282 



NATURE 



[November ii, 19 15 



Very useful, too, are the remarks as to the stages, 

 in the various processes, at which corrections may 

 be made. We miss certain references which mig-ht 

 be Expected. There is no mention of the etched 

 copper-plates of Hooke's " Micrographia " (1665), 

 with its celebrated enlargement of Pulex irritans ; 

 or of the use of copper-plate etchings printed 

 in the text as in many early books in 

 science ; or any reference to the great advan- 

 tage (if properly printed) of wood-engraved line 

 diagrams with lines and letterings cut in white 

 against a black background, as in the "CEuvres 

 de Verdet," admirably printed about 1870 at the 

 Imprimerie Nationale of France. But the success 

 of these last-named cuts depends essentially upon 

 the quality of the ink used, a weak point with 

 almost every English printing house, as William 

 Morris discovered when he wished to produce the 

 Kelmscott books. For some unknown reason 

 English printers prefer a "grey" to a really fine 

 black printing; and the ink they habitually use 

 would be quite unsuitable for some of the finely- 

 cut blocks which adorn certain recent German 

 text-books of physics. The final chapter on rela- 

 tive cost of blocks and plates is, in spite of some 

 defective arithmetic, commendable. 



On page 67 the author makes the comment that 

 drawings of microscopic details, usually produced 

 by lithography, ought not to be so, "since the 

 figures are necessarily divorced from the letter- 

 press." This is an entire blunder. One of the 

 most satisfactory of modern text-books, the 

 " Practical Pathology " of Prof. G. Sims Wood- 

 head, has more than a hundred exquisite illustra- 

 tions, in two or three colours, printed in the text. 

 The printing of this and other kindred books seems 

 to be an enviable speciality of a firm of Edinburgh 

 printers. 



A final word of praise must be given to the 

 manner in which this book is itself produced. The 

 typography is far above the average ; and in 

 respect of clear type, wide margins, and clean 

 imposition is a credit to the press from which it 

 issues. The omission of an index is an unpardon- 

 able sin, for which the printer is not responsible. 



S. P. T. 



ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS OF NEW- 

 FOUNDLAND. 

 The Beothucks or Red Indians, the Aboriginal 



Inhabitants of Newfoundland. By J. P. Howley. 



Pp. XX + 348. (Cambridge : At the University 



Press, 1915.) il. IS. net. 



THE Beothucks described in this fine mono- 

 graph, the result of the life-long devotion 

 of Mr. Howley to the investigation of this mys- 

 terious tribe, are an ethnological puzzle, and, like 

 NO. 2402, VOL. 96] 



that of the Tasmanians, with the scanty material 

 at our disposal it is practically insoluble. In the 

 case of these two races we possess little material 

 save some articles recovered from their graves or 

 camps and the more or less vague and fragmentary 

 accounts of untrained observers. 



The Beothucks were relentlessly attacked on 

 two sides : by the Micmacs, an intrusive Algonkin 

 race from the American mainland, and by the 

 French and British hunters and fishers who began 

 to visit Newfoundland when its valuable fisheries 

 became known in Europe. 



As in the case of the Tasmanians, the last sur- 

 vivor was a woman, who died in 1829. Before 

 their final disappearance the conscience of the 

 colonists had been aroused to the tragedy of the 

 destruction of a friendless and generally inoffen- 

 sive people. An institution for their protection 

 was established, and expeditions were sent in 

 search of the survivors, but without much result. 

 One exploring party came into touch with them in 

 1810, but owing to misunderstandings and some 

 lack of intelligence on the part of the leaders, little 

 was learned about them. We know that they 

 lived in circular or octagonal huts with a fireplace 

 in the centre, round which in a circle of pits the 

 occupants sheltered themselves from the rigours 

 of winter. They were a tall, robust people, 

 dressed in skins, armed with bows and arrows, 

 spears, and clubs. They did not, like the Indian 

 tribes of the mainland, scalp their dead enemies ; 

 they cut off their heads and stuck them on poles. 

 Of their religious beliefs we know little. They 

 recognised a life after death, and that the spirit 

 held some sort of communication with the sur- 

 vivors, and they seem to have believed in some 

 greater spirit, like the Manitou of the Indian 

 tribes. They are said to have washed themselves 

 only after the death of their wives, a rite pointing 

 to some kind of belief that the ghost clung to its 

 nearest relative. They used red ochre freely as 

 an ornament. 



It is difficult to decide their racial affinities. 

 Some believe them to be connected with the Red 

 Paint people of Maine. A wilder theory repre- 

 sents them as the descendants of Scandinavian 

 ancestors, but this is disposed of by their skull 

 measurements and the scanty vocabularies which 

 survive. They were probably not allied to their 

 nearest neighbours, the Micmacs and the Eskimo, 

 but they may have been a branch of the Algon- 

 kins, modified in appearance and manners in their 

 new environment. This migration from the main- 

 land must have been early; otherwise their lan- 

 guage would more closely resemble that of the 

 continental tribes. 



It is easy to blame the early colonists for the 



