HAllDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



insubordinate and fierce personal independence 

 which prevents them from obeying a chief or allying 

 themselves with others for self-defence.* 



If the attention of ethnologists and archaeologists 

 were once drawn to the importance of detecting 

 Papuau tribes jn aboriginal America, great light 

 might, I think, be thrown upon the origin of the 

 American races and of the singular civilization 

 which once flourished in the New World. 



The Papuan has, as Wallace tells us repeatedly, 

 a higher intellectual capacity and " feeling for art" 

 than the Malay, f 



Pickering calls the Fijians "a far more ingenious 

 people than the (Malay) Polynesians." J 



May it not be that we owe some of the great 

 monuments of America to an admixture of Papuan 

 blood ? Herrera (quoted by Stephens, p. 533) says 

 that the Indians of Yucatan (Mayas ?) wore their 

 hair in tresses of spiral curls at the time of the 

 conquest, as the Papuans still do, and some of the 

 figures sculptured at Palenque present the same 

 peculiarity. 



It is an interesting fact that the aboriginal 

 negroid or Papuan races still inhabit the interior 

 of Indo-China) to the languages of which the dia- 

 lects of the Central American races have recently 

 been discovered by Mr. Hyde Clarke to be closely 

 allied, § and that Buddha is commonly depicted 

 in China and India with negroid features — his 

 mother Maia (or Maya) being of Papuan race, i. e. 

 a Moy. || 



Civilization may have reached a far higher develop- 

 ment amongst the Papuan races than we are aware 

 of, and we may owe more to this despised race than 

 we generally suppose. 



Francis A. Allen. 



THE MICROSCOPE, AND MICROSCOPIC 



WORK. 



No. 1.— By E. Kitton. 



IT is an old saying, that a bad workman finds 

 fault with his tools ; and, no doubt, the con- 

 verse holds good, that good work will be done by a 

 skilled workman even with bad tools,— and this is 

 very conspicuously the case if we look at the work 

 done by such men as Hooke, Leeuwenhoek, Swam- 

 merdam, Baker, and others, with the instruments at 

 their command. It must, however, be understood 



* See Latham's "Man and his Migration," p. 105; and 

 also "The Papuans," by G. W. Earl, M.R.A.S. (Is not this 

 a distinctively Turanian feature?) 



t See Wallace's " Malay Archipelago," p. 587. 



t See "Races of Men," pp. 152, 153; and also Earl's 

 " Papuans," p. 68. 



^ See papers read before the British Association, 1874. 



|| See Earl's "Papuans," p. 159. 



that these men were not microscopists, they did not 

 look upon the microscope as a superior kind ol'pcep- 

 show, for which pretty slides were to be prepared, 

 like slides for a magic-lantern. The proper use of 

 a microscope is to enable us to examine and study 

 objects too minute to be visible to the unassisted 

 eye, and not to look at arranged diatoms, butterfly 

 scales, and crickets' gizzards. Oar opinion would 

 be small indeed of an entomologist or conchologist 

 who arranged his specimens in groups of flowers 

 or geometrical patterns, and, instead of employing 

 a scientific arrangement, only studied how to make 

 his cabinet look pretty. The " microscopist," how- 

 ever, delights jn a slide of arranged diatoms, on 

 which fresh-water and marine forms, fossil and 

 recent, rare species from the Pacific Islands and 

 those from the nearest wayside ditch, are arranged 

 so as to form a star or some intricate geometric 

 pattern. I do not object to the selection or even 

 arrangement of diatoms when, as it frequently hap- 

 pens, we can only obtain them mixed with sand and 

 other debris; and if few in number this method 

 places many forms together, and enables us to 

 detect any variations that the species may be 

 subject to. It lies also another and a greater ad- 

 vantage to the manipulator, who whilst picking out 

 sees the form under various aspects. Another kind 

 of arrangement, viz., one on which some fifty or 

 more species from the same] gathering are placed 

 together, is also useful, as showing the number of 

 species to be found in the same habitat ; but butter- 

 fly scales arranged as flowers (with, perhaps, diatom 

 valves for centres) cannot be of the slightest scien- 

 tific value. All that can be said in their favour is, 

 that they show considerable manipulative skill. I 

 must also protest against the term " microscopist," 

 or " microscopy " : there is no such science. One may 

 study the minute forms of animal or vegetable life, 

 or may trace the minute structure of tissues of the 

 larger forms, but these are departments of zoology, 

 bot°any, and histology ; or the microscope may be 

 used for investigating the forms and optical 

 properties of crystals, but that study is crystallo- 

 graphy. We have clearly shown that there_ is 

 no such science as microscopy (unless the collecting 

 and looking at pretty objects can be called so). It 

 would seem absurd to call the study of the stellar 

 worlds telescopy, or the student a telescopist, but 

 these terms would really not be more so than 

 microscopy or microscopist. I would urge all those 

 who possess a microscope to use it for the purpose 

 of investigation (it matters but little what depart- 

 ment they take up), and follow the example of such 

 men as Beale, Drysdale, Dallinger, and several ot 

 the contributors to this periodical. Every one does 

 not possess the skill of preparing slides equal to 

 those sold by the opticians, but it does not require 

 much skill to dissect an insect, and see the relation 



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