Jan. 6, 1876] 



NA TURE 



185 



that can at present be done to define a race-type is 

 vaguely to make out some of its dominant features, A 

 good example may here be seen in Plate I., which is 

 headed " Germanic Types," though not consisting en- 

 tirely of them. The last portrait is of a Welsh market 

 girl, and just above her is Livingstone, who as we know 

 was from the Gaelic Island of Ulva. If there is such a 

 thing as a Keltic type, these two portraits show it ; they 

 might very well have been father and daughter. The 

 contrast of the dark, near-eyed, compact-featured Welsh 

 girl with the fair North German peasant woman next her 

 is excellent, and the Bavarian lady next again shows the 

 difference as well as possible between South and North 

 German. 



It is needless to enumerate the peoples of each district 

 of the globe who have contributed their cartes-de-visite 

 to this album, but a few remarks on ir.cidental points 

 occur as one turns over the plates. A young newly-married 

 couple from China suggest an answer to the question, At 

 what age may ethnological portraits best be taken.? No 

 doubt it should be somewhere about twenty years old, 

 more or less, when the physical type has become deve- 

 loped, but the influence of thought, occupation, and cir- 

 cumstances have not yet masked the lines of race. In 

 these plates, the elderly Chinese broker and the Japanese 

 gentleman aged sixty-four, are in expression curiously 

 like what Europeans of the same age and occupations 

 might be. Yet when they were young, the faces of these 

 Orientals probably bore no such apparent European like- 

 ness. W^hat an ethnologist wants is not the cast of edu- 

 cation and experience, but the mere national face, and 

 this must be taken young. Again, for contrast between 

 purity and mixture of nations, it is interesting to compare 

 Plate XII., containing Siberian tribes ofcomparatively uni- 

 form type, with the heterogeneous figures in the next plate 

 from Morocco and Algeria. The gradual blending of 

 races, of which mention has been already made, may be 

 well studied in Plates VI LI. to XI., which bring into view 

 better than it ever has been shown before, how the Malay 

 peculiarities are to be traced into the Chinese and Japa- 

 nese types. Lastly it may be remarked that the often- 

 repeated ethnological theory deriving the natives of 

 America from Eastern Asia, will receive but little support 

 from a comparison of the portraits here given from 

 Siberia, Japan, and China on the one hand, and North 

 America on the other. 



By way of fault-finding, it may be added that the short 

 letterpress at the foot of the plates wants revision. 



Edward B. Tylor 



OUR BOOK SHELF 



The Eastern Seas : behig a Nari'ative of the Voyage of 



H.M.S. '■'■ Diuarf" in China, Japan, and Formosa. 



With a Description of the Coast of Russian Tartary 



and Eastern Siberia, from the Corea to the River Amur. 



By Capt. B. W. Bax, R.N. With map and illustrations. 



(London : John Murray, 1875.) 



Capt. Bax spent three years, 1871-4, cruising about in 



the waters on the east of Asia, and has written a pleasant 



gossipy account of what he saw. He went over ground 



that has been often traversed, and has not much that is 



new to tell. Many details, especially historical, are 



confessedly borrowed from well-known authorities, so 



that the work] is to some extent a compilation. An 



unnecessarily large amount of space is devoted to ac- 

 counts of various wrecks that occurred on the coasts 

 near where the Dwarf happened to be cruising, and 

 many incidents of trifling importance are narrated, adding 

 considerably to the size but not to the value of the book. 

 Probably the most valuable part of the work is that 

 wherein the author's visits to Formosa and to the Russian 

 coasts are described. Capt. Bax had some favourable 

 opportunities of becoming acquainted with the Formo- 

 sans, both civilised and wild, and gives some interesting 

 details as to their appearance, manner of life, and customs ; 

 his second chapter is a history of the island from its dis- 

 covery by the Chinese. There is a good map of the 

 island, and it would have added to the value of the work 

 had there been a map of the whole region with which the 

 book is concerned. In his narrative of the voyage of the 

 Divarf along the coast of Asiatic Russia, some interest- 

 ing facts are given as to the present condition of the Rus- 

 sian possessions in that quarter as far north as Nikolevsk. 

 Capt. Bax also made an ascent of Fusiyama, in Japan, of 

 which he gives a pleasant account. Altogether, although 

 the work adds very little to our knowledge of either 

 China, Japan, or Asiatic Russia, it contains a good deal of 

 interesting reading. 



Commodo?-e, f. G. Goodenoicgh. A Brief Memoir. By 

 Clements R. Markham, C.B. (London and Ports- 

 mouth : Griffin and Co.) 



This is a modest and weU-written narrative of the life of 

 a man whose premature death is a distinct loss to the 

 British navy and to geographical science. Every naval 

 officer should read it, and indeed all who wish to be 

 inspired by the record of a noble life. The unfortunate 

 circumstances connected with the death of Goodenough 

 must be fresh in the memory of our readers. He un- 

 doubtedly was a martyr to what he conceived to be his 

 duty ; he fell in the attempt to conciliate the savages of 

 Santa Cruz Island, and to assure them of the good inten- 

 tions of England towards them. Had he been spared he 

 would no doubt have done much good in this direction, 

 as well as added to our knowledge of the Pacific Islands. 

 Commodore Goodenough had high ideas of the scientific 

 and other qualifications which are necessary to make an 

 efficient naval officer, and took ever}' opportunity to 

 advocate these ideas. He himself was a man of varied 

 attainments, and was a student up to the last. He took 

 a warm interest in geographical science, and was for long 

 an earnest advocate for a new Arctic expedition. Com- 

 mander Markham and several other officers on board the 

 Alert and Discovery had the advantage of serving under 

 Goodenough ; while Mr. C. R. Markham was himself his 

 shipmate at an early part of his career. A good portrait 

 is prefixed to the narrative. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 



\The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed 

 by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake to return, 

 or to correspond with the writers of, rejected manuscripts. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications. "[ 



Sir Thomas Millington and the Sexuality of Plants 



I THOUGHT it was suificiently obvious that Sir Thomas Mil- 

 lington's claims to be regarded as the discoverer of the function 

 of the stamens in what are called hermaphrodite flowers was 

 based upon what is stated by Grew. That I confess has always 

 appeared to me conclusive upon the matter. I am not aware that 

 Sir Thomas Millington ever published anything in his own name 

 upon the subject. 



With regard to Grew's book, I think Mr. Bennett is still 

 under some misapprehension, which I trust he will allow me to 

 point out to him. In Nature (vol. xiii. p. S6) he speaks of a 

 first edition of 167 1, acd also of an edition of 16S1. In Nature 

 (vol. xiii p. 166), he appears to identify the first of these with 

 Grew's Treatise, " The Anatomy of Vegetables Begun, with a 

 general account of vegetation founded thereupon," published in 



