The Peabody Museum.

Several gifts have been made by Dr. Agassiz and Dr. W. Mc M. Woodworth to the ethnological collection from the South Sea Islands at the Peabody Museum. The gifts from Dr. Agassiz consisted of a wooden model of a Fiji canoe, a cooking stove for use on canoes, and a very old Fiji bowl.

The canoe, about six feet long, complete in every detail, was made at the request of Dr. Agassiz; it is the model of a large Fiji outrigger working canoe, and is distinguished from a war canoe by the fact that the latter is made double instead of with an outrigger. The boat is caulked with gum, which is protected by strips of palm, and the various portions of the hull are fastened together by ropes of cocoanut fibre. All the cordage is made of this same fibre. The large lateen sail is made of strips of pandanas leaf, sewed together with narrow strips of the same leaf.

The stove, which is very old, is made of terra cotta glazed with gum, and is probably the only one of its kind in this country. When in use, it was set on a bed of sand, on the deck of a canoe, and then heated for cooking purposes. The exact method employed has not yet been determined, for the stove was broken in transportation, and the pieces have not yet been fitted together.

The bowl is in the same condition as the stove. It is also made of glazed terra cotta, probably of the same period.

From Dr. Woodworth, the Museum receives three sets of wooden spears and spear throwers, used by the Australians; a colored dance sash for use over a skirt, from the Samoan Islands, and four throwing spears from New Guinea.