Abstract
IN the first paper in the American Naturalist for May, Prof. C. F. Hartt opens out quite a new field for investigation in the rock-inscriptions of Brazil, and illustrates it with nine plates of very great interest. The inscriptions occur on the rocks in various districts, and are many of them very rude, representing human and other figures, the sun, moon, and stars, and others very difficult to decipher. Prof. Hartt mentions as a curious circumstance that the hands and feet are always represented by radiating lines, usually only three digits being drawn for each hand and foot; the number rarely reaches four, and never five. This, he thinks may be explained by the fact that many tribes of Brazil are unable to count beyond three or four. The antiquity of these rock paintings and sculptures is undoubted, being mentioned by many ancient writers, as well as by Humboldt and others in more recent times. There can be no doubt that they ante-date the civilisation of the Amazons, and there is a strong probability that some of them, at least, were drawn before the European discovery of America. A short paper, by Dr. F. R. Hoy, on Dr. Koch's Missourium. tetracaulodon, made by Prof. Owen into a Mastodon, points out several particulars in which Dr. Koch's account of the discovery of the fossil is not to be relied on, especially the inference of the great antiquity of man deduced from it. Mr. J. H. Emerton gives an account of the so-called “Flying Spiders,” which are merely blown about by the wind. Among the “Miscellany” is an interesting note by Mr. A. Garrett, on the Distribution of Animals in the South Seas, especially in the Viti Islands. The number is altogether one of unusual interest.
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Scientific Serials . Nature 4, 114 (1871). https://doi.org/10.1038/004114b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/004114b0