598 



NA TURE 



[Oct, 20, 1887 



The Non-Aryan and Non-Semitic White Races, ana 

 ^their place in the History of Civilization, by J. S. Stuart 

 <ilennie. — The general thesis of this paper may be thus 

 vstated. The first civilizations of Chalclea and of Egypt appear 

 to have been founded by the action on dark races of white races, 

 neither Aryan nor Semitic. The combined results of a great 

 variety of recent researches show that such white races are an 

 important, and hitherto quite inadequately recognized, element 

 in the ethnology of Asia, and of Oceania, of Africa, of Europe, 

 and of America ; and not only in Chaldea and in Egypt, but 

 throughout the world, the civilizations of Semites and of Aryans 

 have been founded on civilizations initiated by some one of these 

 non-Aryan and non-Semitic, or, as in one word they may, 

 perhaps, fitly he called, Archaian white races. 



The three great divisions of this paper are indicated by this 

 ■statement of its thesis : — 



First, classification and summary of the facts which seem to 

 lead to the conclusion that the imitators of the Chaldean and 

 Egyptian civilizations belonged to a white stock different from 

 both the Aryan and the Semitic white stock. 



Secondly, an endeavour to give an approximately complete 

 indication at least, if not statement, of the facts only partially 

 stated by Quatrefages (" Ilommes fossils et hommes sauvages ") 

 with respect to the white races which he name? Allophyllian, 

 and for which the term Archaian is proposed. 



Thirdly, classification and summary of the facts which — the 

 wide dispersion of an Archaian stock of white races being estab- 

 lished — seem to indicate that the vexed questions with respect to 

 the Hittites, the Pelasgians, the Tyrrhenians, the Iberians, the 

 Picts, &c., and wi'h respect also, in part, to the origin of the 

 Chinese, the Mexican, and the Peruvian civilizations ; the facts 

 which indicate that th^se questions may be solved by reference 

 to the general facts with regard to the migrations and character- 

 istics of the Archaian white races. 



The bearing of these results on the questions raised by the 

 •essential identity of the varying forms of folk-lore tales all over 

 the world were also pointed out. 



On the Picture Origin oj the Characters of the Assyrian 

 .Syllabary, by the Rev. W. Houghton. — AH written lan- 

 guage probably originated in pictures representing objects 

 or ideas, as in Chinese and Egyptian. At first the cha- 

 racters were rude figures of animal or other objects. 

 In time the resemblance would be fainter, till at length 

 all similarity between the character and the object repre- 

 sented would disappear. The process may be expressed 

 by the term "pictorial evanescence." Of the 522 characters 

 of the Assyrian syllabary, as given in Prof Sayce's " Grammar," 

 very few of the simple characters exhibit their primitive form, 

 but the composite characters often clearly reveal themselves. 

 We must look to the older forms of the characters for evidences 

 of their pictorial origin. Thus, the character for a " fish " in 

 the modern Assyrian may be traced back through the hieratic 

 Assyrian, the hieratic Babylonian, and the linear Babylonian, to 

 a figure of a fish, with head, body, fins, and tail. The ideo- 

 graph for a "month" is, in its ancient form, a figure of a square 

 with 3 X ID inside it — i.e. thirty days within the sun's circle. 

 The ancient forms of the character denoting a " man " are rude 

 figures of a man with head, neck, shoulders, body, and legs — 

 such a picture as a schoolboy would draw on his slate, or the 

 North American Indians depict. 



Mr. George St. Clair contributed a paper on Boat-shaped 

 Graves in Syria. — In passing through the Anti-Lebanon lately, 

 from Damascus to Baalbec, the writer noticed that the graves at 

 the hamlet of El Fijeh have the form of a flat-bottomed boat ; 

 those at Ain Hawir are formed like long narrow boats, with an 

 ark or house occupying the middle part ; and the graves at the 

 village of Yafufeh are built in three tiers, of which the upper 

 one may be representative of the ark, while the head- and foot- 

 stones are almost certainly the conventional reproduction of the 

 head and stern of the boat. The author asks the question. 

 What led these people in the mountains to build their graves 

 in the model of a boat ? Authors are quoted to show that arks 

 or ships were carried in procession by the Phoenicians, as also 

 "were sacred boats in the funeral processions of the ancient 

 Egyptians. The Egyptians conveyed the body across a lake, 

 and both the lake and the boat were symbolical, typifying the 

 voyage of the soul in the under-world. The system passed into 

 •Oreece, where we have Charon and his boat. Charon's boat is 

 -sculptured on a funeral monument in theCeramicon at Athens — 

 ;a recently uncovered cemetery ; and the bas-relief of a ship 



appears on a tomb at Pompeii. I'rom these facts and others 

 the writer of the paper would infer that the boat-shaped graves 

 of Syria are fashioned by traditional custom in perpetuation of 

 a practice which appears to have originated with the ancient 

 Egyptians. As a supplementary conclusion, it is suggested that 

 the head stones and foot-stones of modern graves may be the 1 

 surviving representatives of the prow and poop of the sacred 

 boat of the dead. ! 



