AXUM AYACUCHO 167 as belonging to a distinct family. During an excursion in August, 1868, Prof. Marsh obtain- ed from Lake Como, a small brackish sheet of water in Wyoming territory, several specimens of siredon lichenoides (Baird). On bringing them to New Haven, they went through a metamorphosis similar to that previously no- ticed by Dumeril in the Mexican axolotl. The first indication of the change was the appear- ance of dark spots on the sides of the tail, fol- lowed soon by the disappearance by absorp- tion of the membrane along the back and below the tail. Then the external branchiaa began to be absorbed, and the animal came more frequently to the surface of the water for air. The spots gradually extended over the body, the external branchias and branchial arch- es disappeared, and the openings on the neck were closed by the adhesion of the opercular flap. The body diminished in size; the head became more rounded above and more oval in outline ; the eyes became more convex and prominent; the opening of the mouth grew larger, and the tongue considerably increased in size; changes took place in the teeth and in other parts of the structure, and finally the animal escaped from the water a true anibly- stoma, not to be distinguished from A. mavor- tium (Baird). The rapidity of these changes was greatly affected by light and temperature ; under the most favorable circumstances the entire series of transformations took place in about three weeks. It is not known that these changes occur in Lake Como, which is about 7,000 feet above the sea ; and the crea- ture no doubt breeds in its siredon or larval state. This leads to the belief that all siredons are merely larval salamanders, and to the sus- picion that many other so-called perennibran- chiate batrachians, as menobranchus, siren, and proteus, may be the undeveloped young of other well known species. lll. or U no in (anc. Auxume), a city of Abyssinia, in the province of Tigr6, formerly capital of a kingdom, in lat. 14 5' N., Ion. 38 27' E., 12m. W. of Adowa; pop. about 4,000. It is 7,200 ft. above the level of the sea. Par- kyn visited this city in 1843. There stands in it a church considered the most sacred build- ing in all Abyssinia, " around which lie scat- tered unfinished and broken columns, pedes- tals, and other remnants of the civilization of former ages." This church is about 200 years old. Near it is a square enclosure, with a pil- lar at each angle, and a seat and footstool in the centre, all of granite. Another footstool, standing apart, about 30 yards distant, has be- come celebrated for its Greek and Ethiopic inscriptions, the latter in such minute charac- ters and so indistinct that the traveller Salt could transcribe but little of it. They give a list of tribes under the dominion of the king of Axum, and indicate the existence of an exten- sive and powerful kingdom in Abyssinia, where arts and arms were well known and cultivated. There were originally 55 obelisks at Axum. One of the most remarkable of these, a single shaft of granite, 60 ft. high, is still standing in good preservation. It is destitute of hiero- glyphics, and, instead of ending in a pyramid like the Egyptian obelisks, terminates in a kind of patera, indicating that it is of Greek rather Eoyal Seat, Axum. than of Egyptian origin. Tradition says it was erected in the time of the emperor Aizanas (the middle of the 4th century). In ecclesiastical history there is preserved a letter of Constan- tius, addressed to Aizanas and Sazanas joint- ly, calling them the " Axumite princes." The stone also gives the name of the Abyssinian Obelisk of Axum. monarch as Aizanas, and mentions Sazanas. Axum was probably the first place in Abyssinia into which Christianity was introduced. It was formerly the centre of the ivory trade. ATACIICHO. I. An interior central depart- ment of Peru, lying mainly on the eastern slope of the Andes, watered by the rivers Mantaro
