SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 847 



reader had presented to him in a graphic way a light sketch of the habits, 

 manners, and customs of the various peoples of the world. There were 

 blunders, of course, such as classifying the Japanese with the uncivilized 

 races ! In the work of Ratzel we have a popular exposition of the subject 

 from the same standpoint. It is a compact storehouse of facts, and the in- 

 finite lines of research shown in this remarkable compilation of data give 

 one a just idea of the tremendous strides the science of ethnology has taken 

 within a quarter of a century. A book bearing the indorsement of Pro- 

 fessor Virchow and introduced to English readers by a prefatory chapter 

 from the pen of Dr. E. B. Tylor must be one of importance and merit, and 

 so it is. It has an unusually large number of illustrations of the weapons, 

 utensils, toys, totems, etc., of all the races of the world. The portraits are 

 derived from the very best sources, while maps and brightly colored plates 

 make up a veritable ethnographic museum, and this feature alone renders 

 the book indispensable to American students. Much of the material illus- 

 trated is derived from museums which have come into existence within 

 recent times. 



The work is so valuable that it seems an ungracious task to point out 

 omissions. It is, however, necessary to call attention to the very evident 

 fact that the author has derived his material almost exclusively from Euro- 

 pean sources. In that portion of the work dealing with the native races 

 there are but few references to the work of American students. He shows 

 no evidence of ever having seen the magnificent series of volumes issued 

 by the United States Bureau of Ethnology, by far the most important of 

 the General Government's publications. When one recalls the valuable 

 contributions of Mason on the Throwing Stick; Cushing on Zuni Fetiches; 

 The Sign Language and Petrographs, by Mallery ; Mortuary Customs, by 

 Yarrow ; Burial Mounds, by Thomas ; Central Eskimos, by Boas ; Point Bar- 

 row Eskimos, by Murdoch; Chiriqui Art in Shell and Pottery and other 

 papers, by Holmes; Pueblo Architecture, by MindelefT; Masks, Labrets, 

 etc., by Dall; and the contributions by Powell, Stevenson, Henshaw, Mat- 

 thews, Bourke, Hoffman, Mooney, Turner, Dorsey, McGee, Fewkes, and 

 others which enrich these volumes, and a host of American workers in 

 other lines of investigation, as Morgan, Bandelier, Mrs. Nuttall, Brinton, 

 Culin, and many others, one realizes how clearly Ratzel has restricted him- 

 self to the work of European students. It is true many of these memoirs 

 were not published when the first edition of this work appeared in 1884 ; 

 but when the second German edition was published in 1895 most of these 

 memoirs had appeared and many of them had been widely noticed in Euro- 

 pean journals, and the lavish generosity of our Government in the distri- 

 bution of its publications must have placed them on the shelves of every 

 leading library in Europe. The author in several instances confounds 

 Japan with China by including both countries under certain general state- 

 ments, and in one case the word Japan appears when it should read Java. 



There is no evidence that the author recognizes the lowly origin of man. 

 Dealing with the most pregnant facts as to man's evolution, he questions 

 whether the savage is lower than other races considered civilized. For this 

 reason perhaps the early stages of man are not considered, and therefore 

 one must look elsewhere for the evidences of prehistoric man. Not a 

 cranium or a human bone, unless it represents a trophy or a fetich, is given. 

 It is true the work is for the general reader, but nowadays the general 



