cxxviii GENERAL SUMMARY OF SCIENTIFIC AND 



of climate, which permitted tropical and northern species of 

 animals to inhabit certain localities of Europe at different 

 periods, when the temperature was congenial to their re- 

 spective habits. Tropical quadrupeds, like the hippopotamus, 

 tiger, and hyena, he thinks, can not have lived side by side 

 with the reindeer, musk-ox, mammoth, and woolly rhinoceros, 

 and he rejects the views of those geologists who try to get 

 over this difficulty by assuming that the animals of the first- 

 named class migrated annually at the beginning of the severe 

 season to warmer regions, and returned as soon as milder 

 weather set in. It remains to be seen whether Mr. Geikie's 

 conclusions concerning the glacial epoch will be adopted. 



RESEARCHES AMONG LIVING TRIBES. 



The progress of historical study must be in two directions, 

 toward a better knowledge of the past, and toward a better 

 knowledge of the present. The latter rests on testimony, 

 the former is comparative and deductive. As in the study 

 of geology we find the forms of living beings in any age to 

 be a compendium of all preceding ages, and as the present 

 epitomizes all the past, so in ethnology we find now living 

 on the earth tribes who are using the weapons, tools, and 

 vessels of the extinct races, so that by the possession of a 

 single arrow-head, knife, or piece of pottery, we may predicate 

 with almost certainty the social condition of the men who 

 used them. Persons collecting material among living tribes 

 can not be too careful in excluding objects, inasmuch as 

 specimens which may seem* wholly insignificant of them- 

 selves may be valuable beyond price in making up a series. 



North America. Our knowledge of the tribes of South- 

 western Alaska and of the Aleutian Isles has been greatly 

 increased during the past year by the researches of Mr. 

 William H. Dall, of the United States Coast Survey, and of 

 Mr. Henry W. Elliott, United States agent for Alaska, and 

 by the interesting and valuable material which they have 

 sent home. 



Mr. T. G. B. Floyd, in the journal of the Anthropological 

 Institute (read February 24, 1874), has an interesting paper 

 upon the Bcethucs, a term applied to the so-called Red In- 

 dians formerly of Newfoundland. 



Mr. A. P. Reed, in the same journal (read March 10, 1874), 

 describes the half-breed races of Northwest Canada. 



