552 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to which they relate after history is supposed to have come in. If 

 we want light upon this unrecorded past, we must seek it by the aid 

 of palseethnological data; and anthropology may be very advanta- 

 geously united with palgeethnology to furnish valuable instruction con- 

 cerning the autochthonic race of France, its development, transforma- 

 tions, customs, and migrations, and the invasions it suffered in the 

 most remote antiquity. " With the aid of these two sciences, both 

 of wholly new origin, we are able to trace the earliest pages of the 

 history of France." The book begins with a review of what the 

 texts afford regarding the earlier peoples of France; then brings 

 forward the evidence yielded by language and the study of the evo- 

 lution of writing ; next presents the results of research respecting the 

 precursors of man, the rise and development of industries, societies, 

 and civilization; and studies the primitive races of perhaps two hun- 

 dred and thirty thousand or two hundred and forty thousand years 

 ago; their mixture with the other races that came in from abroad 

 and possessed the country; and, finally, the formation of the French 

 population as we now find it. 



M. de Mortillet's relations with his pupils and with his country, and 

 his private character, are spoken of in the highest terms. For more 

 than twenty years his lectures at the Ecole d' Anthropologic, treating 

 the most various questions respecting prehistoric times, attracted large 

 and attentive audiences, often including students from abroad, who 

 afterward became masters of the science in their own countries. 

 " He was always ready to receive workers in the science, even the 

 least and humblest, to bestow advice and encouragement upon them, 

 and to give them the benefit of his experience and extensive erudi- 

 tion, and for this his pupils and friends lament him." Against his 

 integrity no suspicion was ever breathed. 



In political faith he was always advanced, and ever true to his 

 convictions. He was maire of Saint-Germain from 1882 to 1888, and 

 deputy from the department of Seine-et-Oise from 1885 to 1889. 



In the observations of the meteoric shower of November 13, 1897, at 

 Harvard College Observatory, one of the meteors appeared, according to the 

 calculations, at the height of 406 miles, and disappeared at the height of 43 

 miles, and at a distance of 196 miles. Another appeared at a height of 182 

 miles and disappeared at a height of 48 miles, and a distance of 74 miles. 

 The first meteor was red or orange, or, to Prof. W. H. Pickering, the color 

 of a sodium flame, and the other white. Both penetrated the atmosphere 

 to about the same depth, and both were clearly Leonids. These facts go to 

 show, Professor Pickering thinks, that the difference in color noted is not 

 due to a mere grazing of our atmosphere in some cases, and a correspond- 

 ingly low temperature, but to an actual difference in the chemical compo- 

 sition of the individual meteors.. 



