246 



NATURE 



\yan. 27, 1876 



palaeozoic schist in Quebec, are included among the beliefs 

 which have been accepted and then given up by scientific 

 men. Having thus discredited their judgment, he pro- 

 ceeds to contradict himself as to the conclusions of Evans, 

 Lubbock, and Lyell with regard to the division of time 

 past, before the dawn of history, into the stages of rude 

 stone, polished stone, bronze, and iron. A large portion 

 of the book, the entire argument, so far as we can make 

 it out, is devoted to proving that these stages were simul- 

 taneous, and not older than the six or eight thousand 

 years of history and tradition. In p. 400 he allows that 

 they are consecutive almost as distinctly as Mr. Evans. 



In proving that " the ages " are simultaneous he adopts 

 the same kind of reasoning as that by which Mr. Fergus- 

 son arrives at the post-Roman age of the Megalithic monu- 

 ments, and Mr. Wright concludes that the Britons during 

 the time of the Roman invasion used bronze swords. It 

 is a very simple process. You find a certain set of things 

 in a cave, in a cairn, or a tumulus, or in diggings 

 near a Roman station, and you at once conclude that 

 they were used at the same time by the same people- 

 In every one of the cases cited there is no proof that 

 the deposit in which the articles occur has not been 

 disturbed. Before any association of the kind quoted 

 is of the least value we must be certain that there has 

 been no subsequent disturbance ; such proof, for example, 

 as we get in some of the pile-dwellings of Switzerland ; 

 such proof as we do not get at Solutr^, where a Mero- 

 vingian cemetery happened to be planted on an old 

 " station " of the Palaeolithic age, as the writer of this 

 review was informed by Dr. Broca at the French Asso- 

 ciation at Lyons in 1873. In this case, which is made 

 the basis of the attack on the high antiquity of Pateo- 

 lithic man, the human skulls are comparatively modern, 

 and the refuse heap of an untold age. 



We have followed Mr. Southall into a labyrinth, and we 

 have been unable to find a single shred of proof of the 

 recent origin of man. We lay down his book with regret 

 that he should have expended so much labour, with the 

 practical result of leading the unwary reader into errors 

 as to facts — for example, that Busk stated the Cave-bear 

 to be identical with the Grizzly, or that Brandt believes 

 that the Irish Elk lived in Central Europe down to the 

 fourteenth century, two cases which occur to us. We 

 trust that few Americans will take the views ascribed to 

 the leading archaeologists of Europe, in this handsome 

 and well-printed book, without verification by an appeal 

 to their writings. W. B. D. 



OUR BOOK SHELF 



The Indian Alps, and how we crossed them; being a 

 Narrative of Two Years' Residence in the Eastern Hijna- 

 layas and Two Months' Tour into the Interior. By a 

 Lady Pioneer. Illustrated by herself. (London : Long- 

 mans and Co., 1876.) 



The plucky authoress of this handsome work makes no 

 pretensions to give any scientific account of that portion 

 of the Himalayas into which she penetrated ; this, how- 

 ever, is the less to be regretted as, from a scientific point 

 of view, much of the ground over which she passed has 

 been rendered classic by Dr. Hooker. Her starting-point 

 was Darjeeling, and the first portion of the work describes 

 a pleasant preliminary trip which she and her husband 

 made to the east as far as Dumsong. On returning from 



this outing, she, her husband F., and a friend C, accom- 

 panied by a small army of attendants, set out to pene- 

 trate, and if possible cross, the Eastern Himalayas. Their 

 route was westwards by Mount Tongloo, and then almost 

 directly northwards by Mount Singaleelah,the Dumgongla 

 Pass, and onwards as far as the base of Mount Junnoo. 

 The party took a large quantity of provisions with them, 

 but depended upon a chief in the interior to supplement 

 this supply about half-way. The chief failed them, and a 

 guide whom they picked up on their route, after leading 

 thern all astray into a most inhospitable region, decamped, 

 leaving them in a most perilous position. Happily, after 

 much murmuring and danger of mutiny on the part of 

 their attendants, they managed to extricate themselves 

 without any loss or serious damage to anyone. Returning 

 by the same route as far as Mount .Singaleelah, the ven- 

 turesome tourists turned eastwards and then southwards, 

 along the Great Rungeet River, and so back again to Dar- 

 jeeling, after a journey which, notwithstanding a i&vr 

 hardships, all seem to have enjoyed immensely. Although 

 there is no formal attempt to describe either the fauna, 

 flora, or geology of the region passed through, the 

 authoress's descriptions are so minute, and her references 

 to the characteristic animal and plant life of the various 

 stages so frequent, that the reader will have a fair notion 

 of the general features of the line of march. The Lady 

 Pioneer's artistic attainments are of a high order, and 

 her sympathy with nature from this point of view intense ; 

 her descriptions are, moreover, so clear and intelligible, 

 and the illustrations are so numerous and well exe- 

 cuted, that the book from beginning to end is a delight. 

 A marked feature of the work is the chromolithographs, 

 creditable alike to the artist and printer, affording better 

 than any verbal description an idea of the character 

 of the unequalled Himalayan scenery. The invariable 

 sweetness of the author's style, and we may say of her 

 temper under all circumstances, and her strong sense of 

 humour, add to the charm of her narrative. The reader 

 may learn a great deal from her book about the country 

 passed through and about the various classes and tribes 

 of people she met and mixed freely with, for she is a 

 shrewd observer of men and manners. One cannot help 

 thinking, we may venture to say, that F., whom she duti- 

 fully brings to the front on almost every page, is a lucky 

 fellow. As might be expected, there is a good deal of 

 moralising under the awful influences of the " Abode of 

 Snow ;" perhaps too much of it, though this natural failing 

 will be overlooked, considering the genuine attractions 

 which the work possesses. 



Quite recently we reviewed Mr. Wilson's delightful 

 work the "Abode of Snow," describing a journey which 

 he made through the Western Himalayas ; that, along 

 with the present work, is very suggestive of the develop- 

 ment of Enghsh ideas at least with regard to that class of 

 scenery to which the term " grand " is usually applied. 



It is well known that the tourist fever is of quite 

 modern origin. It is only within the present century that 

 an appreciation of wild and mountainous scenery has 

 become anything like general. It would be difficult to 

 find much in the way of admiration for such scenery in 

 any poet who wrote before Wordsworth and Scott ; an 

 intelligent and well-educated officer of Engineers who 

 lived in the midst of some of the now most admired 

 Highland scenery in the early part of last century, wrote 

 of it with something like horror ; he could see " no beauty 

 in it that it should be desired." While in this country the 

 two poets above mentioned have no doubt had a principal 

 share in originating the modern taste, there are othtr 

 causes, connected with the general advance in intelligence 

 and elevation of taste, which it would be instructive to 

 trace. We are inclined to believe that the very modem 

 science of geology has something to do with it ; and 

 certainly he who has a fair knowledge of the facts and 

 principles of that science, not to mention the other natural 



