one's own or other people's, must generally
interfere with the metabolism of nerve tissue. Women as they grow
older are apt to live much indoors. I believe the fat, flabby, paunchy
woman, whether purple or pale, with feeble, irritable heart and
"inadequate" kidneys, is usually the victim of rebreathed air. A
"close" room will infallibly give me an abdominal distention and
borborygmi within half an hour, and I am inclined to think the purity
of the air breathed by the dyspeptic quite as important as his regimen
or his teeth. It must, I think, sooner or later be recognized that
many of the increasing ills which it has been the fashion to charge on
the "hurry and brain fag" incidental to a high state of civilisation
and a large population are in reality due to the greater contamination
of the air we breathe by the waste products of that population, and
that toxines excreted by the lungs will in time take high rank among
these as both potent and insidious. If this should come to pass, the
present ideas anent ventilation must be abandoned as utterly futile,
and the need will be felt, not of letting a little air in, but of
letting waste products out.
=The Utilization of Wave Power.=--The utilization of the energy which
goes to waste in the movement of water, in waves, tides, and
waterfalls, has been a much-studied problem during recent years. The
only one of these three phenomena which has as yet been at all
extensively commercially harnessed is the waterfall. There have,
however, been a number of wave and tide motors constructed. The most
recent and perhaps the most promising of these is the type invented by
Mr. Morley Fletcher, of Westminster, England. He has made a special
study of the problem of motion of the sea, and has already
successfully constructed a hydraulic pump, an electric motor, and a
self contained siren buoy in which the energy is obtained entirely
from wave motion. The great possibilities in this direction for cheap
and efficient power plants have not been appreciated by seacoast
towns, but it is stated in Industries and Iron, from which we have
taken the above particulars, that Mr. Fletcher is at present devoting
his attention to devising schemes and designing apparatus for pumping
sea water for shore purposes, ore washing, driving electric machinery
for town lighting and power plants, buoys for marking harbors with
beacons and fog horns, and the many other purposes to which such a
constant and inexhaustible source of energy is applicable.
=Dispersal of Seeds.=--Having described in the Plant World some of the
provisions of Nature for the dispersal of seeds, Prof. W. J. Beal adds
that these various devices, besides serving to extend and multiply the
species and promote its plantation on favorable soil, enable plants to
flee from too great crowding of their own kind and from their plant
rivals and parasites. "The adventurers among plants often meet with
the best success, not because the seeds are larger or stronger or
better, but because they find for a time more congenial surroundings.
Our weeds, for instance, are carried for long distances by man and by
him are planted in new ground that has been well prepared. Every
horticulturist knows that apples grown in a new country, if suitable
for apples, are fair and healthy, but the scab and codling moth and
bitter rot and bark louse sooner or later arrive, each to begin its
peculiar mode of warfare." So with peach trees and plums and their
enemies. The surest way to grow a few cabbages, radishes, squashes,
cucumbers, and potatoes is to plant them here and there in good soil
at considerable distances from where any have heretofore been grown.
"For a time enemies do not find them." Pear trees planted scatteringly
are more likely to remain healthy than in orchards. "Perhaps one
reason why plants have become extinct or nearly so is their lack of
means of migration. As animals starve out in certain seasons when food
is scarce, or more likely migrate to regions which can afford food, so
plants desert worn-out land and seek fresh fields. As animals retreat
to secluded and isolated spots to escape their enemies, so many plants
accomplish the same thing by finding the best places with some of
their seeds sown in many regions. Frequent rotations seem to be the
rule for many plants when left to themselves in a state of nature.
Confining to a permanent spot invites parasites and other enemies and
a depleted soil, while health and vigor are secured by frequent
migrations."
=Commensals.=--Curious associations are formed among animals for
mutual aid in the struggle for existence. Some of them are societies
of the same species, like those of ants and bees; colonies in which
many individuals--as ascidians and bryozoa--join into a single mass
and act as one; and associations of animals of different species
constituting commensalism where both are benefited, or parasitism,
when the advantage accrues to only one of the parties. The hermit crab
and certain ascidians furnish very fine examples of commensalism. The
hermit crab is known as an inhabitant of shells bereft of their proper
owners. Some sea anemones also fasten themselves on shells, and seem
to prefer those which have been adopted by hermit crabs. The
association is shown by M. Henri Coupan, in _La Nature_, to be one of
mutual benefit. The actinia defends the crab and its home against all
intruders by means of its tentacles--veritable batteries of prickly
stings; while the crab, with its long claws reaching out to catch
whatever is good to eat, brings food within reach of the ascidian. Mr.
