June 10, 1875] 



NATURE 



105 



Mongols in all directions. The pressure caused by these 

 invading waves on the tribes of Northern Siberia drove 

 them still further to the north. Horde succeeding horde 

 increased the pressure, until at last the Omoki, the 

 Chelaki, the Onkilon, and other aboriginal tribes, were 

 driven quite out of the country, and have long ago dis- 

 appeared entirely, leaving only traditions of their existence 

 and remains here and there of their yourts or dwellings. 



Mr. Markham thinks that here we have probably the 

 commencement of the exodus of the Greenland Esqui- 

 maux, which spread over a period of one or two centuries. 

 He believes they must have made their way from Cape 

 Chelagskoi to the Parry group, probably over a chain of 

 islands. Still keeping northwards, by Banks Island, 

 Melville Island, Bathurst Island, North Somerset and 

 Devon, Jones' Sound, Carey Islands, on all which un- 

 doubted traces of Esquimaux have been found, but where 

 the conditions are not favourable to permanent settlement, 

 the Asiatic emigrants made their way to Smith Sound, 

 which they crossed in parties during the fourteenth, fifteenth, 

 and sixteenth centuries. Some established their hunting 

 grounds between the Humboldt and Melville Bay glaciers, 

 and became the ancestors of that very curious and inte- 

 resting race of men the Arctic Highlanders. Here the 

 vegetation, the constant open water, and other conditions 

 rendered a permanent settlement possible. Mr. Mark- 

 ham believes that some of these immigrants proceeded 

 southwards and peopled South Greenland ; not only so^ 

 but that parties also wandered still further north than the 

 Humboldt Glacier, and that it is not improbable that 

 our new Expedition may find groups of Esquimaux up 

 to the very Pole itself. Nous verrofis. Meantime, we 

 repeat, Mr. Markham's theory seems to us a plausible 

 one, and to answer all the requirements of an immi- 

 gration into Greenland of a people such as are the Esqui- 

 maux. Dr. Rink, however, in a paper on the Descent of 

 the Esquimaux, is inclined to believe them the last wave 

 of an aboriginal American population driven from the 

 interior by the pressure of tribes behind them. This 

 may have been so, and the people in the north-east of 

 Siberia, so strongly resembling the Esquimaux in lan- 

 guage, physique, and customs, may have been American 

 emigrants ; but the reverse hypothesis appears to us much 

 more probable. 



Another extremely interesting paper by Mr. Markham, on 

 the Arctic Highlanders, contains many details concerning 

 the country, the character, the manners, customs, language* 

 ^c, of this curious people. Mr. Markham remarks upon 

 what has been noticed by several explorers, the won- 

 derful talent of this people for topography, and repro- 

 duces a most careful and accurate chart of the Greenland 

 Coast from Cape York to Smith Channel, drawn by the 

 Greenlander Erasmus York. These two papers are well 

 worthy the attention, not only of the explorers for whom 

 they have been compiled, but of all interested in Green- 

 land ethnography. Mr. Markham's other contributions 

 are a sketch of the grammar of the Esquimaux language, 

 with copious vocabularies, and a long list of the names of 

 all places on the coast of Greenland from lat. 65° 15' N. 

 on the eastern side, round Cape Farewell, to the entrance 

 of Smith Sound. Along with this most laborious list is 

 a chart of the south coast of Greenland from the Danish 

 Admiralty Survey, with Mr, R. H. Major's adaptation of 



the ancient sites in the East Bygd, of the old Greenland 

 colony. 



Dr. Rink's paper on the Descent of the Esquimaux we 

 have already referred to, and we have space merely to 

 allude to the admirable and interesting and almost exhaus- 

 tive .paper on the Western Esquimaux, by Dr. John 

 Simpson, of H.M.S. Plover, reprinted from the Parlia- 

 mentary Arctic Papers of 1855. The volume concludes 

 with the Report of the Anthropological Institute, and an 

 appendix containing ethnological questions for explorers, 

 drawn up by various eminent members of that Society, 



Altogether, from the brief glance we have been able to 

 take at this " Selection," it will be seen that it contains 

 much of really intrinsic value, for having put which into 

 so accessible a form, all who take an interest in Arctic 

 matters will be grateful to the Geographical Society. It 

 will, we are sure, moreover, be a welcome addition to the 

 equipment of the members of the Arctic Expedition ; and 

 if carefully studied, as no doubt it will be, it cannot but 

 suggest many lines of inquiry that are likely to lead to 

 very valuable results. 



VOGELS "{LIGHT AND PHOTOGRAPHY'' 

 The Chemistry of Light and Photography in its Applica- 

 tion to Aj-t, Science, and Industry. By Dr. Hermann 

 Vogel, Professor in the Royal Industrial Academy of 

 Berlin, With 100 Illustrations. (London : Henry S. 

 King and Co., 1875.) 



TO one acquainted with the very small amount of 

 scientific literature yearly produced by the pro- 

 fessional and amateur devotees of photography the name 

 of Dr. Hermann Vogel is one associated most intimately 

 with the scientific progress of the art. Dr. Vogel has 

 lately attracted somewhat wider notice by his researches 

 on the effects of coloured media in modifying the action 

 of monochromatic light on photographic films, and the 

 research is hkely to lead to important results in the 

 department of spectrum photography. 



It was therefore in anticipation of at last finding a 

 scientificmanual of photography that we took up the trans- 

 lation of Dr. Vogel's work at present under review, hoping 

 that Messrs. King and Co. had been the means of bringing a 

 good book before the English scientific and photographic 

 world. Unfortunately the whole experiment has been 

 spoiled by the simple device of placing the translation 

 in the hands of a person who is totally unacquainted 

 with either chemistry or photography, and who is also 

 not given to expressing himself in clear English. 



On p. 4 we are informed that argentic chloride can be 

 prepared by " directing chloric gas upon metallic silver ;" 

 and on p. 19 that "by employing iodide of bromium . . . 

 the process of exposure was made a matter of seconds." 

 On p. 35, "Archer coated glass plates with collodion in 

 which salts of iodide had been dissolved ; " and the same 

 page contains this typical specimen of English : " After 

 1853 paper pictures on collodion negatives came more 

 and more into vogue, the demands for daguerreotypes 

 fell off and soon vanished altogether, and were produced 

 only here and there in America ; " while on p. 36 we are 

 told that there are in Berlin " ten photographic album 

 manufactories, to satisfy the demand, from whence they 

 are exported to all parts of the world." 



