May II, 191 1] 



NATURE 



147 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



[Ihe Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions 

 expressed by Iiis correspondents. Neither can he undertake 

 to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected 1 

 manuscripts intended for this or any other part of Nature. | 

 No notice is taken 0/ anonymous communications.] 



The Racial Problem in Nubia. 



It has been objected that the sketch of the history of 

 Nubia gi%en in the article on " The Unveiling of Nubia " 

 in Nature, April 27, p. 283, does not agree in every par- 

 ticular with the accounts given by Mr. Firth in the sixth 

 Bulletin of the Archaeological Survey of Nubia, p. 8, and 

 by me at the Sheffield meeting of the British Association 

 and in several lectures during the past year. 



It must be remembered, however, that the notice in 

 Nature was a review of the published account of the 

 ■suits obtained by Dc, Reisner during the first season's 

 work of the ArchaeofoJical' Survey, and it did not come 

 within the scope of the' reviewer's task to describe the 

 attempts that have been made during the last three years 

 to throw further light upon the significance of the facts 

 set forth in Dr. Reisner's report. 



It may prevent such misunderstanding, however, if a 

 brief statement is made of the bearing of recent investiga- 

 tions upon the meaning of the facts brought to light in 

 Nubia. It is not without significance that the archiEO- 

 logists, studying in Nubia the handiwork of the ancient 

 people, and" the anthropologists, as the result of the 

 examination in England of the remains of the Nubians 

 that have been sent over here, have arrived quite in- 

 dependently and without collusion at the same interpreta- 

 tion of the significance of the story the pottery and the 

 bones respectively have to tell. 



-Mr. Cecil Firth's statement of the views of the archaeo- 

 logists will be found in the sixth Bulletin (op. cit.). 



The working hypothesis that 1 set up last summer, 

 when all the facts derived from the study of the human 

 remains were being collated for the first time, is not only 

 borne out by the archaeological evidence, but has been 

 found to be in full accordance with all the facts which 

 further detailed study of these ancient Nubian remains has 

 brought to light. 



It is now quite clear that in pre-dynastic times there 



were scattered throughout the Nile Valley, not only in the 



territory we call Egypt, but also much farther south, many 



groups of people linked to the pre-dynastic Egyptians by 



the closest bonds of affinity, and also sharing with them 



a common cultural inheritance. Until the beginning of 



the period of the Pyramid-builders no difference can be 



;• tected either in the physical characters of the people 



: their achievements on the northern (Upper Egypt) or 



le southern (Lower Nubia) side of the First Cataract. 



;ut as the marshy territory of Egypt was drained, and 



i<- extent of its rich habitable land was thus increased 



n-fold, there was a movement of population from the 



arren country above the First Cataract into the more 



fertile north. 



But when the proto-dynastic Nubians emigrated into 

 Egvpt their place in Nubia was taken by the next member 

 of the group of peoples that were scattered serially 

 throughout the Nile Valley like beads on a string. As 

 the result of the first season's work in Nubia, the only 

 obvious explanation of the state of affairs revealed in these 

 Nubian graves of the time of the Ancient Empire — the 

 B-group of the archreologists — was found in the hypothesis 

 that the original population of Nubia became tainted with 

 negro blood and fell away from the high standard of 

 culture and technical skill littained by their forefathers. 

 The facts then available did not justify any other explana- 

 tion. But in the light of the fuller knowledge now in our 

 possession, it is evident that the B-group people were not 

 the direct descendants of the A-group or pre-dynastic 

 Egyptian population of Nubia, but the next bead on the 

 str'mg : in othf-r words, they were members of the southern 

 community of kindred people, next in order in the#Nile 

 Vallev south of Nubia ; and there is no reason to sup- 

 pose that they had lost any cunning possessed by their 

 ancestors, but rather that they had not kept pace with 

 their northern brethren in the advance of the latter in 

 the paths of civilisation. The evidence for this view is 



NO. 2167, VOL. 86] 



abundant and manifold in kind. 1 need mention only one 

 fact here — the almost complete absence, among the human 

 remains of the B-group people, of pure negroes, while the 

 whole population is very definitely more negroid than the 

 Egyptians, can only be explained on the hypothesis that 

 the process of admixture took place farther south. 



