Jan, 4, 1 877 J 



NATURE 



195 



ancient manners of nations now in the front ranks of 

 culture. 



The state of the savage mind as contrasted with that 

 of the civilised man is well brought out in the following 

 remarks by Col. Dodge as to what will and what will not 

 astonish an Indian : — 



''The Indian has actual and common experience of 

 many articles of civilised manufacture, the simplest of 

 which is as entirely beyond his comprehension as the 

 most complicated. He would be a simple exclamation- 

 point did he show surprise at everything new to him, or 

 which he does not understand. He goes to the other 

 extreme, and rarely shows or feels surprise at anything. 

 He visits the States, looks unmoved at the steamboat 

 and locomotive. People call it stoicism. They forget 

 that to his ignorance the production of a glass bottle is as 

 inscrutable as the sound of the thunder, A piece of gaudy 

 calico is a marvel ; a common mirror a miracle. He 

 knows nothing of the comparative difficulties of inven- 

 tion and manufacture, and to him the mechanism of a 

 locomotive is not in any way more matter of surprise 

 than that of the wheelbarrow. When things in their own 

 daily experience are performed in what to them is a re- 

 markable way, they do express the most profound asto- 

 nishment. I have seen several hundreds of Indians, 

 eager and excited, following from one telegraph pole to 

 another a repairer, whose legs were encased in climbing 

 boots. When he walked easily, foot over foot, up the 

 pole, their surprise and delight found vent in the most 

 vociferous expressions of applause and admiration. A 

 white lady mounted on a side-saddle, in what to the 

 Indian women would be almost an impossible position, 

 would excite more surprise and admiration than would a 

 Howe's printing press in full operation" (p. 309). 



Both Mr. Blackmore and Col. Dodge lament over the 

 wanton destruction of the buffalo in the hunting-grounds 

 of the Far West, where they are killed by tens of thou- 

 sands merely lor the value of their hides. On the Arkansas 

 River, where the hunters had formed a line of camps, and 

 shot the buffalo night and morning when they came down 

 to drink, Mr. Blackmore found their putrid carcases in a 

 continuous line along the banks (p. xvii.). He reckons 

 that in three years as many buffalo have been thus waste- 

 fully slaughtered as there are cattle in Holland and Bel- 

 gium, and the map prefixed to the book shows the 

 insignificant patches to which the buffalo ground, in 

 1830 extending across the whole middle of the continent, 

 had shrunk by 1876. How recklessly the extermination 

 was carried on may be judged from the description, at 

 p. 137, of the "great buffalo-skinner's" method of using 

 a waggon and horses to take tha hide off the carcase at 

 one pull, the ordinary method of careful llaying being found 

 too slow. The destruction of the buffalo, driving the tribes 

 of hunting Indians to starvation arid revolt, has done 

 much to hasten the extinction of this doomed race. But 

 it is not the only cause of their destruction so swiftly 

 going on. Every one who reads the details here given as 

 to how the Indians carry on their war against the white 

 settlers, must see that the whites will inevitably pursue 

 the policy of killing them down till only a helpless rem- 

 nant survives. But every candid reader will agree with 

 Mr, Blackmore and Col. Dodge that it is the ill-treatment 

 of the settlers, and the faithless disregard of Indian 

 treaties by the American Government, that have made 

 the warrior tribes into human wolves. It is evident that 

 a humane while firm policy might have given the Indian 

 tribes at least some generations of existence and well-being. 



We English have much to reproach ourselves with as 

 to the treatment of indigenous tribes, but in Canada these 

 have not fared quite so ill as in the United States. In- 

 deed, Mr. Blackmore shows by American testimony that 

 the comparatively prosperous condition of the Indian 

 tribes in the British possessions is due to our more just 

 and kindly management of them. But their prospects 

 look hopeless enou :;h in such districts as Idaho, in United 

 States territory, where the legislature could put forth the 

 following proclamation of reward to men who go " Indian 

 hunting": — "That for every buck scalp be paid ^100, 

 and for every squaw ^50, and 825 for everything in the 

 shape of an Indian under ten years of age." 



Col. Dodge's chapter on "Travel" contains an inte- 

 resting description of the branching ravines which inter- 

 sect the table-land of the western plains, where valley- 

 systems, with their numberless tributaries, o.''ten approach 

 one another so as to be only separated by narrow 

 " divides." Such a region presents interesting problems 

 of valley- excavation to the geologist, but extraordinary 

 difficulties to the path-finder, who, though his destination 

 may be but a few miles ofif in the straight line, has to find 

 and follow the ciivide, often in a circuitous track of as 

 many leagues, that he may avoid a score of deep ravines 

 which cut the ground between. Going up divides is easy 

 enough, for they all must reach the principal, or summit, 

 divide ; but in going down, the one practicable divide has 

 to be selected from hundreds which at the top look just as 

 practicable to the waggoner, but only lead him, with his 

 loaded wains, down upon the tongue of land in the fork 

 of two steep ravines, where he must turn back and try 

 again. Where there are buffalo, their trail marks the 

 proper route, but otherwise the intricate maze can hardly 

 be threaded except with the aid of an Indian guide or a 

 perfect map. An account of these valleys, with a sketch 

 like the author's, should find its way into every book on 

 physical geography. 



OUR BOOK SHELF 



The Combined Note-book and Lecture Notes for the Use 

 of Chemical Students. By Thomas Eltoft, F.C.S., &c. 

 (London: Simpkin, Marshall, and Co., 1876.) 



Mr. Eltoft is, we see from his title-page, engaged in 

 teaching chemistry to two very large evening classes and 

 also to the matriculation class at St. Bartholomew's Hos- 

 pital, he has therefore very considerable experience as to 

 the kind of instruction required by students going up for 

 examination either to the University of London matricu- 

 lation examinations, or to those of the Science and Art 

 Department. His knowledge of the wants of the students 

 has no doubt led him to the production of the " Note- 

 book " we have before us ; and we do not doubt that the 

 system here followed will save the student much trouble 

 otherwise incurred in wading through his own notes, so 

 often ill arranged, and missing the salient points of the 

 lecture. 



The first twelve pages of the book following the index 

 are occupied with a mass of useful memoranda, as we 

 should prefer to call them, such as notes on formulas, 

 atomic weights, nomenclature, use of numbers, bracket?, 

 and signs, &c., in formula; ; the construction of constitu- 

 tional formuke, the base saturating power of acids, the 

 density of gases, calculation of formuke from analyses, 

 and that tremendous crux with the ordinary student, the 

 crith. 



Of course the book is not intended for regular science 



