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probable that the majority of these belong to some one of the species already mentioned. Of unidentified fragments perhaps the most numerous were shell beads, of which there were many hundreds. Some of these were large and of coarse make, but others so minute that it remains a marvel how they could have been manufactured with the rude implements a Stone Age people had at its control. In some instances the perforations were but a trifle larger than the diameter of a fine needle, with rim not over a sixteenth of an inch wide. The thickness of these beads was not more than that of bristol-board paper.

All the species of shells which I have found in ruins belong to the molluscan fauna of the Pacific, and are still used for ceremonial or ornamental purposes in modern Hopi pueblos. A majority of these have been found in cliff-houses and cavate dwellings; they likewise occur in even greater numbers in the ruins along the Gila and Salado in southern Arizona. I have not found a single specimen which I could trace to the Atlantic watershed, but the source of all was the Pacific ocean, or what is practically for our purposes the same, the gulf of California. Still more significant is the fact that the art upon them-the symbolism with which they are decorated-is identical with that of the ancient sedentary people of southern Arizona.

I know it may be said that the simple existence of these shells in the ruins from the Gila valley to modern Tusayan can be explained on the theory of barter, and that their distribution does not prove racial kinship of former owners is self-evident. The theory that the same symbolism and treatment of the material originated independently cannot be seriously urged in this case. While I would not say, since I have no proof one way or the other, that these shells were worked by the people who lived in the ancient ruins, I am not sure that their ancestors may not have brought them in their migrations from the south. That the culture came to Tusayan from the south appears to me probable, and that it was not only the culture, but also the ancestors of certain component clans of their people who came from that direction into Tusayan is claimed by Hopi traditionists. So far as my archeological researches bearing on this problem are concerned, they verify that claim. The remote ancestors of the Patki people of Tusayan formerly inhabited the Gila-Salado drainage area, and will later be shown to be closely allied to the Pimas, or some other tribes of that slope.

PIEGAN FORTUNE-TELLING.-The Piegan Indians have a custom, fast becoming obsolete, of inspecting the blood allowed to settle in the internal cavity of a newly killed badger from which the viscera has been removed, and from the reflection of the face as in a mirror prognosticating the death of the one who killed the animal. If the devout imagination beholds the hair reflected white, the subject will die of old age. If the visage is reflected as if bald, he will die a violent death-that is, he will be literally or figuratively scalped. If the face appears emaciated, with hollow eyes and cheeks, he will die of illness. Powdered charcoal or gunpowder is sometimes mixed with the blood in order that the image may better be reflected.

Certain members of the above tribe have a practice of forecasting the recovery or death of an invalid from the appearance of the hand. Sometimes they bend all the fingers backward, stretching the skin of the palm until it becomes white, like that of a dead person. If the natural hue returns immediately when the hand is released, recovery is certain, but if the cadaverous appearance lingers the contrary is assured.

Fort Shaw, Montana.

LOUIS L. MEEKER.

GRAPHOLOGY. Apropos of the controversy of M. CrépieuxJamin with M. Cesare Lombroso before the Tribunal of Commerce, in which the latter was accused of having appropriated passages from a work of the former upon graphology and adjudged to pay 2,500 francs, is a little story by Eugène Lautier in Le Temps. There not long ago dwelt in the Latin quarter a lemonade seller, who was also a very renowned graphologist and who between two glasses of beer was consulted by all the young academicians. of the neighborhood. One day one of my literary friends, who was poor, but fond of fun, showed the limonadier a mysterious sentence cut from a letter. It ran as follows: "It will be truly difficult, but it can all be arranged, for the material is always on hand." The limonadier graphologist gravely pronounced the following judgment: "The author of this letter is a very brilliant young man, ambitious, remarkably gifted, who is thinking of his little misfortunes, but who will not fail to triumph over them to his great glory." The author of the passage was a little old tailor to whom my friend had sent a damaged overcoat for repairs.

THE ESKIMO AND THEIR WRITTEN LANGUAGE

CHARLES HALLOCK

The name Eskimo, which is applied to the Innuit of the circumpolar region, is the Danish way of spelling a word of the Abnaki Indians of Lower Canada, which, in the language of that tribe, signifies "Eaters of raw meat." The early French explorers spelled it Esquimaux, as first given by Father Charlevoix, a pioneer missionary, who emigrated to Canada, which was then called New France, in the seventeenth century, but the Danish orthography has gradually supplanted it and will hereafter stand, as it is phonetic, simpler, and quicker to write. Besides, the Danish civilization has been dominant for many years. in those regions, with which traders and travelers are most familiar.

It would appear that some Abnaki Indians, among whom the Reverend Charlevoix had settled, chanced to wander as far north as upper Labrador, and upon their return they reported to the father the finding of a new race of people, whose distinctive characteristic was, as has been stated, that they ate their meat raw. This is the origin of the appellation, according to Father Barnum, an eminent linguist and missionary, who has been engaged during the last five years among the Innuits of western Alaska in the important and stupendous work of reducing the Innuit tongue to a written language, a work which, in the reverend gentleman's own words, is scarcely begun. His vocabulary, so far as he has prepared it, already embraces upward of 7,000 words, and his grammar covers 250 closely written pages of foolscap. He declares that the language of the Innuits is distinctly sui generis, and has not the slightest resemblance to any other known language in the world. He says:

"In reducing it to a written tongue we have adopted the Latin alphabet as far as possible, but there are certain sounds which are next to impossible to produce with any combination of vowels and consonants, either in Latin or English. One peculiarity of the language is the marvelous regularity of its verbs; there is but one form of them, and an irregular verb is something we have yet to find. Their favorite letter is ‘k,' and the most used syllable is 'ok." A glance over any of the books we have recently had printed in their tongue will show either one or the other,

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