After the time of the Ancient Empire, the next bead on 

 the string — the C-group of the archaeologists — was moved 

 north into Nubia. These Middle Nubians, as we call 

 them, were also obviously akin to the pre-dynastic 

 Egyptians, and their burial customs and pottery were 

 clearly derived from the same source as those of the 

 Egyptians : but it is equally certain that the two popula- 

 tions, the Egyptians and the Middle Nubians, had 

 developed along divergent lines. Moreover, the undoubted 

 specialisation of the physical characters of the people, no 

 less than of the'r arts and customs, was emphasised by 

 the introduction of an exotic African element into the 

 C-group people. They became more definitely negroid 

 than either the A- or the B-group peoples, and their 

 pottery exhibits, no less clearly than their bones, the 

 influence of the negro. 



Mr. Firth summarises the archaeological statement in 

 these words : — " The theory tentatively advanced in the 

 second annual report that the C-group people represent a 

 later wave (greatly modified by Negro influences) of the 

 same race which founded the Pre-dynastic culture of 

 Upper Egypt, is based on certain affinities in burial- 

 custom and pottery-making, and requires the confirma- 

 tion which a careful examination of the physical character 

 of the human remains can alone give." The human re- 

 mains have r.upplied this confirmation, and they did so 

 before we were aware of the fact that Mr. Firth was 

 asking for the support of the evidence they afford. 



His further statement that " the connection between the 

 B- and C-groups does not seem to be very close and a 

 comparison of the two would suggest an independent 

 origin of the C-group " may seem to suggest that there 

 was a much wider hiatus separating the Middle Nubians 

 (C-group) from the earlier inhabitants of Nubia than there 

 was to divide the two groups (A and B) of the latter the 

 one from the other. There can be no doubt there was a 

 much greater contrast between the C-group culture than 

 separated those of its forerunners in Nubia : but it is 

 equally certain that the B-group people, interposed both 

 in time and locality between the A-group (distinctively 

 Egyptian) and the C-group (distinctively Nubian), were 

 much more strongly influenced culturally by the higher 

 civilisation of the former than by that of the latter. Thus 

 the Archaic Nubian (B-group) culture has the appearance 

 of being the direct offspring of the Archaic Egyptian 

 (A-group), but the people themselves form a unit as dis- 

 tinct from its forerunner (A-group) as it is from its 

 successor (C-group). 



There is a considerable mass of evidence to suggest that, 

 just as the B- and C-groups represent successive waves, 

 respectively, circa 3000 B.C. and 2000 B.C., which moved 

 northward in the Nile Valley, the early pre-dynastic 

 people in Egypt were largely reinforced, perhaps about 

 4000 B.C., by a precisely similar wave or rather concen- 

 tration of the scattered primitive Nilotic people in the 

 most desirable part of the Nile Valley. 



In these notes I have attempted to suggest the present 

 trend of our investigations without doing more than 

 merely hinting at one out of a multitude of varied kinds 

 of evidence indicative of the northerly trend of the 

 Hamites in the Nile Vallev, leading to a concentration in 

 Krtypt. <"•• Ei.uoT Smith. 



Manchester, .\pril 29. 



Inheritance of Row-numbers in Maize Ears. 



It is well known among maizc-growors that the number 

 of rows of grain on an ear of maize varies from S to 24, 

 or even more, according to the breed ; also th.nt in the 

 same breed the number may vary within certain limits, 

 e.g. 8, 10, or 12 in some breeds, 12, 14, 16. or 18 in 

 others ;md 18. 20, 22, or 24 in yet others. In some breeds 

 the range of variation is even greater than I have indi- 

 cated, while in others it seems to be more closely limited. 

 In some breeds an ear carrying more than ¥ rows is con- 

 sidered untrue to type, but I am not awari' that any 



