212 



NA TURE 



[June 28, 1888 



grounds on which we may assume that the so-called Saint 

 Acheul flint instruments, found in alluvial beds of undoubted 

 Quaternary origin, supply the most ancient testimony of man's 

 presence on the surface of the earth. While attaching great 

 importance to the careful elucidation of the chronological order 

 in which the oldest traces of man appear relatively to the 

 different series of the Quaternary formations, he points out the 

 imminent risk of losing the few opportunities which still remain 

 of studying this connection between the objects found and the 

 nature and order of sequence of the beds in which they were 

 deposited, owing to the most interesting finds having long been 

 made to swell the collections of our Museums without reference 

 to their value as exponents of the problems of our primitive 

 history. M. Marcellin Boule considers that palaeologists have 

 erred in assuming that all beds containing the same fossil 

 remains must necessarily belong to the same epoch, and that 

 sufficient importance has not been attached to the fact that the 

 same deposit often contains a mixture of animal forms belonging 

 both to so-called northern and southern types. In explanation 

 of these and many other anomalous phenomena, he thinks 

 we may derive important help from a careful consideration of 

 the intermittence and recurrence of glacial action. In regard to 

 this point he recognizes the great value of the labours of 

 British and American as well as Scandinavian and German 

 geologists when compared with those of the majority of their 

 French confreres ; and, following the lead of our own palaeonto- 

 logists, he refuses to believe that any traces of human existence 

 can be referred to pre-glacial ages, although some may perhaps 

 be assigned to inter-glacial periods ; while he considers that in 

 certain northern lands, as Denmark and Southern Sweden, where 

 there is a complete absence of Palaeolithic objects, their non- 

 appearance may be explained by the ice-covering not having 

 been entirely removed in these regions till the dawn of the age 

 of polished stone. — The tibia in the Neanderthal race, by Prof. 

 Julien Fraipont. As a further exposition of the views which the 

 author, in concert with M. Lohest, had expressed in regard to 

 the effect on the maintenance of the vertical position of the 

 obliquity and curvature of the femur in the "men of Spy," he 

 now attempts to show, from the observations of others, and his 

 own anatomical experiments, that in this inclination of the head 

 of the femur we have a characteristic common to the anthropoids. 

