24 



NATURE 



\Nov. II, 1875 



series of sharply outlined and brilliant pictures, the most 

 prominent and often the most unpleasant features of the 

 great struggle out of which it is evident the white race 

 must come victorious. 



The regions with which the work is mainly concerned 

 are the Pacific States, especially California, and also 

 the States on the Gulf. In the West, especially, the fight 

 is a regular mel^e between white men, red men, black 

 men, and yellow men. Very striking indeed is Mr. 

 Dixon's account of the means by which the Chinese are 

 rapidly asserting for themselves a place of the first im- 

 portance in and around SanFrancisco,.notwithstanding the 

 disgusting and degrading habits of the majority of them- 



When the heat of the struggle is over, when the country 

 is again sufficiently populated, and the people have settled 

 down to a life of steady progress, what will be their cha- 

 racteristics, physical, intellectual, and moral? It is an 

 interesting question, an intricate problem, which we fear 

 it would be difficult to work out beforehand. In a recent 

 number we referred to the valuable paper by Prof, Wilson, 

 of Toronto, detailing his observations on the relations 

 between the whites and the Indians, especially in Canada. 

 His conclusion is, that in accounting for the ;disappear- 

 ance of the American Indian, too much prominence has 

 been given to extermination and too little to absorption. 

 He produces data to show that a very considerable 

 amount of red blood has been absorbed by the white 

 intruders, and that aboriginal traces are to be found 

 widespread among all classes of society. Moreover, that 

 it is difficult to find a pure Indian, and that the half- 

 breeds who now mainly represent the old proprietors of 

 the soil have excellent stuff in them, and are being con- 

 strained gradually to settle down to a civiUsed life. The 

 conclusion is, that in the end a homogeneous race will 

 result, having no doubt large white characteristics, but at 

 the same time showing unmistakeable marks of a red 

 ancestry. 



Where one race intrudes itself forcibly into a country 

 already populated, and has to fight its way to find a place 

 for itself, this mixture is inevitable ; the men who do 

 this rough work cannot as a rule take their own 

 women with them. Some of the most impressive 

 pictures in Mr. Dixon's work are connected with this 

 subject, and show how inevitable it is that under the 

 circumstances alluded to, a large half-breed population 

 must arise. We are sorry to see, however, that Mr. Dixon 

 does not speak so well of the half-breeds as Prof. Wilson 

 does, though this may arise from the fact that those of 

 Canada have as a rule more white blood than red in their 

 veins. In the end, which approaches with accelerating 

 speed, when homogeneity is attained, the United States 

 will be populated by a race of very mixed blood indeed, 

 though it is evident to everyone but a pessimist, that the 

 brain and sinew and muscle which dominate in the 

 Old World will, both in quality and quantity, in intension 

 and extension, to use logical terms, bear the sway on the 

 other side of the water. The great stumbling-block in 

 this, as in other respects, in America, is the Negro, the 

 " culled gemm'n," as he now calls himself. Extermi- 

 nation does not appear likely to be his fate, and " ab- 

 sorption " in his case seems a mighty long way off. 



Two of the most interesting chapters in Mr. Dixon's 

 works refer to education in America, and will somewhat 



surprise those who fancy that America has a system of 

 education as thorough and uncompromising as that of 

 Germany. While Mr. Dixon has evidently presented here 

 almost exclusively 'the dark side of the education question 

 in America, there is no withstanding his^statistics. Still, all 

 things considered, especially looking at the heterogeneous 

 population, ever largely increasing from the outside, with 

 which American educationists have to deal, both the 

 extent and the quality of education in the United Stales 

 do the citizens infinite credit. 



While, we repeat, Mr. Dixon's work makes no preten- 

 sions to be scientific, still we are grateful to him for 

 bringing before us so brilliant and attractive a series of 

 pictures of a struggle which is indeed only the continua- 

 tion, further westwards, of that which was begun far back 

 in prehistoric times by the ancestors of those whites who at 

 present seem likely to be victors and lords all the world 

 over. We fear that after all, however much we may 

 plume ourselves on our superior culture and advanced 

 civilisation, might is stillwithus, as with our predecessors, 

 right ; and perhaps after all, both on scientific and humani- 

 tarian grounds, it is only right that it should be so. 



OUR BOOK SHELF 



Elementary Analytical Geometry. By the Rev. T. G 

 Vyvyan. (London : George Bell and Sons, 1875.) 



Conic Sections treated Geometrically. By W. H. Besant, 

 F.R.S. (Same publishers.) 



There is little calling for special notice in Mr. Vyvyan's 

 work. The fact of its having reached a third edition is a 

 clear indication that it has met with acceptance. New 

 chapters have been added on focal properties of conies 

 and on abridged notation and trilinear co-ordinates ; the 

 central conies are discussed together ; and the chapter 

 on the general equation has been enlarged. There is a 

 good selection of exercises. The work is reduced in 

 price, and now forms one of the publishers' series of 

 Cambridge School and College Text Books. 



The new matter in this second edition of Mr. Besant's 

 "Conies" is confined to little more than two articles. 

 The errata of the first edition have been carefully 

 removed, and we have detected only some half-dozen 

 simple typographical mistakes. Between thirty and forty 

 new examples have been added. We notice that in con- 

 sequence of a few slight alterations, in some four or five 

 cases, the same figures come on to opposite pages, a fact 

 easily accounted for when we know that the work is now 

 in its second edition. 



We presume that though Mr. Besant in his Introduc- 

 tion still states that " a knowledge of Euclid's Geo- 

 metry is all that is necessary," he does not thereby mean 

 us to infer that a like knowledge of geometry obtained 

 from other and more modern text-books would not an- 

 swer as well. It is not necessary to say anything in 

 praise of a work so well known and prized as this as a 

 text-book of Geometrical Conies. 



Die Periodischen Bewegiingen der\Blattorgane. Von Dr. 

 W. Pfeffer, A.O, Professor in Bonn. Mit 4 htho- 

 graphirten Tafeln und 9 Holzschnitten. (Leipzig : verlag 

 von Wilhelm Engelmann, 1875. 8vo., 176 pp.) (The 

 Periodic Movements of Leaf-organs. By Dr. W. Pfeflfer, 

 Extraordinary Professor in Bonn. With 4 lithographed 

 plates and 9 woodcuts. Leipzig : W. Engelmann.) 

 The essential character of periodic movements as defined 

 by Pfeffer is their being recurrent. All " repeated " move- 

 ments, whatever their cause and mechanism may be, are 

 periodic. Recurrent or periodic movements are of diffe- 



