“The whale tribe (Balaenidae) is divded into the genus whale and the genus cachalot (sperm whale). The genus whale produces the baleen,” etc.
This travesty of truth was evidently compiled from text books, of fifty years ago, and, although somewhat amusing from its complete erroneousness, cannot be too severely criticised. Cetology is certainly not in so advanced a condition as could be wished; but there are numerous recent works in which the outlines of the subject are correctly laid down, and from which our author might have gathered facts, and not fictions, with which to preface his chapter upon whalebone.
U.S. national museum.
Man in the stone age.
In Science, iv. 469, Prof. Henry W. Haynes takes me up sharply in reference to an opinion I expressed about the epoch of the appearance of man, properly so called, in prehistoric time in Europe, and calls this opinion ‘a most amazing travesty of the views of Mortillet.’
Professor Haynes tells us that he gave a critical notice of Mortillet’s work, ‘Le préhistorique; antiquité de l’homme,’ in Science: it is probable, therefore, that he read that book. But it is evident, that, if he did, he has forgotten it: otherwise he would not repeat that Mortillet takes the station St. Acheul as typical of the oldest stone age, inasmuch as he definitely rejects it as being of mixed later types, and substitutes the station of Chelles (op. cit., 133). He would also have remembered that Mortillet denies, in so many words, that the anthropoid then living was man as we understand the term. THese words are, “Nous nous retrouvons, done, en présence de l’anthropopithèque, dont j’ai démontré l’existence,” etc. (p. 248). Passing to the next age or epoch, the Moustérien, he asserts that it, too, was characterized by this race of anthropopitheci (p. 339); while in the third epoch, that of lolutré, he leaves the question open, denying that any traces of man or anthropoid have been discovered (p. 392).
This brings us late, very late, in paleolithic time, without an osteologic trace of any being who should properly be called man; for it would indeed be a travesty to apply that name to a creature without language, without religion, and without social compacts. If the question is to be any thing beyond one of word-splitting, these psychological characteristics must be connoted by the word ‘man;’ for in all ethnological study they almost alone occupy us, as Peschel has well shown in his chapter, ‘Die stellung des menschen in der schöpfung’ (Völkerkunde, einleitung). Yet Mortillet himself denies them to his anthropopithecus.
Media, Penn., Dec. 13.
Dr. Haacke’s discovery of the eggs of Echidna.
In the Zoologischer anzeiger of Dec. 1 appears an extremely interesting letter from Dr. Wilhelm Haacke, director of the South-Australian museum at Adelaide. It is dated Sept. 8, and contains an account of the writer’s independent discovery of the oviparous character of the monotremes four days before Professor Liversedge transmitted Mr. Caldwell’s famous cable from Queensland.
On Aug. 3 last, Dr. Haacke received from Kangaroo Island, a point about one day’s journey from Adelaide, a living female Echidna hystrix. With the deliberateness characteristic of his race, he did not examine the animal until Aug. 25. He then ascertained that there were two lateral folds of the mammary pouch, in one of which he felt a small object. In the expectation of finding a young Echidna, he brought it to light; and, to his astonishment, it proved to be an egg, with a membranous shell like that of some of the reptiles, and measuring about two centimetres in diameter. Owing, probably, to the long confinement of the animal, the egg was decomposed, and broke aaprt under a slight pressure.
On Sept. 2 this important discovery was quietly communicated to a meeting of the Royal society of South Australia; and the Adelaide Advertiser of Sept. 4, also the Register of Sept. 5, published the fact in their reports of the meeting. In the same number of the Register appeared a cable-message from London, announcing Mr. Caldwell’s discovery of the eggs of Ornithorhynchus; in which message, probably through a telegraph-operator’s error, the word ‘viviparous’ had been substituted for ‘oviparous.’ Dr. Haacke immediately wrote to the Register in a letter printed on the 6th, pointing out the probable error, and the singular coincidence of the independent discoveries of Mr. Caldwell and himself.
On Sept. 7 the Register published an extended account of Mr. Caldwell’s researches in Australia, and added in a shorter note,—
“It may also be observed that the announcement which has caused such a sensation among European scientists was made from Queensland on Aug. 29, or a few days after the discovery by Dr. Haacke.”
Dr. Haacke closes his paper in the Anzeiger with an expression of pleasure that his discovery had met with such an unexpectedly rapid confirmation at the hands of another observer.
This adds another to the numerous coincidences in the history of scientific discoveries. When it is remembers that Mr. Caldwell, at the time of his discovery, was in the interior, and may have been some distance from any telegraphic station, it seems probable that his observation and Dr. Haacke’s were only a day or so apart. At all events, each investigator is entitled to the full credit of independent discovery, or perhaps, in view of Professor Gill’s recent letter to Science on this subject, we may better say confirmation of an old truth that has been disregarded for half a century. After so long a period of ignorance regarding this most important question concerning the monotremes, it is certainly very extraordinary that at points so distant from each other there should have been made, simultaneously, observations upon different genera, either of which practically solved the question for all time.
Princeton, N.J., Dec. 19.
Artificial wampum.
During a discussion upon wampum, at the Montreal meeting of the British association, I alluded to the fact that there is a wampum manufactory at Paskack, N.J. In the same discussion Major Powell remarked, that, according to his belief, none of the cylindrical beads of which the belts then on exhibition were composed had been made by Indians.
Since my return I have visited the manufactory mentioned above, and I will give a hasty sketch of the same. It is situated at Paskack, on the Hackensack River, and is conducted by four ‘Campbell brothers,’ the youngest of whom is about seventy years of age.
According to their account, the business has been in their family about four generations. During the life of their grandfather it was situated at Tenack, now Edgewater; and my informant remembers when his grandfather used to go in a boat to Rockaway, and
