Warren sheaf. [volume] (Warren, Marshall County, Minn.) 1880-current, 1896-10-22
ARE YOU LEFT.hANDED7


question Of left-handedness in North
American aboriginal art. If hands
worked in the past as they do to-day,
then in primitive times the left-handed,
it would be supposed, were not many
Take 100 Americans, and from two to
four per cent. only are left-handed.
This two or four percent. may do gen.
eral work better or more easily with
the left than with the right hand. In
the SO per cent. of right-handed peo-
pie there may be some few who are am
bidextrous. "Has this proportion al
ways been the same in the human spe-
cies, and does it obtain to-day among
savage tribes?'' DR.. John Evans, as
quoted by Sir Daniel Wilson, believes
that there was manifest predomi-
nance of right-handedness among the
paleolithic fint-workers of southern
England" On the other side, De Nor
tillett, after a careful study of a54 stone
scrapers coming from France and
Switzerland, arrives at the contrary
opinion. In the University of Pennsyl-
vania, among a collection of flints of
the very earliest types, found on the
Libyan plateau, near Abydos, there are
two, both of which, DR.. Brinton writes,
are made for a left-handed man. It is
difficult to describe, without giving
great space to the subject, how the
archaeoloeist can exactly determine
whether tool was to be used in the
right or the left hand. Studying 200
81 ;,% III
Gus parts of the United States, the
largest proportion was made for the
right-handed. But, nevertheless, there
was ''33 per cent. for probably left
handed persons, or, as DR.. Brinton
writes it, ''for persons, as prefer to
believe, y who were ambidex-
trous." That there must have been
left-handed artists becomes more clear
in this way. Ask anyone to draw
profile, and almost invariably the right
handed person makes the face looking
to the left, while the left-handed per-
sons sketch is to the right. In ex-
aiming, then, collection of Amer
lean aboriginal rock drawings there is
a predominance of proiles looking to
the left, but not ;nfrequent occurrences
of profles in the opposite direction.
DR.. Brinton comes to the conclusion
that De Mortillet was correct, also that
there were more left-handed or am
bidextrous American aborigines than
Europeans. Perhaps, as DR.. Brinton
indicates it, the specialization of hands
came with more recent culture
American Anthropologist.
German Device to Save the Pines.
Circling the trunks of trees with
sticky substance to prevent noxious
insects from ascending to the leaves
is familiar method of protection
which has been applied on a large scale
in the pine forests of Germany. For
merly the pine moth was most de-
structive and dreaded enemy of these
valuable forests, but now it is no long
er feared. The caterpillars of the pine
moth, being born at the end of August.
do very little damage before the autumn
frosts set in and compel them to go
into winter quarters in the moss-car-
peted ground at the foot of the trees.
But in the spring, unless interfered
with, they ascend the trunks and fall
upon the green needles with ravenous
appetite. It is estimated that a single
caterpillar consumes. on the average,
LOCO pine needles. BY scraping
smooth band in the rough bark around
each tree trunk, and then smearipg the
band with a mixture of tar, grease and
glue, an insurmountable barrier il pre-
sented to the caterpillars, and in this
simple manner. the great pine forests
of middle and northern Germany have
been securely fortified against their
insect enemies. Ycuth's Compsuion.