66 



NATURE 



{May 25, 1876 



written history fails to afford information, and who are 

 only known through archieology. The adoption of the 

 word by Sir John Lubbock in the title of his " Prehistoric 

 Times," published in 1865, and its incorporation into the 

 name of the " Congress of Prehistoric Archreology," which 

 held its first meeting at Neuchatel in 1866, brought it 

 into general currency. 



The present third edition of Dr. Wilson's " Prehistoric 

 Man" contains the principal dissertations of the original 

 work. These are especially the account of the earth- 

 works of the mound-builders of Western America, of the 

 native-copper mines worked by the indigenes in the Lake 

 Superior district, the details of stone and shell imple- 

 ments in America, and studies of American craniology 

 The book has been now expanded so as to bring the new 

 European evidence into connection with the American 

 investigations, and in the course of correcting, various 

 rash statements made in the previous editions have been 

 pruned away. It is of course not necessary to go over 

 the contents as though the work were new, but the fol- 

 lowing are among the points calling for remark : — 



Living at Toronto as Professor of Histor)- at the local 

 University, and having had special opportunities of 

 studying the indigenes of North America and their 

 antiquities. Dr. Wilson sees the problems of general 

 ethnology from a peculiar point of view, which is often an 

 advantageous one. For instance, as an archaeologist 

 living within reach of the above-menlioned native copper 

 workings of Lake Superior, he was naturally led to give 

 due attention to the interesting intermediate stage here 

 represented between the Stone Age proper and the Metal 

 Age proper. The tribes of the district had got so far as 

 to discover that the copper they found in blocks was a 

 malleable stone of great value for making hatchets and 

 other tools of, but they had not arrived at the next stages, 

 those of learning to smelt copper from the ore, and to alloy 

 it with tin. Such an intermediate stage may possibly 

 have at some time existed also in the Old World (vol. i., 

 p. 230). Dr. Wilson's remarks are interesting both on 

 the use of native copper among the northern tribes of the 

 continent, and on the manufacture of bronze in Mexico 

 and Peru. But the author's American surroundings 

 perhaps incline him to ascribe too readily to the native 

 tribes an absolute independence in the development of 

 their civilisation, uninfluenced during historic centuries 

 (as he says) by any reflex of the civilisation of the Ancient 

 World. We do not think that he ought to have assumed 

 (vol. i. p. 224) that the art of bronze-making was deve- 

 loped in the native-born civilisation of Mexico and Peru. 

 He seems to recognise (vol. ii. p. 60) Humboldt's argu- 

 ment, that the Mexican astronomical calendar came from 

 Asia, and if so, why should not the art of bronze-making 

 have come thence too, and at no very ancient date? 

 Dr. Wilson himself points out the likeness between the 

 mirrors of polished bronze found in the royal tombs of 

 Peru and those now in use in Japan (vol. i. p. 244). 



There are two assertions often made as to the inhabit- 

 ants of the part of America with which Dr. Wilson is 

 well acquainted. One is that the skull and face of the 

 English race in the United States are becoming assimi- 

 lated to the type of the North American Indians. On 

 this Dr. Wilson's remark is simply negative : " I can 

 scarcely imagine anyone who has had abundant oppor. 



tunities of familiarising himself with the features of the 

 Indian and the New Englander, tracing any approxima- 

 tion in the one lo the other " (vol. ii. p. 329). The other 

 assertion touches the intellectual powers of the Negro as 

 compared with the white race. For instance, Sir Charles 

 Lyell was told in Boston (as many other Englishmen 

 have been) as a reason for the coloured children being 

 taught separately from the whites, that although up lo 

 the age of fourteen the Negro children advanced in 

 education as fast as the white children, after that point it 

 became difficult to carry them on further. Dr. Wilson 

 regards this statement as a mere excuse, intended to 

 justify a separation really made through caste-prejudices 

 (vol. ii. p. 325). Dr. Wilson's testimony is of consequence 

 on these two points, which rest on so considerable 

 authority, that they ought without delay to be settled one 

 way or the other. We can only hope he will find time to 

 go more fully into them, considering their importance as 

 throwing light on climatic modification of race on the one 

 hand, and intellectual difference between races on the 

 other. 



Dr. Wilson is evidently more critical as an ethnologist 

 and antiquary than as a comparative philologist. It is a 

 pity that among the new matter inserted in this edition, 

 he should have put in a passage which may lead unin- 

 structed readers to believe that a connection has been 

 really made out between the Guarani of Brazil and the 

 Agaw of the Nile region, or between the Akkadian 01 

 Babylonia and any American language (vol. ii. p. 346). 

 Dr. Wilson mentions certain theories propounded by Mr. 

 Hyde Clarke, but he does not even produce the evidence 

 on which he relies. On the contrary, it may be said with 

 some confidence, that as yet no philologist has proved any 

 prehistoric connection whatever between any language 

 of America and any language of the Old World, except 

 of course, near the shores of Behring's Straits. 



In fairness to Dr. Wilson, however, the value of other 

 of his linguistic contributions must be acknowledged ; for 

 instance, his list of imitative names of animals in Algon- 

 quin dialects, and his remarks on the Chinook jargon, 

 and the Pi^eon-Y.w^\^ {i.e. Business-Y.Vi^\^) of the 

 Chinese ports. The specimen of the latter (vol. ii. p. 333) 

 is the introduction of a new English customer to a 

 Chinese merchant : — " Mi chinchin you, this one velly 

 good flin belong mi ; mi wantchie you do plopel pigeon 

 along he all same fashion along mi," &c. On the whole 

 Dr. Wilson is to be congratulated on the reappearance 

 and revision of his work. 



Edward B. Tylor 



THE ARALO^CASPIAN REGION 



TIic Shores of Lake Aral, By Herbert Wood, Major 

 R.E., F.R.G.S., &c. (London : Smith, Elder and Co., 

 1876.) 



FROM the earliest times down to the present day 

 there has always been a certain amount of mystery 

 and uncertainty hanging around the Aralo- Caspian 

 region. Major Wood in the work before us shows that 

 the physical history of this ever-changing region is largely 

 sufficient to account for this mysterious halo. Major 

 Wood had an unusual opportunity for exploring Lake 



