PROGRESS OF ANTHHOPOLOGV IN l«itii. 485 



tablets, the like of wliicli luid never l)otor(' been du.ii' up in F.gyi>t. 

 There were over three luiudred of them, of which mimber the British 

 Museum secured .S2, the Gizeli Museum 00, the Berlin Museum IGO. 

 The Tel-el- Amarua tablets are uiii(iiie as an archa'ological -Mind," and 

 they are also uni<iue as a means of weaving' together the tlireads of the 

 histories of two or three of tlie .ureatest nations of anti<|nity at a crit- 

 ical period. Tliey were ail written between the years 1. ")()() and U.")() 

 li. C. Those in tlie Britisli ^Inseiim consist of a series of disi>atches 

 written from Kinus of Babylonia, Alashiyah, Mitana, I'hcenieia, Syria, 

 and Palestine to Ainenophis IIT, and to his son, Ameiiopliis IV. ^lany 

 of them are also of a personal or private nature. 



Alfred P. Maudslay, who spent seven winters m Central America 

 studying;" and ])hoto,u'raphino- the ancient ruins, announccMl the forth- 

 coming' of a work on this subject, the g'ist of which is given in Xatmr 

 of Aj)rill!!K A ina]) on page (>1S lays down graphically the limits of 

 ^[aya inscriptions. 



The orientation of buildings is considered by Dr. Briuton in tSciencr 

 (XX, (!), and the ori<'ntation of the sides as in Egypt brought into con- 

 trast with that of the corners as in Mesopotamia and Ziini. >\t Zim- 

 babwe a series of ornaments on the walls of the great temi»le are so 

 disposed that one group will receive directly the sun's rays at his 

 rising and another at his setting at the period of the winter solstice, 

 when these points in that latitude were respectively 1*5'^ south of east 

 and west, while a third series of ornaments faced the full midday sun. 



Prof. W. (). Atwater, in the Fonim for June, discusses the scientific 

 study of food as one of the most important problems in anthropology. 

 At present the poorer classes the world ovei- are scantily nourished 

 and the majority of mankind live on a low nutritive plane. The com- 

 ing man will not buy as expeiisi\'e foods l>ecause sonui of the least 

 expensive are most nutritive and ]>alatable. lie will \ alue foods for 

 their nutritive (pialities. Much less food of the ])roi)er (pialitN' will be 

 reipiired to keep a man in his best estate. There will be a revolution 

 in cooking, which is both wasteful and primitive. 



Payne's History of the New World called America is a^ i)hilos(»]»hical 

 treatment of a historical subject. It is a history of America written 

 by a tiained anthropologist. In the author's own words, he has "under- 

 taken the unusual couise of e\i)laining the facts under in\estigation 

 by a theory of human advancement not (mly not genei-ally re(;ognized 

 but not hitherto foiiiiaIl\ enunciated. Some ma\ liml it paradoxical, 

 to assign to adxancemeiit no loftier origin than the organized [uovisiou 

 of the food sui)ply on an artili<'ial as distinguished from a natural 

 basis. The organization of food provision on the artificial ])asis has 

 been combined with that of defense, and communities in which these 

 combined organizations ha\e been fully elaborated have extended their 

 boundaries at the exju'iise of others whoso social arrangements were 

 less advanced." The author sets himself "to restore, if [)ossible, the 



