or individually, were not elevated to the highest place in their worship, by any tribe or people in North America, yet the celestial orbs, nevertheless, figured prominently in the list of supreme objects of worship, and many traces, at least, of this form of worship are found in the religions of aboriginal races of all ages, from the oldest American people down to the tribes of the present day, especially among those versed in astrology or astronomy. Although little is known of the Toltecs of Ancient Mexico, it is an established fact that astral worship existed among them. They paid homage to the sun and dedicated their earliest temples to him. The moon, also, they reverenced as his wife and the stars were believed to be his sisters, according to the Mexican Licentiate, Don Mariano Veytia, in his "Historia Antigua." The same writer describes the ruins of San Juan Teotihuacan, the most ancient architectural remains of Mexico, situated about thirteen miles north-east of the capital city. Of these, the largest pyramid, which measured six hundred and eighty feet in length at the base and was estimated at two hundred and twenty feet in height, was dedicated to Tonatinh or Tonatricli, the sun; the next structure in size and importance was inscribed to Meztli, the moon. On the summit of the former a temple was erected, in which was placed an immense statue representing the sun, which faced toward the east. According to the accounts of Bernardino de Sahagun, a Spanish writer of the sixteenth century, and one who was particularly cautious in his deductions and entirely reliable in his accounts of the religion of the Aztecs, as set forth in his "Historia Universal de Nueva España,” solar and lunar worship occurred in the Aztec religion, the sun with them being a spiritual conception. They believed that the heroes who fell in battle or died in captivity, or women who died in childbirth, were immediately transported into the House of the Sun, where they led a life of everlasting delight. From the broad tops of their teocallis or temples, the Aztec priests were in the habit of performing impressive, and, in too many cases, bloody ceremonies, in which the heavenly bodies were made to take a prominent part. After the fall of the Mexican Empire, traces of sun worship were common. Captain Fernando Alarcon, in the year 1540, mentioned having met, on the Colorado River, Indians who worshiped the sun. The same custom exists among the modern Pueblo Indians of New Mexico. Lieut. A. W. Whipple says of these people that "they are now anxiously expecting the arrival of Montezuma ; and it is related that in San Domingo (one of the nineteen Pueblo towns), every morning at sunrise, a sentinel climbs to his housetop, and looks eastward, to watch for his coming." Mr. Whipple also gives a tradition of these Indians which assigns Acoti (another Pueblo village, situated on the Rio Grande del Norte, the ancient Tiguex) as his birth-place; but the tale is so at variance with facts and so rich in imagination that it is evidently the invention of some fertile brain. The Spaniards who came among the Pueblos, just after the Mexican conquest, about the year 1539, evidently introduced the name of Montezuma and probably instilled into their minds this idea of his second advent. Thus the worship of heavenly bodies may have become blended with the deification of ancestors; then the sun may have taken the name of Montezuma. Whipple further states that they "smoke to the sun that he may send them antelope to kill, Indians to trade with, and save them from enemies." Among the Navajos, also, by the same authority, "The sun, moon and stars are sacred, as the authors of seasons of rain and of harvest." He also says of the Zuñians, "Beneath the apparent multiplicity of gods, these Indians have a firm faith in the Deity, the unseen Spirit of God. His name is above all things sacred, and like Jehovah of the Jews, too holy to be spoken. Montezuma is His son and their king. The sun, moon and stars are His works, worthy of their adoration." The "ancient Pueblos" of the Pacific slope of the United States, whose ruined stone structures are found so numerously throughout portions of Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, and probably Nevada, held the sun in high esteem, at least, if they did not worship it. This is shown in the situation of the houses in many localities. In the Cañon of the Rio Mancos, for example, the dwellings are almost invariably found secreted in the cliffs of the western bluff, and from their roofs the inhabitants were wont to salute the king of day as he raised himself above the eastern plateau. 1 Vol. III, Pacific R. R. Reports. 2 A northern tributary of the Rio San Juan, in the extreme south-western corner of Colorado. Among the Moqui tribe, to-day, traces of this form of worship still obtain. The religion of their forefathers seems to have degenerated into a mere custom, the origin of which has been long lost sight of in their obscure traditions. Thus, in the course of time, it seems probable, the worship of celestial orbs has given place to hero-worship; solar worship to anthropomorphism, and it is said that the Moquis have ultimately become imbued with the belief that it is a Messiah, in the form of one of their own ancestors, that is, Montezuma,1 whom they are expecting to arrive from the east. The Moquis and the Pueblos and Zuñis are cognate tribes and doubtless remnants of the ancient Nahuatlac races; hence the similarity of their customs. As the faint streak of red lights up the low horizon, tall, dark figures appear on the parapets of the seven Moqui towns and remain facing the dawn until the sun has appeared entirely to view. Then the muffled forms drop away slowly and sadly, one by one, for another morn has brought disappointment to the souls of many that have watched so eagerly and persistently for the coming