ir way through it with untold difficulty are found in
narrow and deep canyons having no land for cultivation. A dangerous feat
for man to descend these precipices, the passage by an animal of burden
is almost impossible. The Rio Grande passes for eighty miles or more
through its black abyss, with walls of seven or eight hundred feet in
height, crowned with perpendicular cliffs of solid lava, two and three
hundred feet high. Throughout the whole region there is no agriculture.

THE PRINCIPLE OF CEPHALIZATION.

In the last of a series of papers on cephalization (or brain
development) as a fundamental principle in the development of the system
of animal life, Prof. Dana says ("American Journal," October, 1876): "I
would refer to the case among mammals for an illustration of the
principle that the lowest forms are those having their locomotive
functions located in the posterior parts of the body; and that in the
higher the forces, or force organs, are more and more forward in the
structure. For example, in the whale the tail is the propelling organ,
and is of enormous power and magnitude, and the brain is very small, and
is situated far from the head extremity in a great mass of flesh and
bone furnished with poor organs of sense; a grade up, in the horse or
ox, the tail or posterior extremity is no longer an organ of locomotion,
and is little more than a caudal whip lash, and locomotion is performed
by organs situated more anteriorly, the legs, and a well-formed head
carries a brain which is a vastly higher organ of intelligence than that
of the whale, but the legs are simply organs of locomotion, and the
hinder are the more powerful; and higher up, in the tiger or cat, the
fore legs--not the hind legs--are the organs of chief muscular force,
and these have higher functions than that of simple locomotion, and
further, the body is proportionately shortened, and the head is
shortened anteriorly, or in the jaws, and approximates thus toward the
condition of man. The existence or not of a switch-like tail, as in
ordinary quadrupeds, has little bearing on the question of the degree of
cephalization, since the organ is not an organ of locomotion, or one
indicating a large posterior development of muscular bone. But,
approaching man in the system of life, even this seems to have
significance."

CURIOSITIES OF THE HERRING FISHERY.

The hot weather last summer affected even the herring fishery. The
fishermen off the Scotch c