2IO SCIENCE PROGRESS 



east, from Nijni Novgorod to the Urals, and from Samara nearly 

 to the Arctic Ocean. The Finnic dialects belong to a group of 

 languages known as Ugrian, spoken over large tracts of Western 

 Siberia, and the Ugrian languages are thought by some to be 

 part of a greater group, formerly called Turanian, but now 

 termed Ural-Altaic, which stretch in an almost complete belt 

 from Lapland to Korea — some would say to Japan." Peake 

 comes to the conclusion that the old view is correct — that the 

 Finn properly so called is a Mongolian. It is difficult to doubt 

 that he is right. The alternative is to suppose that a part of 

 the Nordic race, speaking an utterly different language from 

 its kindred of the West, imposed its language and culture on 

 Mongolian peoples, spread all over Eastern Europe and Western 

 Asia, without leaving any serious trace, physical or otherwise, 

 of this extensive conquest. It is, I think, much more natural 

 to infer that the few Nordics of Finland are Teutons who have 

 lost their language and culture. In the later part of the article 

 Peake discusses other Baltic questions, including the important 

 problem as to the earliest inhabitants of Scandinavia. The 

 author quotes Prof. Montelius as saying that the first race 

 gaining entry to Scandinavia after the last ice age was dolicho- 

 cephalic, and was directly ancestral to the present inhabitants 

 of the country. Peake deals with the early migrations very 

 fully, and puts forward an hypothesis that, before the Nordic 

 incursion into Scandinavia, the country had already been 

 occupied by a Lapponic people. 



In the new issue of the American Journal of Physical 

 Anthropology (vol. iii, No. i, January-March, 1920), the first 

 article is by Philip Newton, and is entitled, " Observations on 

 the Negritos of the Philippine Islands." The paper embodies 

 the results of an expedition to the chief subdivisions of the 

 Negritos which the author carried out in the summer of 191 2, 

 the research being directed by Dr. A. Hrdlicka, and being sup- 

 ported by the Smithsonian Institution and by the Pan-American 

 Exposition of San Diego. The observations were limited as far 

 as possible to pure-blooded Negritos. According to the latest 

 Government census, there were estimated to be 25,000 Negritos 

 in the islands, but Dr. Newton considers that the great majority 

 of these were of mixed blood. He estimates that, aside from 

 the population of an unexplored district in Luzon, the number 

 of pure Negritos falls short of 5,000. In a letter transmitting 

 his report to Dr. Hrdlicka, Dr. Newton says : " The Negritos 

 answered freely all questions they could understand. No 

 information as to their number, births, and deaths, etc., could 

 be obtained from the Philippine Government, for the simple 

 reason that they had none. The Negrito has no unit of time, 

 so knew nothing of his age ; all ages, therefore, are approximate 



