A queer phase of superstition, which in many parts of Europe seriously interferes with the administration of justice, manifests itself in the various means of avoiding the evil consequences of perjury, at least so far as to soothe the pangs of conscience and to avert the divine anger. This immunity is secured in some provinces of Austria by carrying on one's person a bit of consecrated wafer, a piece of bone from the skeleton of a child, or the eyes of a hoopoe, holding a ducat or seven small pebbles in the mouth, pressing the left hand firmly against the side, crooking the second finger, or pulling off a button from the trousers while in the act of swearing, or spitting immediately after taking an oath. The Russian province of Viatka is settled by a people of Finnish origin, the majority of whom have been baptized and call themselves orthodox Christians, while the remainder are still nominally as well as really heathen. When they take an oath it is administered by a pope or priest, and a Russian jurist, J. W. Mjeshtshaninov, describes the method employed by them to forswear themselves with safety. When called upon to take an oath, the witness raises the right hand with the index finger extended; he then lays the left hand in the palm of the right hand with the index finger pointing downward, and by a crisscross combination of the other fingers, which probably works as a charm, the whole body is converted into a conductor, so that the oath entering through the index finger of the right hand passes through the index finger of the left hand into the earth like an electric current. The witness thus feels himself discharged of the binding influence of the oath, and may give false testimony without laying perjury upon his soul.
The superstitions which encourage ignorant people to commit crime are handed down from generation to generation, and have in most cases a purely local character. In other words, the charms and sorceries and other magical arts employed to produce the same results differ in different places, and unless the judges are familiar with these various forms of superstition they will be unable to understand the exact nature of the offenses with which they have to deal, and their efforts to detect and punish violations of the law will be greatly hampered and sometimes completely thwarted.
The subject here discussed has not only a speculative interest for ethnographers and students of folklore, but also, as already indicated, a practical importance for criminal lawyers and courts of justice in the Old World and even in the United States. The tide of immigration that has recently set in from the east and south of Europe has brought to our shores an immense number of persons strongly infected with the delusions which we have attempted to describe. Acts which would seem at first sight to have their origin in impulses of cruelty and brutality are found on closer investigation to be due to crass ignorance and credulity, and, although the ultimate motives are usually utterly selfish, there are rare instances in which the perpetrators of such deeds are thoroughly disinterested and altruistic, and do the most revolting things, not from greed of gain, but solely for the public good. In cases of this kind the most effective preventive of wrongdoing is not judicial punishment but intellectual enlightenment.
[A GEOLOGICAL ROMANCE.]
By J. A. UDDEN.
A western naturalist once said that the geology of Kansas was monotonous. In one sense this remark is certainly justifiable, and the same may be said about the geology of some of the other States on the Western plains. The American continent is built on a comprehensive plan, and many of its formations can be followed for hundreds of miles without presenting much variation in general appearance. Occasionally, however, some feature of special interest crops out from the serene uniformity, and the very nature of its surroundings then makes it appear all the more striking. Minor accidents in the development of our extensive terranes sometimes stand out in bold relief, as it were, from the monotonous background. In their isolation from other details such features occasionally display past events with unusual clearness.
Such is the case with a deposit of volcanic ash which has been discovered in the superficial strata on the plains.[31] It lies scattered in great quantities in a number of localities in Nebraska, Kansas, South Dakota, and Colorado, having been found in no less than twenty counties in the first-mentioned State. It measures from two to fourteen feet in thickness in different localities, and is mostly found imbedded in yellow marl and clay, and has a somewhat striking appearance in the field, due to its snowy whiteness and to the sharpness of the plane which separates it from the underlying darker materials. Many years before its real nature was known it had been noticed and described by Western geologists. Prof. O. T. St. John saw it many years ago in Kansas, where it appeared as "an exceedingly fine, pure white siliceous material," forming a separate layer of several feet, and set off by a sharp line from the buff clay-marl below. His words describe its usual appearance in other places (see Fig. 1).
