270 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to hope that other steps in the moral 

 unification of the race will follow. 

 It is satisfactory to think that it is to 

 a large extent the result of individual 

 effort. The different governments 

 of the world have been rather passive 

 than active in the matter. They 

 have had the grace and they de- 

 serve credit for it to let the best 

 heads in their several services co- 

 operate in developing this great 

 scheme, which deserves to be regard- 

 ed as one of the most definitive steps 

 in advance that civilization has ever 

 taken. When the proposition was 

 first made it was not looked upon with 

 great favor in more than one high 

 quarter, but, as it did not involve 

 much expenditure of money, no seri- 

 ous obstacles were thrown in the way. 

 The thinkei's who had it in hand soon 

 showed what could be made of it, 

 and to-day the world is reaping the 

 benefit of their labors and their sa- 



gacity. As we began by saying, the 

 congress of this world-wide union 

 is a congress of the competent let 

 us add of the responsible. As it hap- 

 pens, these are precisely the two ad- 

 jectives that are least ai^plicable, gen- 

 erally speaking, to the members of 

 political assembles elected by popu- 

 lar vote. As to competence, there is 

 no need to discuss the matter ; as to 

 responsibility, it means nothing in 

 political circles save liability to cen- 

 sure and rejection on the next occa- 

 sion, if the representative has not 

 pushed local interests with sufficient 

 vigor and sufficient disregard of 

 wider considei'ations. It would be 

 vain to look for any sudden change 

 in the working of democratic insti- 

 tutions; and yet an object lesson like 

 that afforded by the Congress of the 

 Universal Postal Union is one that 

 should not be wholly lost on reason- 

 able men. 



SPECIAL BOOKS. 



Those interested to learn of their paleolithic and neolithic ancestors 

 will find an interesting account of their conditioning in Prehistoric Man 

 and Beast.* Although embodying the results of recent geologic and ar- 

 chaeologic research, the book is not at all technical, but adapted to the pop- 

 ular reader. If he knows anything of scientific theory, he may be aroused 

 by the epithets applied to the cherished hypotheses of some writers. The 

 great ice sheet is called " a myth," the polar ice cap " a monstrous fiction," 

 and the astronomical theory of an ice age receives no milder treatment in 

 the chapter devoted to the discussion of the subject. But, having dealt 

 as an iconoclast with these favored cults, the author writes of the lore of 

 fairyland in an opposite fashion. Fairies are not legendary beings, but real 

 folk, whom scientific people "may no longer dare to despise." The small, 

 tricky natives of an island off the Schleswig coast were called Pucks, and 

 even mermen and mermaids had their prototypes in a Finnish people who 

 dressed in sealskins and were taken by the Shetlanders to be half human. 



The record of primeval man is not found in documents produced by 

 impressionable minds, but is registered in the river gravels, cliff caverns. 



* Prehistoric Man and Beast. 

 Co. Pp. 298, 8vo. Price, 83.00. 



By Kev. H. N. Uutchineon, F. G. S. New York : D. Appleton & 



