1897] SOME NEW BOOKS 423 



portion of his book. This portion concludes with an account of the 

 great part played by volcanic 'lust in the soils of many of the western 

 States. A reference to Prof. Judd's paper on the lavas of Kraka- 

 toa {Geological Magazine, L888) would have excellently supplemented 

 the important quotation from Diller on p. 293, to the effect that vol- 

 canic dust is richer in silica than its parent lava. 



In the 'theoretical considerations' of chapter VII., we fancy 

 that there is a certain amount of slaying of the slain. But this walk 

 across the battlefield is in reality of service to learners, who are liable 

 to regard all printed text-hooks as infallible. The suggestion on 

 p. 314 that " volcanic activity increased with geological ages, and 

 reached its maximum in Tertiary times," is confessedly based on the 

 geological history of North America, and is, we fancy, not even well 

 founded for that area. The amount of denudation that has laid bare 

 the Archaean rocks of the north-east has probably wrought havoc 

 along many old lines of volcanic activity. 



Prof. Eussell regards the water in lavas as collected during the 

 passage of molten matter, moving under earth-pressure, from the 

 lower into higher and waterlogged regions of the crust (p. 318) ; and 

 the liquid matter may arise during local relief from pressure, as the 

 product of rocks previously solid (p. 312). Hence he considers 

 steam rather as a variable and unessential factor in determining a 

 volcanic outburst. 



The work is, as we have hinted, admirably produced by the pub- 

 lishers. The printers give us ' Koichthofer ' for ' Eichthofen ' on 

 p. 252, and, far more excusably, ' lavas ' and ' lava cases ' for 

 ■ larva? ' and ' larva cases ' on p. 209. 



Geenville A. J. Cole. 



Another Memoir on Funafuti 



The Ethnology of Funafuti. By Charles Hedley. Australian Museum, Sydney. 



Memoir III., part 4, 1897. 



The pressing necessity of a systematic and immediate survey of the 

 ethnology of the islands of the Pacific is again brought clearly before 

 us by Mr Hedley's paper. It is only too manifest that the strictly 

 native culture of Funafuti is rapidly dying out, that the older arts, 

 customs, and appliances are changing apace under the influence of 

 European missionaries and traders. In a few years' time the very 

 recollection of the older culture will die out, and it will be impossible 

 to obtain for our museums even models of the former appliances made 

 with any accuracy at any rate. Hence every careful contribution to 

 South Pacific ethnological literature must be welcomed. Mr Hedley's 

 paper does not profess to be in any way an exhaustive monograph, 

 but is, in the main, a descriptive list of the ethnological specimens 

 and models collected by himself and others, and placed now in the 

 Australian Museum at Sydney. Most of these are described clearly 

 and in some detail, while their interest is increased by reference to 

 the resemblances observable between the various native implements 

 of Funafuti and those of other islands, as bearing upon their affinities 

 and upon the probably complex origin of the general culture of the 

 inhabitants of the island. Funafuti seems to have drawn its culture 



