578 



NA TURE 



[April 21, 1892 



ried women are remarkable for the modesty of their 

 demeanour, and expect to be treated respectfully. 



When the Yahgan approach a strange vessel in their 

 canoes, they might be taken for abject beggars ; but on 

 shore visitors obtain a different impression. There the 

 natives display perfect independence, and they readily 

 take offence at anything which they interpret as a slight. 

 They are far from having a community of goods, every 

 man claiming as his own that which he himself has found 

 or made ; but they are of a generous disposition, and 

 like to share their pleasures with others. That they have 

 a sense of right and wrong Dr. Hyades does not doubt, 

 but their moral distinctions are not always very sharply 

 drawn. They are accomplished liars, and the only dis- 

 advantage of a lie seems to them to be that the truth is 

 sometimes apt to be found oilt. A man convicted of theft, 

 however, will show that he is ashamed of his deed ; and 

 murder is punished with death. The Yahgan have often 

 been accused of cannibalism, but Dr. Hyades agrees with 

 Mr. Bridges, who knows them thoroughly, in regarding 

 this charge as utterly without foundation. 



They can occupy themselves continuously for a con- 

 siderable time with any employment to which they are 

 accustomed, such as the making of a harpoon ; but it is 

 hard for them to devote attention to anything with which 

 they are not familiar. When questioned on any subject, 

 they soon become confused, and give answers at random. 

 They do not divide time or count beyond three, and have 

 remarkably short memories. But they are good observers 

 of the signs of the weather, of plants, and of animals ; and 

 they have an extraordinary power of mimicking attitudes, 

 gestures, and cries, although they have no such faculty of 

 imitation as leads to the production of new instruments, 

 utensils, or other useful objects. They are wholly unable 

 to make anything, however simple, after a given model. 

 They often have dreams, but do not generally appear to 

 attach to them any significance. They have neither 

 poetry, nor history, nor traditions ; and Dr. Hyades 

 asserts that the members of the Expedition never saw 

 among them the faintest trace of religious ideas or sen- 

 timents. Those of them who are directly under the 

 influence of English missionaries have learned to live 

 regular lives, but have lost many aptitudes possessed by 

 the savage Yahgan ; and they easily fall victims to 

 various forms of disease which have been imported 

 with civilization. 



The language of the Yahgan is dealt with in a long 

 and most instructive chapter ; and interesting details are 

 given as to the occupations of the people, their domestic 

 customs, and many other subjects. Of the plates, to 

 which we have already referred, we need only say that 

 they alone would have sufficed to make the work an 

 invaluable contribution to ethnographical and anthropo- 

 logical science. 



QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS. 

 Quantitative Chemical Analysis. By Frank Clowes, 

 D.Sc. Lond., and J. Bernard Coleman. Pp. 309. 

 (London : J. and A. Churchill, 1891,) 

 T^HIS book embodies the material usually included in 

 -L a complete course of elementary instruction in 

 Quantitative analysis. It is divided into five parts. 

 NO. 1173, VOL. 45] 



Part I. treats of the balance, the determination of phy- 

 sical constants, the purification of substances, and pre- 

 liminary analytical processes generally. The more im- 

 portant simple gravimetric estimations are grouped in 

 Part II. ; and are followed, in Part III., by descriptions of 

 the methods and the more common determinations com- 

 prised under volumetric analysis. In Part IV. are classed 

 more complex exercises, involving both gravimetric and 

 volumetric processes. Here are to be found analyses of 

 ores, technical products, fuel, articles of food and drink, 

 including complete analyses of milk, butter, sugar, and 

 partial analyses of wine, beer, and tea. The valuations 

 of tannins and soaps are next given, and the part con- 

 cludes with a section on the typical methods of organic 

 analysis. Part V. is devoted to a description of the 

 ordinary methods of technical gas analysis. 



The above brief summary of contents will show that 

 the aim of the volume is eminently practical ; and with 

 regard to the purely chemical sections little but praise 

 can be expressed, both at the general and detailed treat- 

 ment of the subject. All the more important estimations 

 have been included, and the practical points to be 

 observed in accurate work are clearly stated. A 

 noteworthy feature, and one especially helpful to the 

 student, is the brief statement of the principle of each 

 estimation, in a sentence or two, before the detailed 

 process is described. The accounts of food and gas 

 analysis are both useful and interesting, and are seldom 

 met with in manuals of this kind. 



There can be no doubt but the book will be a service- 

 able guide to the student, and aid to the teacher. 



One or two minor points, however, seem worthy of 

 criticism. It is stated in the preface that, in order to 

 economize space, " unnecessary theoretical matter" has 

 been omitted, and apparently this idea has been carried 

 too far. For example, it is but just to tell the student 

 why in estimating sulphur as barium sulphate, nitric 

 acid is first expelled. Knowledge of a similar kind, more 

 especially in the physical portions of the book, is occa- 

 sionally left out, and descriptions are thus rendered more 

 or less empirical. 



If it is considered necessary to give methods for deter- 

 mining specific gravities, boiling-points, &c., in a work 

 of this kind, the accounts should be modern, and the accu- 

 racy aimed at should be comparable with that attained 

 in the chemical sections. Absolute specific gravity — or 

 shortly, specific gravity— as used in the book, with no^ 

 temperatures of comparison attached, is now generally 

 taken to be the weight of unit volume ; such a definition, 

 is not hinted at, and none of the methods given serve 

 to obtain the absolute specific gravity. The time- 

 honoured but obsolete pyknometer, closed by a per-^ 

 forated stopper, still finds a place, and the original 

 Sprengel pyknometer is figured, although it might 

 well be replaced by Perkin's more generally useful 

 modification. 



With regard to the estimations of boiling-point, it 

 should have been clearly stated that to take the baro-^ 

 metric pressure was a necessary part of any trustworth)^ 

 determination. In correcting for the exposed column oi 

 the thermometer, one of the more recent coefficients 

 might have been given in place of the oldest and least 

 satisfactory. What is supposed to be the mean tem« 



