P OP ULAR MIS CELL ANY. 



137 



Leading Men of Japan. Bv Charles Lanman. 

 Boston: D. Loth rop & Co. 1883. Pp. 421. $2. 



Bulletin of the United States Fish Commis- 

 sion, vol. i, for 1S81. Washington: Government 

 Printing-office. Pp. 4(55. 



A Manual of Chemical Analysis. Third edi- 

 tion, revised and enlarged. By Frederick Hoff- 

 mann, A. M., Ph. D., and Frederick B. Power, 

 Ph. D. Philadelphia : Henry C. Lea's Son & Co. 

 1883. Pp. 624. 



Compendium of the Tenth Census. Part I, 

 pp. 933; Part II, pp. 847. Washington: Gov- 

 ernment Printiug-Office. 1883. 



Annual Report of the Chief Signal-Officer for 

 the Year 1880. Washington : Government Print- 

 ing-Office. 1881. Pp. 1,120, with 119 Maps and 

 Chans. 



The New Cyclopcedia of Family Medicine: 

 Our Home Physician. By George M. Beard, A, 

 M., M. D. New York : E. B. Treat. 1881. Pp. 

 1,506. Illustrated. $7.50. 



First Annual Report of the Bureau of Eth- 

 nology. 1879-m By J. W. Powell, Director. 

 Washington : Government Priuting-Office. 1881. 

 Pp. 603. Illustrated. 



POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



Fossil Man in America. The question 

 of the contemporaneity of man with the 

 horse and other pliocene mammals was re- 

 cently brought up, in the Academy of Nat- 

 ural Sciences of Philadelphia, in the presen- 

 tation of some fossil remains of horses 

 by Professor Leidy. Professor Cope said 

 that he believed that the contemporaneity 

 would soon be satisfactorily established, and 

 brought forward the Calaveras skull, which 

 was said to have been taken from the gold- 

 bearing gravel of California, and two obser- 

 vations of his own, made in 1879 in Oregon 

 and California, as further confirmatory of 

 the point. The " Carson foot - prints " of 

 Nevada could also be placed in evidence, for 

 they probably belonged to an ancestor of 

 existing man. Professor II. Carvill Lewis 

 insisted that caution should be exercised in 

 accepting as evidence of pliocene man any 

 facts as yet not verified by scientific ob- 

 servers. While the facts proving a post- 

 glacial man were indisputable, the existence 

 of pre-glacial man, either in our own coun- 

 try or in Europe, was not attested by any 

 scientific evidence. The discoveries in Cali- 

 fornia, made for the most part by miners in 

 search of gold, carried with them several se- 

 rious objections to the theory of great an- 

 tiquity. The implements were identical in 

 character with those of modern workman, 

 ship, and the Calaveras skull closely resem- 

 bled that of a modern Indian. The fact is 



not generally mentioned that implements in 

 all respects similar to those of the aurifer- 

 ous gravel occur upon the surface of the 

 ground, and are believed to be the work of 

 well-known tribes. Neither the Calaveras 

 skull nor the implements have suffered the 

 amount of corrosion or weathering that a 

 great antiquity should have given them. 

 The adherence of compact gravel to the 

 Calaveras skull, which is regarded as a sign 

 of great antiquity, is no evidence at all of 

 it, for the same is seen in the case of mod- 

 ern coins and other objects of known date. 

 The very fact that the relics under consid- 

 eration all occur in a gold-bearing gravel 

 may indicate the method by which many of 

 them were buried. Gold-mining was car. 

 ried on, on quite an extensive scale, by the 

 aborigines in these same gravels. School- 

 craft describes an ancient shaft in Table 

 Mountain two hundred and ten feet deep, at 

 the bottom of which human bones and im- 

 plements were found. The argument from 

 analogy is so strong against the great an- 

 tiquity of the California relics, that evidence 

 of the most satisfactory kind must be re- 

 quired to support such a conclusion. 



Dr. George M. Beard. The late Dr. 



George M. Beard, whose articles in the 

 Monthly will be remembered by many of 

 our readers, was a graduate of Yale College 

 began his medical studies in the same insti. 

 tution, and, after an experience of eighteen 

 months as acting assistant surgeon in the 

 United States Navy, received the degree of 

 M. D. at the expiration of a two years' course 

 in the College of Physicians and Surgeons 

 of this city. Beginning practice in New 

 York, he early turned his attention to the 

 study of nervous diseases, and almost im- 

 mediately began to write and publish on 

 medical subjects. Among his earlier works 

 "Our Home Physician," 1S69, "Eating and 

 Drinking," and " Stimulants and Narcotics," 

 1871, were designed for popular use, and 

 have, we understand, had a wide circulation. 

 In conjunction with Dr. A. D. Rockwell he 

 published, in 1875, "Medical and Surgical 

 Electricity." "ITay-Fever, or Summer Ca- 

 tarrh " appeared in 1876; "The Scientific 

 Bases of Delusions," 1877; "Nervous Ex- 

 haustion," 1880; "American Nervousness, 

 with its Causes and Consequences," 1881. 



