G. GENERAL NATURAL HISTORY AND ZOOLOGY. 311 



and while each author will be alone responsible for his por- 

 tion of the work, the general arrangement of the materials 

 Avill rest with the president of the society. 



The selection of records will embrace the entire range of 

 Egyptian and Assyrian history and literature. The first vol- 

 ume is shortly to be issued by Messrs. Bagster & Sons. 12 

 ^l,e7';ie 5, 1873, 112. 



THE PREHISTORIC RACES OF AMERICA. 



Shortly before his death, the late Colonel J. W. Foster 

 completed the manuscript of a work upon the prehistoric 

 races of the United States, which has just made its appear- 

 ance from the press of S. C. Griggs & Co., of Chicago. This 

 contains an excellent summary of the present state of our 

 knowledge of the aborigines of North America, as illustrated 

 by the remains found in mounds, shell heaps, and ancient 

 mines, as well as by their crania. Beginning, for the first 

 chapter, with a notice of the recent progress of ethnology, 

 and with the evidences of the antiquity of man in Europe, 

 the second chapter is devoted to the proofs of this antiquity 

 in the United States, and the authenticity and value of the 

 remains found in the gold drift of California ; and the Cal- 

 averas skull, the plummet from San Joaquin Valley, etc., are 

 passed under review. 



A chapter is devoted to a notice of the mound-builders 

 and the geographical distribution of their work, and another 

 to the shell heaps of the coast, followed by one on the gener- 

 al nature of the mounds and their inclosures, and the arts and 

 manufactures as shown by these remains. The chapter on 

 ancient mining by the mound builders is very interesting, 

 the author having himself prosecuted very extensive investi- 

 gations on the subject during his connection with the surveys 

 in the Lake Superior region. The special characteristics of 

 the mining of the aboriginal man of America are discussed, 

 and references made to certain peculiar forms of implements 

 noticed by Colonel Foster at the late meeting of the Ameri- 

 can Association at Dubuque. 



The inquiry as to the origin of the mound-builders is an- 

 swered by a suggestion that they were derived from the 

 tropics rather than a migration from the Old World, as there 

 is no appreciable difterence between the crania of the ancient 



