ANTHROPOLOGY, 763 



The increase of interest in folk-lore has made it necessary for the Folk- 

 Lore Society to issue a monthly periodical. 



X. — HEXIOLOGY. 



The relations of mankind to the earth and its living forms are so varied 

 that a correct apprehension of them would involve some information 

 concerning- the whole circle of sciences. For instance, Boulaert treats 

 of the animals useful to industry, arts, and medicine ; Braun, of the 

 parasites of man; Buchan, of climate and race, &c. But far the most 

 important and interesting work on the relation of our race to environ- 

 ment published during the year isDe Candolle's " Origine des plantes 

 cultivees." The work is reviewed in Nature, March 8, and in Silliman's 

 Journal, by Asa Gray and J. Hammond Trumbull. The last-named re- 

 view adds very much to the value of the volume, Dr. Gray correcting 

 and adding to it some references to American plants, and Mr. Trumbull 

 giving a charming chapter on Indian plant names. 



XI. — INSTRUMENTALITIES. 



One of the highest duties of the men in any craft or science is to bring 

 to their work the best instruments and methods. All anthropologists 

 recognize this, and many have brought to the problem their greatest iu- 

 genuity. We might divide these helps into those which aid the senses, 

 those which facilitate operations, and those which aid the memory. A 

 work of the greatest importance is the report of the British Association 

 Committee on Anthropometry. The same committee published a few 

 years since " Notes and Queries," a little volume which did much to give 

 rational form to the studies of English travelers in various parts of the 

 world. C. Koberts and Sir Bawson Bawson, on the committee, are 

 names well known to us. 



Mr. Francis Galton continued his researches into graphic methods of 

 recording sociological problems. He devised a new scheme of rapidly 

 and briefly noting any consanguineal or marital relation whatever, an 

 apparatus for testing the delicacy of the muscular and the other senses 

 in person, and tabular forms and directions for entering data concern- 

 ing families. He also discusses the problem of the development of 

 human faculty. 



The publication in Archiv fur Anthropologie of the contents of the 

 great anthropological museums of Germany is another one of those 

 pieces of thorough work which keep the Germans in the forefront of 

 science. The name of Schaaffhausen is pre-eminent among those foster- 

 ing this enterprise. Dr. J. S. Billings read a paper before the medical 

 and surgical faculty of Baltimore on medical bibliography. The Index- 

 Catalogue of the Surgeon-General's office, under the charge of Dr. Bil- 

 lings, has reached its fifth volume. 



An anthropological society has been formed at Bordeaux; Dr. Azam, 

 president; Dr. Testut, vice-president. 