The Effect of Town Life upon the Human Body, by J. Milner 

 Fothergill, M.D. — It is generally recognized that the effect of 

 town life upon the physique is not beneficial, and as the popula- 

 tion of boroughs has now exceeded that of the country, the fact 

 becomes one worthy of our attention. The great and rapid in- 

 crease of large towns at the present time adds to the importance 

 of the subject and deepens its gravity. Of old there were but 

 few large towns, in our modern sen^e of a " large " town ; but 

 Lugol, the great French authority on " scrofula," noted how the 

 population of Paris deteriora'ed, and how scrofulous were the 

 third generations of persons who came in fiom the country per- 

 fectly healthy. Other observers have noticed the bad effect of 

 town life elsewhere. And the recent researches of Mr. James 

 Cantlie have demonstrated the rarity of a pure-bred Cockney of 

 the fourth generation. Of old the baron lived in his castle, 

 while the populace lived around in villages of limited size. For 

 men of all conditions of life the one thing to be coveted above 

 all others was physical prowess. For work, for war, for games 

 which were largely mimic war, bodily strength was essential. 

 No courage, no skdl, could effectually compensate for the want 

 of thews and sinews. Work, war, sports, revels, all too were 

 conducted in the open air. But civilization brought about 

 changes profoundly influencing the life of the individual. The 

 development of commerce entailed the growth of towns ; and 

 then it was found that in the new struggle for existence the 

 battle went rather to the man with the active brain than to the 

 man with a massive framework. The active brain became now 

 the one great thing to be coveted rather than physical prowess. 

 The tendency of town populations is to dwindle, and this 

 dwindling is se:n markedly in the feeble digestive capacity of 

 town dwellers. They cannot eat the pastry, the pie-crust, the 

 cakes, which form so large a portion of the dietary of their 

 country cousins. If they attempt these articles of food they give 

 themselves the stomach-ache. Consequently they live on such 

 food as they can digest without suffering — bread, and fish, and 

 meat ; above all the last — the sapid, tasty flesh of animals, 

 which sits lightly on the stomach, and gives an acceptable feel- 

 ing of satiety, so pleasant to experience. The town dweller, in 

 his selection of food, is guided by his feelings ; he avoids what 

 is repugnant to him. Such selection is natural and intelligible, 

 but it is fraught with danger all the same. Pulmonary phthisis 

 and Bright's disease seem Dame Nature's means of weeding out 

 degenerating town dwellers. The offspring of urban residents 

 are another race from their cousins who remain in the country. 

 The latter are large-limbed, stalwart, fair-haired Anglo-Danes, 

 while their urban cousins are smaller, slighter, darker beings, of 

 an earlier and lowlier ethnic form, and resembling the Celto- 

 Iberian race. And amidst this general reversion we can recognize 

 a distinct liver-reversion to the early primitive uric acid formation 

 of the bird and reptile. A recognition of these facts must lead 

 to such modifications of the food customs of town dwellers as are 

 indicated. The spread of teetotalism and vegetarianism tells of 

 a dark groping in the right direction in blind obedience to the law 

 of self-preservation. There must also follow some modification 

 of the existing system of education, for it is by the imperfectly 

 nourished town child that the weight of the burden of education 

 is most acutely felt. 



On the Bosjes Pelvis, by Prof. Cleland, F.R.S.— The 

 embroadened brim found in certain savage tribes is a 

 retention of a feature of adolescence. This is seen well 

 in the Bosjes, and the peculiarity may be correlated with 

 others which have escaped attention. There is feeble de- 

 velopment of the iliac blades, especially at the back part, pro- 

 bably owing to early anchylosis of the epiphysis of the crest. 

 Connected with this the post-auricular levers of the ilia are very 

 feeble, as they also are in early life in Europeans, causing 

 shallowness of the post-sacral fossa occupied by the strongest 

 part of the multifidus spinse muscle, a most important muscle for 

 erecting the lumbar part of the column on the pelvis. The action 

 of the iliac levers in broadening the brim in the European is 

 recognized. Their shortness, and the lightness of the super- 

 incumbent weight of the body, are circumstances which account 

 for the brim failing to broaden out in the Bosjes. 



