24 Observations on the Genetic Cycle in Organic Nature.

Gemmation is exceptional, in any stage, among the higher Articulata and Mollusca, and is unknown as a normal arrangement among Vertebrata.

Table IV.

RESTING PERIODS IN THE GENETIC CYCLE.

Mosses and Hepatica protospores

In the middle of the Protomorphic stage.

Ferns and Equiseta

gamospores

Phanerogamia

seeds

Between the Orthomorphic and Gamomorphic.

Between the Protomorphic (embryogeny) and the Orthomorphic (vegetation commencing with germination). Coniferæ present also another resting period, in the middle of the Gamomorphic stage (during the maturation of the fruit).

Between the Gamomorphic (maturation of the reproductive organs) and the Protomorphic (embryogeny). Have also a resting period (pupa or encysted state) during their metamorphosis, in the early part of the Orthomorphic stage.

Mammalia have no obvious resting period, the mature ova requiring immediate fecundation, which is at once followed by segmentation and the development of the embryo.

The bodies which, under the names of statoblasts, bulbs, resting spores, &c., perform the part of eggs or seeds in some species of animals and plants, appear occasionally to be gemmæ, which may be termed accessory, as lying out of the direct genetic cycle.

25

Peruvian Gleanings. By Dr ARCHIBALD SMITH.

I shall first notice the supposed osteological type of wormian bones in all the crania of the Peruvian Indian race, alluded to by Daniel Wilson, LL.D., in the "Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, New Series," Vol. vii. No. 1. Finding, upon due inquiry at the Medical College at Lima, that neither its deacon nor professors could give me the least information on this subject, I applied to Dr Lorenti, one of the best authorities in Peru on such subjects, and he at once assured me that Tshudi's statement is utterly untrue. But, further to satisfy myself on this point, I went to the Museum, and saw there five native Indian skulls from ancient tombs, in which the sutures were visible. In mummies and heads covered with integuments and hair, the sutures were not accessible there is one mummy with a finely formed head worthy of a Grecian philosopher. But of the five bare crania, only one showed signs of a wormian bone at all; another skull was so compressed on the forehead that the bulk of the brain must have been in life pressed back on the occipital region. The same artificial shape of skull was also pointed out to me in one of the encased mummies; but these were evidently exceptional specimens. The super-occipital or inter-parietal wormian bone represented by Dr Wilson, on the authority of Dr Tshudi, as characteristic of all the skulls of the Peruvian Indian race, is not even traceable in any one of the five skulls in the Lima Museum. Besides, the skull from the ruins of Pachacamac, or the Temple of the Sun, seven leagues to the south of this capital, which was deposited by me in the Edinburgh Museum in the time of Professor Forbes, and to which, last year, I drew Professor Allman's attention, has not such peculiarity; neither have two skulls from the Chinchas, in the possession of Professor Simpson, the osteological peculiarity in question, and therefore none such can be said to be typical of the Peruvians as a race.*

*Since writing the above, I have been introduced to Dr Charles Scherza, of the Imperial Austrian frigate "Novara." I directed his attention to Dr Tshudi's statement, and since then I have seen him on his return from the

An ethnological inquiry of not less interest than the craniological one, is, I think, the oriental origin of the ancient Peruvians.

In a town on the coast of Peru, and in the province of Lambayeque, called "Eten," there has existed from time immemorial an isolated community, that never liked to see strangers among them, nor to intermarry beyond their own border. They speak Spanish like the other natives of the coast, but also use a special language not understood by other Indians or inhabitants of Peru. It would not be allowable, perhaps, on the grounds of language alone, to conclude that the people of Eten were of different origin from other Peruvians. The Indians of Cusco, in the south, are not at this day well understood by the Indians of Cajamarca in the north; yet both these populations radically speak one Quichua language. In the same way, a native of the Isle of Man and of Skye in the Hebrides, though speaking radically the same Celtic tongue, do not easily comprehend each other in colloquial intercourse. But notwithstanding the speciality of a speech hitherto unique in Peru, the inhabitants of Eten have no physical peculiarities to distinguish them from the other native Indians of the coast; and accident has at length revealed the source of the unknown language of Eten. Among the Chinese lately introduced to Peru to occupy the place of the emancipated negro, it is observable, that natives of different remote provinces of that great Eastern empire speak an idiom often differing so much, as to make them unable to converse in Chinese; but it has so happened, that some of them having come in contact with a native of Eten, they could understand each other. And thus the special language of Eten is in reality a Chinese dialect, and therefore the Peruvian Etenians are of Chinese origin. The fact appears to be perfectly well attested, and is here believed by people of the best information on the subject. I have, the other day, seen in the family of Don Juan Rodrigues, who was the first to introduce Chinese labourers into Peru in

ancient Temple of Pachacamac, where he excavated skulls from the tombs. He assures me that he has inspected at least fifty crania, and that none of them presented the characteristics of a super-occipital or inter-parietal wormian bone. He has six fine specimens to speak for the Inca race in Europe.