Percival Wright, having taken the crab from a shell to which an
ascidian had attached itself, found that the latter abandoned the
shell in a short time. M. L. Faunt reversed the experiment, taking the
ascidian away, when the crab deserted its quarters, found a shell with
the ascidian on it, and occupied it very quickly. He further observed
the maneuvers executed by the crab to secure the attachment of an
ascidian to its shell. Sometimes a large ascidian will wholly cover a
shell; or several smaller ones will spread themselves over the same
shell so as to form a continuous envelope over it. The ascidians
become so attached to their commensals as to seem unable to live
without them, and even to die soon after being separated from them.
=Drift of Ocean Currents.=--Of sixteen hundred and seventy-five floats
bearing requests to the finder to return them which Prince Albert of
Monaco dropped into the Atlantic during three research cruises, with a
view to learning something of the movements of surface currents, two
hundred and twenty-six were returned to him up to the year 1892. By
working the course which each of them had probably been following, the
prince undertook to draw a definite map of the currents. As the
elements employed were always numerous for each region, he thinks his
results were near the truth in its general lines. The floats landed on
almost all the shores of the North Atlantic, from the North Cape to
the south of Morocco, along Central America, and on the islands of
Canaries, Madeira, Azores, Antilles, Bermudas, Shetland, Hebrides,
Orkneys, and Iceland. None appeared as far south as the Cape Verde
Islands. The drifts seem to indicate an immense vortex, beginning
toward the Antilles and Central America with the Gulf Stream and the
equatorial current; passing the Banks of Newfoundland at a tangent, it
turns to the east, approaches the European coasts, and runs southward
from the English Channel to Gibraltar, after having sent a branch
running along the coast of Ireland and the coast of Norway as far as
the North Cape. It then returns to the west, encircling the Canaries.
Its center oscillates somewhere to the southwest of the Azores. The
author's observations enabled him also to establish a very good
average for the speed at which these floats traveled in the different
sections of the vortex, and for every twenty-four hours: Between the
Azores, France, Portugal, and the Canaries, it was 5.18 miles; from
the Canaries to the Antilles, the Bahamas, and as far as the
Bermudas, 10.11 miles; from the Bermudas to the Azores, 6.42 miles.
The mean speed for the North Atlantic was 4.48 miles. The figures are
under rather than above the truth.
=Winds of the Sahara.=--Some interesting meteorological observations,
made in the Sahara during eight excursions between 1883 and 1896, have
been published by M. F. Foureau. The most frequent winds are those
from the northwest and the southeast. Every evening the wind goes down
with the sun, or goes to bed, as the Chaambe express it; except the
northeast wind, which the Arabs call _el chitâne_, or the devil,
because it blows all night. Another wind, called the _chihithi_, has
been mentioned by all travelers, and is the subject of numerous
legends. It is a warm wind from the southwest, charged with
electricity, and often carrying fine sand and darkening the
atmosphere. The compasses are much disturbed by it, because, it has
been suggested, of a special condition produced upon thin glass covers
by the friction caused by the rubbing of the fine wind-carried sand
upon them; but it has been observed that the spare compasses show the
same disturbed condition as soon as they are taken out of their boxes.
The disturbance ceases when the glasses are moistened, and does not
appear again till they have dried. Several hailstorms were noticed,
the hailstones being usually about as large as peas, but larger in the
heavier storms. M. Foureau, not having gone as far as the central
heights, observed no snow in the Sahara, but was informed that snow
falls in the winter on the tops of the _Tassili des Azdjer_, about
five thousand feet above the sea. Similar observations have been made
by other travelers, and falls of temperature to about 21° F. have been
noticed. Very curious mirage phenomena were sometimes observed.
Observations of fulgurites, or instances in which the sand had been
vitrified by lightning strokes, were not infrequent.