abstracts: anthropology, physical anthropology 271 



ANTHROPOLOGY. — Censers and incense of Mexico and Central 



America. Walter Hough. Proceedings U. S. Natural Museum, 



42: 109-137. Apri 17, 1912. 



The paper is a study of ancient and modern censers and presents a 



classification of these interesting objects into communal censers, which 



are stationary, and special censers, which are classed as portable, gesture 



and swinging censers. It also discusses the use of incense in worship, 



the origin of incense materials, and the customs connected with the 



use of incense. The paper is illustrated with twelve plates and twelve 



text figures. W. H. 



PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY.— The natives of Khar g a Oasis, Egypt. 



Ales Hrdlicka. Smithsonian Miscellaneous collect'ons, 59: no. 1. 



1912. 

 This work is the result of the cooperation of the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution with the Metropolitan Museum of New York. It presents 

 geographical and historical notes on the Great Oasis and the recent 

 data on the Kharga Oasis people. The writer has gathered numerous 

 general observations and information on environment, social and medical 

 records, vital statistics, physiological observations on the body and 

 a large number of measurements on the people. This valuable and 

 comprehensive study contains a bibliography and appendix of detailed 

 measurements and is illustrated with thirty-eight plates and twelve 

 figures. Dr. Hrdlicka concludes: 



The type of the Kharga natives is radically distinct from that of the 

 negro. It is according to all indications fundamentally the same as 

 that of the non-negroid Valley Egj-ptians. It is in all probability a 

 composite of closely related northeastern African and Southwestern 

 Asiatic, or "hamitic" and " Semitic" ethnic elements, and is to be classed 

 with these as part of the southern extension of the Mediterranean sub- 

 division of the white race. 



Judging from the mummies of the Oasis inhabitants from the 2-5 

 centuries A. D., exhumed at El Baguat, the type of the present non- 

 negroid Kharga natives is substantially the same as that of the popu- 

 lation of the Oasis during the first part of the Christian era. The nature 

 of the population of the Oasis in more ancient times can only be deter- 

 mined by skeletal material from the ancient) cemetries. 



W. Hough. 



