178 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



guistic researches in South America, comes to a totally different con- 

 clusion from Mr. Tylor. The Doctor, in a communication published 

 in Vienna, claims as the result of his researches that America is the 

 Old World, and Europe, Africa, and Asia the New. He declares that 

 the languages spoken by the Indians in Peru and Bolivia exhibit as- 

 tounding affinities with the Shemitic languages, and especially with 

 Arabic, with which the Doctor is thoroughly acquainted. He claims 

 that the Shemitic roots are universally Aryan, and that the stems of 

 all the varieties of the early Aryan tongues are found in their purest 

 condition in the languages of the Indians of Peru and Bolivia, espe- 

 cially in the Quichua and the Aimara ; and he maintains that the high 

 plains of Bolivia and Peru are the central point from which the human 

 race dispersed, which accords with the view expressed by some Ameri- 

 can archaeologists that America is not only geologically but ethnoloo-i- 

 cally the Old World. 



Professor Mudge has gone into a calculation of the number of years 

 to which the existence of man upon the globe may be traced, basing 

 his calculation upon the rate at which the delta of the Mississippi is 

 deposited. He reaches the conclusion that man has been on the earth 

 not less than two hundred thousand years. Such computations, how- 

 ever, are, as Lyell has shown in respect to the deposits of the Nile, 

 very uncertain data upon which to found any exact estimate of time. 



The most important events in Arctic exploration have been the 

 dispatching of the steamer Jeanette by James Gordon Bennett, and 

 the accomplishing of the northwest passage around Asia by Professor 

 Nordenskjold. 



The object of Professor Nordenskj old's expedition was not only to 

 accomplish what had been attempted so many times without success, 

 but also the acquisition of important scientific information, it now 

 being the opinion of meteorologists that the climate of Europe and 

 America is materially affected by the ever-changing ice and other 

 physical conditions of the Siberian seas ; and that we shall never get a 

 thorough understanding of the laws which regulate the movements of 

 the winds, and the great currents of the sea, until we obtain a more 

 thorough knowledge of the state of things in the polar basin. 



The success of Professor Nordenskjold in achieving this long- 

 sought passage was due to the fact that he is himself an eminent sci- 

 entific man ; that he had a large experience previously in polar ex- 

 ploration, and that before undertaking this expedition he carefully 

 studied everything that had been done, from the first attempt, in the 

 reign of Elizabeth, down to the last expedition. He left Gothenburg 

 on July 4, 1878, and arrived at Yokohama, Japan, on the 18th of the 

 same month, a year later. Two hundred and sixty-four days of this 

 time, the vessels were imprisoned in the ice off Cape Serdze, about one 

 hundred and twenty miles from the Pacific termination of Behring 

 Strait. The results arrived at by Professor Nordenskjold are that the 