of the great Montezuma. The routine of another Moqui day has commenced; all is bustle and life and the subdued hum of household occupation floats out drowsily on the sullen, sultry air and the sound of the hundred flour-mills (metates) grinding steadily on every side, seems, as it issues from the doors and windows of the stone houses, to pause in mid-air like a droning bee. Then scores of busy figures repair with their water-vessels to the verge of the steep bluffs, and disappear in the crevices of the rocks below. Having presented these facts in support of the assumption that solar adoration entered, to some extent, into the religions of some of the American races, we may sum them up briefly as follows: 1. Fetichism being the commonest form of idolatry, especially amongst the lower races of man, most tribes whose religion is polytheistic, venerate the sun. 2. We can detect vestiges of sun-worship in the ruins of the Toltec and Aztec temples and pyramids and also in the statues which were placed within them. 3. We can observe traces of it in the traditions and observances of savage and semi-civilized tribes at the present day. 4. We notice indications of it in the hieroglyphics or picture 1 Motecuhzuma. writings of most North American tribes, ancient and modern, in which the sun symbol occurs frequently. 5. Also in the position of ruined stone houses which look toward the east, the larger rectangular buildings of the Pacific slope being built so as to face the cardinal points. 6. Finally, we can observe signs of this worship in the orientation of dead bodies in graves. If we accept these briefly stated facts, there can be no reasonable doubt that the worship of the sun entered, to some degree, into the religions of the American aborigines; how far, we have not the means of determining; yet, quoting the poet Southey's words, "I marvel not, O sun! that unto thee In adoration man should bow the knee, And pour the prayer of mingled awe and love; Of glory sheddest, with benignant ray, Beauty, and life, and joyance from above." -:0: A NEW LOCALITY FOR CORDYLOPHORA. BY S. F. CLARKE. HIS interesting form of compound hydroid was first discov THIS ered in this country by Prof. Leidy, a number of years ago. It was found living "in a slightly brackish pond near the coast," in the neighborhood of Newport, Rhode Island. In October, 1870, it was again taken by Prof. Leidy, this time in the Schuylkill river, near Philadelphia. A record of the same will be found in the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, for 1870, page 113, from which we learn that Prof. Leidy had not decided whether his specimens were distinct from C. lacustris Allman. He says "It appears however to be much smaller. Allman says the colonies are several inches and the polyps a line in length. Ours are not more than one-half that size. As a variety it might be named C. americana." Unfortunately there are no specimens to refer to and their specific identity must be left undetermined. On the thirteenth of last October a collecting party of three from the John Hopkins University, consisting of Dr. Brooks, Dr. Uhler and the writer, were so fortunate as to find Cordylophora lacustris Allman, living in great abundance within seven or eight miles of Baltimore. The mouth of Curtis' creek, from the point where it empties its cold clear spring waters into the Chesapeake bay, for a distance of one hundred and twenty yards up the stream, was densely populated with colonies of this beautiful organism. Attached to the water-plants (two species of Potamogeton and a Nitella), and to the rocks in the bed, and on the sides of the creek, they formed a delicate living fringe to every object in the stream. At the mouth of the creek its bed is about forty feet wide with a narrow channel on one side, in which the water, not over three or four feet in depth, flows very rapidly. In the channel where the sunlight is the strongest, owing to the much less abundant growth of vegetable life, where the current is most rapid, and nearest to the mouth, where the changes in the surrounding conditions must be greatest, there we found the colonies in their greatest luxuriance. The waters of the Chesapeake are only brackish in this northern part of the bay, and the tide rises and falls but ten or twelve inches; still this is sufficient to make quite an appreciable difference in the saltness, density and temperature of the water for a number of hundred yards up the stream. The variations in the conditions then must be considerable and the changes must be quite sudden, as they occur with the rise and fall of the tide. The nutritive hydranths too must be possessed of great activity and strength to enable them to catch and retain their food while the water is dashing by them at such a rapid rate. Another visit was made to the same locality in the last week in October, when we found the reproductive bodies of both sexes in great numbers. In these latter the reddish-brown branched spadix showed very distinctly in certain stages of development, ramifying through the opaque-white mass of the gonophore, and in later stages becoming resorbed. The specimens differ in no important respects from the figures and description of Allman. The color is usually a little brighter, being pinkish-red instead of reddish-brown; occasionally there are as many as eighteen or twenty tentacles, and occasionally the shallow annulations at the bases of the ultimate ramuli may be absent, but these all fall within the range of specific variation. Unlike Prof. Leidy's specimens, those from Curtis' creek agree in size with those of Prof. Allman. It is interesting to note that in one of the localities where Prof. Allman collected it, he found it associated with Potamogeton and Lemna, though not attached to them as many of our specimens were. Cordylophora presents three special points of interest: 1. It |