Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1900-01-03
 THE KiPU.
Bunch of Strings Used by tho Ancients
 to Keen Accnnnts.


 Dr. Max Uhle, distinuished Ger man scientist, has been for many years engaged in archaeological ex plorations in Peru. He now ret1 ns to that country under the auspices of the American Exploration society, for the purpose of clearing some of the unsolYed problems of the ancient civ ilization of the Incas and to complete a collection for the museum of the University Of California. He bad made a similar collection for the Uni- yersity of Pennsylvania Dr. Uhle 7 proposes to remain two years in Peru to complete his work Among other important discoveries of Dr. Uhle is the kipu,a collection of knotted strings of different eolors, which were used < by the people of the ancient civiliza- tions of Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia for the purpose of keeping accounts They E had no written language and no sys- tenn of figures. Their arithmetic con sisted solely of little knotted strings. Among the primitive villages of the z Andes the descendants of the Incas depend upon the kipu for keeping ac- $ counts, and Dr. Uhle was so fortunate as to discover them in the hands of $ Indian herdsmen, who used them so skillfully that they are able to make record of every animal, every bushel x of feed and article of property that is intrusted to their care. The eolors of the different strings represent differ- < ent articles, such as barley, corn, sheep, rams, ewes, lambs, horses, etc., while the knots, by their size and dis N tance from each other, express hun- dreds, tens and units, in such a man. her as to accurately include the deci- mals. For example, one of the kipus obtained by Dr. Uhle from a shepherd near Lake Titaeaca showed that he had delivered 387 sheep, 285 rams, 121 lambs 1 year old, and 99 still younger; 4 the number of bushels of barley that had been used, the number of sheep killed and furnished to the kitchen of the owner of the flock, and the num- Der eaten by the shepherds, the num- Der that died of disease, the number killed by wild animals and by acci- dent, as completely and as accurately as if it had all been set down by double-entry bookkeeping.
 PREJUDICE MADE PROFITABLE. Superstition Against the Opal Was Mere
 Iy Jewellers Fiction.
 It is only within few years that the fashionable women of Chicago could be induced to wear opals, although they are among the rarest and most beauti- ful of gems. But now the opal, long tabooed because of it's supposed un- lucky qualities, is reported by dealers in gems to be once more selling we'll With this information comes what purports to be the true story of how so beautiful stone came by it's bad name.
 It seems, according to the story, that a Belgian jeweler, finding a great de- mand for opals ill Brussels, sent one of his salesmen to London to purchase a supply. On arriving there this emissary found to his chagrin that the object Of his quest was the most popu- lar gem in the English capital, and that it's price was proportionately large. Forthwith he conceived the story that opals bring bad luck. He circulated this story diligently, with the surprising result that the much sought stones came to be sedulously avoided, and that their price rapidly declined. In the course of two months opals were selling ill London for one third of the price previously asked for them, and the astute Belgian prompt ly bought up all there were offered for sale; in fact, all the opals that were to be had. Before the superstition he had started had time to reach the con- tinent of Europe. he had delivered the jewels to his chief, and the firm had placed them upon the market and reaped a mammoth profit on the trans action.
 The belief in the ill-starred fortune of an opals owner grew greatly and brought fruit a hundredfold. For twenty-five years past the stone has been almost unsalabie, in spite of it's beauty. Now someone has unearthed, ], or more probably invented the story of the Belgian speculator, and the pendu- lum ofNpopular sentiment has begun to swing in the opposite direction.
 
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