I July 8, 1920] 



NATURE 



58: 



.''f%. 



The Island of Stone Statues.^ 

 By Sir Everard im Thurx, K.C.M.G., K.B.E. 



MRS. ROUTLEDGE'S account deals with her , account of their experiences there. The story, if 

 most adventurous yachting- cruise, with her \ far from completely satisfying-, at least supplies a 

 husband, to Easter Island, the easternmost — j very great deal of material for home-staying 

 i.e. the nearest to the American coast — of that | ethnologists to^study. Moreover, Mrs. Routledge 

 great archipelago of 

 innumerable islands 

 which begins off the 

 Australiarr coast and 

 ends at this islet of 

 stone images. A con- 

 siderable number of 

 the pages of the book 

 are occupied by a vivid 

 and rather unusually 

 interesting travellers' 

 story of places visited 

 on "the outward and 

 homeward voyages, 

 Patagonia and the 

 islands of Juan Fer- 

 nandez and Pitcairn 

 among others ; but it 

 is to the much fuller 

 account of Easter 

 Island itself, occupy- 

 ing one hundred and 

 seventy-six pages of 

 the middle of the 

 book, that we turn 

 i-nost eagerly. 



The mystery which 

 surrounds the history 

 of Easter Island, with 

 its great statues and 

 its unique, and per- 

 haps for ever inde- 

 cipherable, script, un- 

 paralleled elsewhere, 

 has from time to tinn 

 long attracted the at- 

 tention, though very 

 rarely the visits, of 

 ethnologists ; but in 

 the absence of exact 

 data the mystery has 

 hitherto never been 

 even approximately 

 solved. 



Mr. and Mrs. Rout- 

 ledge, in search of 

 new adventure, sailed 

 in their own small 

 yacht, the Mana. to 

 the island, spent some 



fifteen months there (Mr. Routledge was away j holds out hopes of ' another volume m prospect 

 from the island during a considerable part of the ' with descriptions and dimensions of some two 



^mm^ 



111 portion of southern aspect. Di.i^:.) 

 From "The Mystery of Easier IsLniJ. 



■M 



lowing position of 



time), and have now given us a somewH^t full 



1 "The Mystery of Easter Island: The Story of an Expedition." By. 

 Mrs. Scoresby Routledge. Pp. xxi f40». (London: Sifton, Pra<!d, ai.d 

 Co., Ltd., n.d.) Price 31^. 6d. net. 



NO. 2645, VOL. 105] 



hundred and sixty burial places in the island, and 

 thousands of measurements of statues, and other 

 really absorbing matter." It is greatly to be 

 hoped that this further instalment of exact data 



