514 RECORD OF SCllENCE FOR 1887 AND 1888. 



entire literature of North American aboriginal languages will leave 

 nothing further to be desired. The original plan of including all works 

 under a single apbabetical list has been abandoned, and the author 

 takes up each of the stocks separately. Two monographs have ap- 

 peared in the new series, " Bibliography of the Eskimo Language " and 

 "Bibliography of the Siouan Language." both issued by the Bureau of 

 Ethnology and printed at the Government Printing Office. Each of 

 the other stocks will receive similar treatment. When the work shall 

 be completed it will leave nothing to desire as a pointer to all sources 

 of information on America. 



Mr. A. S. Gatschet has worked up the linguistic families in South- 

 eastern United States. Further i)ublications on North American speech 

 mixture in French Canada : A. M. Elliott. Timucua grammar : Raoul 

 de la Grasserie. The hieratic manuscripts of Yucatan : Pousse. Tar- 

 ascan texts: H. de Charency. Ancient Nahuatl i)oetry: Daniel G. 

 Brintou. On the Chane Abal tribe and dialect of Chiapas: By the 

 same. The Ixil language : O. Stoll. The Maya language: San Buena- 

 ventura. The Chiapanec language : L. Adam. The Alaquilao lan- 

 guage : D. G. Brinton. 



The Revue de Linguistique, American Journal of Philology, Inter- 

 nationale Zeitschrift fiir algemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Journal of the 

 Royal Asiatic Society, Transactions of the Philological Associations, 

 Zeitschrift der morgeuliindische Gesellschaft, and the journals men- 

 tioned under general anthropology, must be the authorities on glossology. 



TECHNOLOGY. 



The arts of mankind are the material on which to base the natural 

 history of invention. Each art has had its humble birth and has grown 

 to maturity by the constant increase of complexity. The process of in- 

 venting itself has had <in organic growth, commencing with what might 

 be called an unicellular process and ending with a most complicated set 

 of co-ordinated actions, as numerous and intricate as the parts of the 

 human body. Between a childish or a savage acting on suggestion, a 

 no-sooner-said-than-done performauce, and the inventing of the Bell 

 telephone, with all the thinking, experimenting, petitioning, pleading, 

 correspondence, examination, and litigation involved is a very long 

 way. Between the two lie all human mental activities, growing more 

 and more complex as we proceed. 



Anthropology is concerned with every human activity and industry, 

 for the i)urpose of obtaining their testimony to human history. The 

 history of man and of his mind are indeed more clearl}^ written in things 

 than in words. 



There are two or three distinct ways of treating technological mate- 

 rial, based on the order of the ruling concepts, art, race, region. A 

 study might be governed by certain groups of arts for the principal con- 

 cept, as in all Mr. E. B. Tylor's writings ; or by certain regions of the 