the years 1849-50, an Indian girl from the neighbourhood of Eten, and a Chinese from the neighbourhood of Pekin, so very like in features that I took them for brother and sister. I often amuse myself by contrasting the different countenances of the Chinese of different provinces of China, when, on paydays, about eighty of them employed in paving the streets of Lima meet at Mr Rodrigues' office. This gentleman tells me that the greater part of the Chinese imported to Peru are from the north of China, especially from Shanghae, Amoy, Loting, and some also from Canton, Macao, and other places. Those with high cheek-bones and obliquely set eyes are said. to be principally from the interior of China, and owe their special physiognomy to a mixture of the Tartar blood. But the greater part of the Chinese introduced into Peru from the above-named districts in China are, like our native Peruvians, of Inca race, without this cast of countenance; and I observe that those who have it are often of shorter stature than others of their countrymen. I have learned from landed proprietors who employ the Chinese on their estates, that they bury their dead with provisions for a future journey beyond the grave to their native land, much according to the practice of the ancient Peruvians. Mr Rodrigues further tells me, that they also use in China religious images very similar to those found in the ancient tumuli and tombs of Peru; and altogether, it is impossible to see them among our Indians, without being struck by the strong family likeness between the two people. In taking leave of this subject, I may mention, as a remarkable coincidence, that the Peruvian skull from Pachacamac in the Edinburgh Museum was there marked as a Malay specimen, a mistake no doubt originating in certain points of resemblance, though there could not be a doubt of its being Peruvian, as I took the precaution of writing in my own hand, on the frontal bone, before presenting it to the Museum.

There is another point to which I would here advert, not because it appears to me of transcendent importance in itself, but as a curious instance of the facility with which even men. of science give credence to what is rare and wonderful, rather than to what is probable-I mean the assertion that cats, carried to the elevation of 13,000 feet, invariably sink, after being

seized with very singular shocks of tetanus. This supposed fact I have seen quoted, upon the authority of Dr Tshudi, by no less a philosopher than Baron Von Humboldt. Now, since my return to this country a few months ago, I have taken pains to ascertain whether the alleged fact is true, or merely a special incident of travel greatly exaggerated and expressed as a general fact. The result is, that at Tuctococha, the mines of Dr Maclean, only ten minutes' walk beneath the snow-line of the Western Cordillera, the central Andine range of Peru, and far above 13,000 feet, cats live easily. In the important city of Puno, in South Peru, at the elevation of 13,000 feet, there are probably as many cats as there are huts or houses. In the province of Lampa, and department of Puno, is situated one of the loftiest mountains of the Cordillera, and which is called Pomaci. Near the summit of this snowy Andine peak there are mines and miners' huts within the region of perpetual snow; and in every one of which there is a cat, with this speciality, that all these cats are black. This peculiarity I quote on the authority of General San Roman, the present Minister of War in this country, and proprietor of silver mines in the summit of Pomaci. Mr Basagoitea likewise, at present Chief of the Custom-House department at Callao, and lately Guano Commissioner in England, is a native of Puno, and he assures me that not only in the city of Puno and neighbourhood, but in much higher stations, as Huallata, Apo, Rumihuasi, and Crucero a small Indian hamlet on the confines of Peru and Bolivia, where it is so cold that the water is carried as ice in baskets, the cat is a constant inmate of the Indian's hut. Dr Destruge of Guayaquil, and Dr Espinoa of Quito, have personally assured me that cats inhabit the Indian huts on the Hacienda del Pedregal in the Chimborazo, at the elevation of the snow-line. And to conclude all that I would here advance on this topic, I may say that Dr Lorenti, a well-known and highly esteemed man of science, who has travelled over a great part of the Andes, assures me, that wherever he found an Indian home, there he found the cat domesticated. It only remains for me to say, that in this country no one would for a moment distrust the witnesses I have named, and that their evidence in this matter is fully