6^e> SCIENCE PROGRESS 



In the classification of the Reptilia the student might have been told where 

 that important and well-known reptile the Mosasaurus is placed ; for there 

 is no order Pythonomorpha given. We also notice a slip on page 222, where, 

 speaking of the Ostracodermi, the author says that jaws are found in all other 

 Vertebrata. This slip is corrected later when the Cyclostomata are referred 

 to, but as it stands it might be misleading to the student. The little book 

 is one of the best introductions to a science that we have seen. ^ q -p. 



Primitive Time-reckoning. By Martin P. Nilsson, Professor in the Uni- 

 versity of Lund. [Pp. xiii -f 384.] (Lund : E. W. K. Gleerup ; 

 London : Oxford University Press, 1920. Price 215. net.) 



Within the last few decades studies in Classical Antiquity have received a 

 new and strong impulse from the comparative investigations of savage and 

 barbarous races. It is enough to remember that we owe such masterpieces 

 of modern humanism as Frazer's Pausanias and Golden Bough to the cross- 

 fertilisation of these two branches of learning in order to realise its importance. 

 The book under review is also the outcome of the same tendency, its special 

 aim being to throw light on the initial stages of the Greek Calendar by the 

 study of primitive time-reckoning. 



A monograph like this one must, in the first place, give an adequate picture 

 of its special subject.that is, a clear exposition of the problem, a well- catalogued 

 and analysed collection of data and sound theoretical conclusions. In aU 

 these respects Prof. Nilsson's book is thoroughly satisfactory. The author, 

 in the Introduction, begins with a detailed analysis of the elements of the 

 problem, of the " limited and indeed small number of phenomena which are 

 the same for all peoples all over the globe, and can be combined only in a 

 certain quite small number of ways " in order to provide a people with a 

 system of time-reckoning. These are the periodic changes of the heavenly 

 bodies — sun, moon, and stars — the changes in climatic and meteorological 

 conditions, and the seasonal change of animal and plant life. After a short 

 sketch of how these data must have appeared to crude and unaided observers. 

 Prof. Nilsson proceeds in the first four chapters to describe one after the other 

 the various elementary time divisions — the day, the seasons, the year — as 

 they are found in the customs and lore of primitive peoples. The counting 

 of the moons occupies the next four chapters, the rest but one being devoted 

 to the calendar arrangements of the ancient civilisations — Babylonian, Jewish, 

 Egyptian, to popular time-reckoning of the European nations, to artificial 

 time-divisions, and to the institution of calendar-makers. 



The last chapter contains some theoretical conclusions, mainly a summary 

 of various generalisations arrived at by induction in the course of the previous 

 chapters. Thus, the author submits that primitive time-reckoning is concrete 

 — the day is named after the sun, the night after sleep, the year is conceived 

 in terms of the yearly products, chiefly the yield of the harvest. Further, 

 it is remarked that primitive time-indications are "discontinuous and aoristic." 

 They are not conceived of "as divisions of time of definite length ; they 

 do not appear as parts of a large whole, limited on both sides by their connection 

 with other divisions of time." The time is conceived as characterised by 

 certain salient points, like definite positions of the sun, definite phases of the 

 moon, which serve as descriptions for the whole contiguous time-period. 

 This is what the author calls the " pars pro toto counting of periods." Finally, 

 Prof. Nilsson gives an interesting theory of the origins of Greek time-reckoning, 

 showing that " it was the necessity for the regulation of the religious cult 

 that first created the calendar of Greece," and that this was done with the 

 aid of Babylonian influences. 



The theoretical conclusions are modest, and well within the sound inductive 

 inferences of the abundant material collected by the author, who makes a 

 point of liis empirical sobriety. " The present work ... is based upon facts 



