274 ^^^ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



primitive times, the working of wood did no less. The potter's art origi- 

 nated early, and the forms of primitive pottery are an ever-pleasing sur- 

 prise to the archaeologist and the technographer. The same is true of the 

 textile industry. In producing implements of war and the chase invention 

 made important advances in primitive times, and material is not lacking to 

 show how facilities for travel and transportation, both by land and sea, 

 arose. Coming to the end of the volume, we are impelled to query why the 

 author made his index so scanty, and why he divided it in the inconvenient 

 German fashion. 



The other of the two hooks referred to above is concerned with the art 

 of writing.* The important aid which this art gives to man's progress by 

 preserving the experience of each generation to guide all that follow 

 makes it well worthy of separate treatment. The art of transmitting in- 

 telligence proceeds from objects serving as reminders through picture 

 writing to phonetic writing with an alphabet. The author has presented 

 this course of development especially as it is shown among the native races 

 of North America, from the Innuit in the north to the Mayas and ancient 

 Mexicans in the south, among whom all stages are represented. Illustra- 

 tions are frequently drawn also from the Egyptian and other Oriental 

 peoples. It is easy to see how objects can be represented by pictures, and 

 savage races have shown themselves very clever in representing action by 

 the same means. Thus in many of the Ojibwa records going, or running, 

 is represented by drawing either the sole of the foot or the lower j)art of 

 the legs. In the Mexican codices a distinction between running and walk- 

 ing is denoted by placing the legs in the correct position in each case. The 

 sign for eating or food among several peoples consists of a human figure 

 with the hand placed to the mouth. Lines proceeding from the mouth of 

 either a human or animal figure denote the use of the voice. Adding the 

 figure of the heart within the outline of the human body makes the voice 

 lines mean singing. Similarly wavy lines from the ears denote hearing. 

 To distinguish an object used as a proper name, a human figure or the 

 head alone is placed below it with a line from the mouth to the name 

 object. Such signs gradually become conventionalized and reduced to 

 simpler forms. When the name or sound suggested by one object comes 

 to be joined with another such sound to denote a word having only a 

 phonetic relation to the names of these two objects, then the ideograms 

 become phonograms. Further progress in this direction converts the 

 phonograms into alphabetic characters. At the discovery of America the 

 writing of the Mexicans and Mayas was rapidly approaching the syllabic 

 stage. The only phonetic alphabet actually devised by aboriginal Ameri- 

 cans is that of the Cherokee, Sequoya, but this uses the forms of the Roman 

 letters variously modified, and hence is not an independent creation. Dr. 

 Hoffman's volume contains four plates and over a hundred smaller figures, 

 and is adequately indexed. 



The world is beginning to realize that " Peace hath her victories no less 

 renowned than war," and in consequence its appetite for butchery seems to 

 be abating. A set of books called the Century Science Series, that has been 



* The Beginnings of Writing. By Walter James Hoffman, M.D. Anthropological Series. Pp. 

 209, 12mo. New York : D. Appleton & Co. Price, $1.75. 