 An ingeniously devised series of determinations of the variations 

 of the axis of the head of the tibia in recent man, the men of 

 Spy, the gorilla, and other anthropoids, shows the gradual 

 straightening of the axis as we ascend from the latter to existing 

 man, in whom there is a well-marked tendency to the fusion of 

 the axis of the head of the tibia with that of the body. From 

 a careful comparison of the gradual anatomical changes pre- 

 sented in man since his earliest representative appeared in the 

 Quaternary age, M. Fraipont believes we are justified in assuming 

 that the human race has progressively acquired a more and more 

 vertical posture. — On the papulation of the ancient Pagus-Cap- 

 Sizun, " Cape du Raz," by MM. Le Carguet and P. Topinard. In 

 considering the map of France from an ethnographic point of 

 view, French anthropologists are generally agreed in regarding as 

 specially Celtic the region which includes Brittany, Auvergne, and 

 the entire mass of mountains extending through Central France 

 and Savoy. The population of the eastern portion of this region 

 is more brachycephalic than that of the western, which has been 

 largely affected by admixture with the blonde, tall, dolicho- 

 cephalic races whose presence is traceable everywhere in Europe, 

 although more definitely the further north we go. This admixture 

 of types is most strongly marked in Brittany, where French is 

 the spoken tongue in Haute-Bretagne, and Breton (apparently 

 a dialect derived from an ancient Kymric language) the pre- 

 dominant tongue in Basse- Bretagne. Among the many interesting 

 localities of the latter region, special attention is due to Pointe 

 du Raz, which, from the nature of its rocky boundaries on the 

 land side, and its position further west than any other in France, 

 has been virtually cut off from communication with the rest of 

 the country, in consequence of which its population presents 

 relatively fewer marks of mixed origin. M. Topinard supplies 

 an interesting report on the geological, historical, and ethnological 

 characteristics of the Cape du Raz district, and thus enhances 

 the value of the series of observations regarding the population 

 of this far west of France which have been supplied by M. Le 

 Carguet, and may be generally summarized as leading to the 

 inference that the " Capiste " race is essentially Breton in regard 

 to the predominance of blue eyes with dark hair, and their 

 generally low stature, these characteristics being associated with 



a disposition in which courage and energy are blended with 

 strongly marked avarice and a love of greed ; while in other 

 respects they show evidence of a strongly-marked Celtic type. — 

 Heredity in political economy, by M. de Lapouge. In this 

 sequel to his former articles on " Inequality among Men," the 

 author urges that it is the duty of the State to use all means at 

 its disposal to eliminate the degenerate, and multiply the favoured 

 elements of which the community is composed. As an ultra- 

 pessimist in regard to the advance of inferior races through 

 civilization, he points to the small effect which thousands of 

 years have effected in the natives of the Black Continent. To 

 him, equality and fraternity are mere delusive terms, based on 

 an insufficient estimate of the force of the immutable laws of 

 Nature, from amongst which we cannot exclude natural selection 

 and survival of the fittest. As the avowed opponent of the 

 doctrine of the amalgamation of types, and the production 

 of permanent hybrids, he proclaims it as his opinion that, if the 

 higher races are not to be exterminated by the lower, they must 

 ally themselves solely with their own dolichocephalic, blonde, 

 Aryan kindred. In treating of the question of selection he 

 passes in review the bearing that religious opinions have had 

 among different races in determining various degrees of con- 

 sanguinity which were to be recognized as natural barriers 

 against intermarriage among relatives. Considered generally, 

 M. de Lapouge's article is a protest against futile attempts in 

 the assumed name of philanthrophy to raise inferior types at the 

 expense of those whom history from its earliest dawn has shown 

 us to have been the leaders and pioneers in every path of human 

 progress. — In a note on the recurrence among the Provencals 

 of the present day of the myth of Ibicus, M. le Dr. Berenger- 

 Ferand draws attention to the numerous characteristics derived 

 from Hellenic antiquity which are still to be met with on the site 

 of ancient Greek settlements. The modern tale of the detection 

 of a murder through a reference by the murderers themselves to 

 the birds which had been near the spot where the deed was 

 done, is current both at Toulon and La Grasse. Both versions 

 agree closely with the Greek original as to the course of the 

 events, although the myth had been accepted as a true account 

 of a contemporaneous occurrence in the latter place many years 

 before it received its modern names of persons and places from 

 the Toulonais. — In a note on the history of anthropology in 

 1788, M. Topinard has collected together various interesting 

 details as to the precise meaning attached at that and earlier 

 periods of the last century to the terms anthropology and 

 ethnology. A doubt exists, however, as to the latter term, 

 which is generally believed to have originated in its present 

 sense with W. Edwards, when in 1839 he founded his so-called 

 Ethnological Society. Dr. Topinard derives many curious facts 

 from the manuscript work of Chavannes, Professor of Theology at 

 Lausanne, whose speculative views as given in his writings he 

 believes to have largely influenced the Encyclopaedists no less 

 than the author of "Emile." — Report by Dr. P. Topinard on the 

 Neolithic skull, found at Feigneux (Oise) in 1887, which presents 

 undoubted traces of having been trepanned both during life anil 

 afier death. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 



Royal Society, May 31. — "Colour Photometry. Part II. 

 The Measurement of Reflected Colours." By Captain W. 

 de W. Abney, R.E., F.R.S., and Major-General Festing, R.E., 

 F.R.S. 



In a previous paper we showed how the luminosity ol 

 different spectrum colours might be measured, and in the present 

 paper we give a method of measuring the light of the spectrum 

 reflected from coloured bodies such as pigments in terms of the 

 light of the spectrum reflected from a white surface. To effect 

 this the first named of us devised a modification of our previous 

 apparatus. Nearly in contact with the collimating lens was 

 placed a double image prism of Iceland spar, by which means 

 two spectra were thrown on the focussing screen of the camera 

 (which was arranged as described in the Bakerian lecture for 

 1886), each formed of the light which enters the slit. The light 

 was thus identical in both spectra. The two spectra were separ- 

 ated by about \ of an inch when the adjustments were complete. 

 A slit cut in a card was passed through this spectrum to isolate 

 any particular portion 'which might be required. The rays 



