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Page xxiii - The objects of the Association are, by periodical and migratory meetings, to promote intercourse between those who are cultivating science in different parts of America, to give a stronger and more general impulse and more systematic direction to scientific research, and to procure for the labors of scientific men increased facilities and a wider usefuiness.
Page 17 - ... foot may conclude that the animal which left this impression ruminated, and this conclusion is as certain as any other in physics or morals. This footprint alone, then, yields to him who observes it, the form of the teeth, the form of the jaws, the form of the...
Page xxvii - Committee shall be the board of supervision of the Association, and no business shall be transacted by the Association that has not first been referred to, or originated with, the Committee.
Page 33 - It is also quite likely that the size and elegance of some of these farms increased during the latter part of the eighteenth century and the first part of the nineteenth, when the fear of Indian attacks had lessened.
Page 136 - There is no nonsense so unscientific that men called educated will not accept it as science," and, let me add, they will calmly attempt to shove the burden of proof upon the scientific man who is opposed to their views. Sanitary experts, in particular, run up against all sorts of popular superstitions and are inveighed against as " professors " by those who consider themselves the '• practical " workers of the time ; and, let it be noted, the burden of proof is uniformly laid upon these "professors'...
Page 282 - Perhaps one reason why some plants have become extinct or nearly so is their lack of means of migration. As animals starve out in certain seasons when food Is scarce, or, more likely migrate to regions which can afford food, so plants desert wornout land and seek fresh fields. As animals retreat to secluded and isolated spots to escape their enemies, so many plants accomplish the same thing by finding the best places with some of their seeds sown in many regions. Frequent rotations seem to be the...
Page 329 - Briefly stated, the inculcation of the gentile totem was, that the individual belonged to a definite kinship group, from which he could never sever himself without incurring supernatural punishment. Social growth depended upon the establishment of distinct groups, and the one power adequate for the purpose, was that which was believed to be capable of enforcing the union of the people by supernaturally inflicted penalties.
Page 330 - To«'-won-gdho« u-zhi/iga (u-zhi/iga, a small part), each of which had its own special tabu, obligatory upon its own members only, and not upon the other subgroups of the gens. While there was no common totem in a composite gens, the totems of the subgroups which formed such gens had a kind of natural relation to each other; the objects they symbolized were more or less affiliated in the natural world, as, for example, in the...
Page 325 - But it is to be noticed that, while man's own will was believed to act directly, without intervening instrumentality upon his fellows, the supplementing of man's powers by the elements and the animals was obtainable only after an appeal to Wa-ko?t'-da in the rite of the vision. The appeal. — The prayer, which formed a part of the rite of the vision, was called Wa-kon'-da gi-kon. Gi gi-kon' is to weep from loss, as that of kindred; the prefix "gi
Page 327 - The totem's simplest form of social action was in the Religious societies, whose structure was based upon the grouping together of men who had received similar visions. Those who had seen the Bear made up the Bear society; those to whom the Thunder or Water beings had come formed the Thunder or the Pebble society. The membership came from every kinship group in the tribe, blood relationship was ignored, the bond of union being a common right in a common vision.

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