LITERARY NOTICES. 



129 



Nashville about two years ago. The ma- 

 terial worthy of illustration accumulated so 

 rapidly that it was found impossible to do 

 justice to it in the modest pamphlet that 

 was contemplated. It became necessary, 

 also, to consider the general subject of an- 

 cient monuments and antiquities in Tennes- 

 see, in order properly to introduce the new 

 material discovered, and thus make the pub- 

 lication useful to a larger class of readers. 

 The people whose relics are described here 

 are called by the author the Stone-Grave 

 race, because their dead were placed in cists 

 or box-shaped graves built of stone slabs, 

 and sometimes constructed with much care. 

 A hundred or more of these graves are oc- 

 casionally found, deposited in several tiers 

 or layers, in a single burial mound. The 

 utensils and treasures laid away with the 

 bodies are generally well preserved, and 

 " tell the story of domestic life in the Cum- 

 berland and Tennessee Valleys with remark- 

 able exactness, and unravel secrets that the 

 most imposing monuments of the native 

 races have failed to disclose." Besides the 

 graves, the remains of the forts, villages, 

 and settlements of the same people have 

 been discovered in considerable numbers ; 

 and, on the whole, Tennessee appears to have 

 afforded one of the most fruitful fields that 

 the American archaeologist has been privi- 

 leged to explore. The articles inscribed 

 stones, idols, images, totems, potteries, pipes, 

 implements of chipped stone, smooth stone, 

 copper, bone, and shell betoken an artistic 

 taste and technical skill beyond that of our 

 Indians or of the mound-builders of the 

 States farther north, and are more on the 

 level of the best New Mexican work. Among 

 the most remarkable of them are some finely 

 finished large flints, from sixteen to twenty 

 inches long, which the author designates as 

 scepters, and others equal to them in degree, 

 which he classifies as ceremonial implements. 

 The most remarkable, perhaps, are the shell 

 gorgets, carved with intricate figures, in 

 which the human form may be discerned, 

 the style of which suggests Mexican and 

 Central American work. One of these, from 

 the MacMahon Mound, Sevierville, repre- 

 sents two human figures in combat, and is 

 regarded as the highest example of aborigi- 

 nal art ever found north of Mexico. A 

 unique stone in the collection of the Tennes- 

 vol. xxxviii. 9 



see Historical Society has engraved upon it 

 the representation of a group of mound- 

 builders, with their banners, weapons, cos- 

 tumes, and manner of dressing the hair 

 clearly shown. The author, who is an origi- 

 nal investigator, and not liable to be de- 

 ceived, vouches for the authenticity of all 

 that he describes. A chapter is devoted to 

 the study of the ancient houses, which are 

 compared with those of the Mandans, and 

 the aboriginal trade, which seems to have 

 been co-extensive with the continent. In age 

 the people were probably pre-Columbian, 

 but may have lived down to the days of the 

 Spanish explorers. In ethnic relations they 

 were a branch of the general stock of our 

 Indians, in a more advanced stage of civili- 

 zation than any of them now are, but not in 

 other respects differing more from them 

 than some of the tribes differ from others. 



The Criminal. By Havelock Ellis. Con- 

 temporary Science Series. New York: 

 Scribner & Welford. Pp. 33V. Price, 

 $1.25. 



Mr. Ellis has attempted in this work to 

 present to the English reader a critical sum- 

 mary of the results of the science now com- 

 monly called criminal anthropology. The 

 study of the problems of this science which 

 deals with the criminal as he is in himself and 

 as he becomes in contact with society, and 

 with the social bearings of the subject has 

 been carried on with great activity during 

 the past fifteen years in many countries, and 

 has given rise to a considerable number of 

 elaborate and thorough-going treatises, most 

 of which are inaccessible to general English 

 readers, and, by reason of their magnitude or 

 of the special, detailed character of the re- 

 search, are not likely to become familiar. 

 Mr. Ellis has reviewed them and picked out 

 the conclusions to which they lead with much 

 skill and apparently without prepossession 

 in favor of any special theory. Besides doing 

 his workman's work in a workmanlike man- 

 ner, he has shown a capacity to handle the 

 subject independently, as one who has made 

 himself master of it, and has matured his 

 own manner of regarding it. First, the chief 

 varieties of the criminal are enumerated ; 

 the causes of crime are classed as cosmic 

 the influence of the external organic world ; 

 biological the personal peculiarities of the 



