2 58 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



figures of people engaged in tlieir ordinary vocations, presented 

 with a life and spirit whicli show how far superior in these quali- 

 ties the higher efforts of the draughtsman's art are to the best 

 photography. The description and historical explanations evince 

 deep research, combined with a genial temper and lively humor, 

 which make the work attractive reading. It has been twice re- 

 printed, the latest revised edition appearing in 1890. In his next 

 publication the author found a subject of wider scope, and as- 

 sumed a higher position. He had passed from art to literature, 

 from literature to archaeological study, and now emerged on the 

 loftier plane of pure science, to which his intellectual tastes and 

 faculties naturally tended. In 1851 appeared his Archseology and 

 Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, which was revised and repro- 

 duced in two volumes as Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, in 1803. 

 The expressive adjective " prehistoric," which was first employed 

 in this title and work, has since made its way into the language 

 of almost every civilized nation, and in France constitutes, as Le 

 Prehistorique, the title of an important science. In his preface 

 the author dwells earnestly on the importance of this science 

 of prehistoric man, and expresses his surprise that " the British 

 Association, expressly constituted for the purpose of giving a 

 stronger impulse and a more systematic direction to scientific in- 

 quiry, embraced within its original scheme no provision for the 

 encouragement of those investigations which most directly tend 

 to throw light on the origin and progress of the human race. 

 Physical archaeology was indeed admissible, in so far as it dealt 

 with the extinct fauna of the paleontologist ; but it was prac- 

 tically pronounced to be without the scientific pale whenever it 

 touched on that portion of the archaeology of the globe which 

 comprehends the race of human beings to whom we ourselves 

 belong." A delusive hope had been raised by the publication, in 

 the first volume of the Transactions of the Association, of " one 

 memoir on the contributions afforded by physical and philologi- 

 cal researches to the history of the human species"; but the 

 ethnologist was doomed to disappointment. From that time all 

 papers relating to this important branch of knowledge had been 

 constantly rejected. It was no small triumph for Sir Daniel 

 Wilson when, thirty-three years later, at the Montreal meeting of 

 the British Association, in 1884, in which he held a prominent 

 position, anthropology was admitted to the rank of a distinct 

 " section," and a committee was appointed, of which he was a 

 member, to investigate the tribes of northwestern Canada a com- 

 mittee from which very extensive reports of " physical and philo- 

 logical researches " have been warmly welcomed by the Associa- 

 tion, and have formed a conspicuous feature of its recent volumes. 

 The publication of this work changed his entire career. The 



