Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, November 1898: Volume 54, November 1898Various
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, November 1898: Volume 54, November 1898
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
Two memoirs, published under one cover by the Peabody Institute of
American Archæology and Ethnology, relate to explorations by _George
Byron Gordon_ in two districts of Honduras, affording relics different
in character. The work at the ruins of Copan having been suspended
during 1896 and 1897 by some act of the Government of Honduras, Mr.
Gordon had to turn his attention elsewhere, to explorations the
results of which are given under the titles of _Researches in the Uloa
Valley_ and _Caverns of Copan, Honduras_. The investigations in the
Uloa Valley afforded a rich fund of objects of interest and of novel
character--pottery adorned with elaborate and remarkably artistic
designs, stone images, whistles, terra-cotta stamps, and only one idol.
Human remains, of the most meager description, in connection with the
pottery furnish reasonable evidence of burial places, but, being only
crumbling fragments of bone, are too minute to supply any information
respecting the form of burials or the relative position of the objects
associated with them. The conclusions are drawn that the valley was
at one time well populated, but not for any length of time occupied
by the people whose ruined buildings of stone are found in the region
up to southern Mexico, and that it was visited by several distinct
peoples in ancient times. Some mounds covered with stone were discovered
which deserve further investigation. Five caves of different size and
character, described in the second memoir, were explored near Copan,
and afforded objects peculiar to themselves and evidences of sepulture.
They were very dusty, although stalactites had formed in some of them,
and, although undoubtedly used by man many centuries ago, they do not
seem to indicate a constant occupation for an extended period of time,
or to furnish evidence of an extreme antiquity of man in the region.
The most striking feature about them is probably the entire difference
in character of the pottery from that found at Copan, only a few miles
away, and its want of resemblance with the pottery of any other locality
with which the author is familiar.
* * * * *
A series of Bulletins, _Some Miscellaneous Results of the Work of the
Division of Entomology_, of the United States Department of Agriculture,
is intended to furnish such material as was formerly published in Insect
Life, presenting the results of observations made in the office of the
bureau which are not extensive enough upon any one topic to form an
independent and complete bulletin. The second number contains notices by
different authors, mostly connected with the bureau, on twelve insects
predatory on economical plants, with numerous "general notes" and
correspondence.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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