338 



NATURE 



[February 13, 1896 



with the description of a pretty fishing-village, low cliffs, 

 and a coastguard station ! 



Chapter v., " Across the Plains," is probably the most 

 successful in the book. Written in the same style as 

 those just described, it is distinctly more realistic and 

 dignified in its tone. The subject-matter is also more 

 coherent, and its treatment — for the scope of the book — 

 exhaustive. Were all ten chapters equal to this one, we 

 would say Prof. Cole had been most successful in carrying 

 out a set purpose pleasantly and beneficially for cultured 

 readers who travel at home and abroad. But un- 

 fortunately the high-water level is seldom reached in the 

 book. 



Chap. vi. dips into the lore of " Dead Volcanoes," 

 starting with the highland of Auvergne, and returning to 

 our own islands. Chap. vii. is a careful study of "A 

 Granite Highland," and generally of igneous rocks. 

 "The Annals of the Earth" (chap, viii.) gives a general 

 account of the stratigraphical succession. Chap, ix., 

 '• The Surrey Hills," is a very happy combination of the 

 art of seeing and describing beauty of landscape, along 

 with the practical demonstration of the principles of 

 stratigraphy. It resounds with the stroke of the geo- 

 logist's hammer, and the enthusiasm of a true guide 

 and teacher. Chap, x., " The Folds of the Mountains," 

 will be to most readers difficult, as it deals with the hard 

 subject of the making of mountain-chains. The Alps 

 are mainly considered, the writing, is admirably clear, 

 and the doctrines taught are in accord with all the 

 newest researches. 



It remains to add how often passages occur through- 

 out the book which remind us of the artistic feeling for 

 nature displayed by the author in a previous publication, 

 " The Gypsy Road." Every small detail in a scene is 

 touched with a sympathetic, kindly pen, that reminds 

 one of the lingering brush of a Constable. Take his 

 description of Fenland : 



" From Cambridge northward to the estuary of the 

 Wash, there are forty-five miles of level ground. . . . 

 Between the scattered villages lie areas of black peat, 

 covered with coarse grass, and dug into here and there 

 for fuel. The roads are carried along the crests of broad 

 embankments, with dark, little drainage-cuts on either 

 side of them, crossed by bridges to the fields. A few 

 trees cluster round the old farm-houses, protecting them 

 from the winds that sweep across the fenland steadily 

 for weeks together. . . . The sky is usually full of great 

 cumulus-clouds, dark grey below and silvery white above, 

 where the sunlight strikes through them in long shafts 

 across the grey-green plain. A church-tower or a wind- 

 mill is visible ten miles away, when touched on by these 

 sudden gleams ; then it sinks back again into the great 

 gloom of the horizon" (p. 121). 



Taken as a whole, the book fails, in so far as it con- 

 stantly mixes together two distinct styles of writing, the 

 picturesque and the didactic. It is at the same time 

 eminently readable, and will be warmly hailed by many 

 lovers of geology out-of-doors. A solid groundwork 

 is formed by the five chapters referred to above as par- 

 taking of the text-book method. The others are some- 

 what of a skim-swallow type, too rapid in their course, 

 too overladen with detail and local colouring, to be 

 adapted either to the serious wants of a student or to the 

 slow apprehension of a complete novice in nature's fields. 

 The book will appeal most to the dilettante student, or to 

 NO. 1372, VOL. 53] 



the tourist who has already had abundant opportunity of 

 observing, who delights in finding his own dim per- 

 ceptions vividly mirrored by a trained scientific mind, 

 and in seeing them marshalled towards the solution of 

 " vexed problems of the globe." 



Maria M. Ogilvie. 



PRIMITIVE PICTURE- WRITING. 

 The Beginnings of Writing. By Walter James Hoffman, 

 M.D. With an Introduction by Prof Frederick Starr. 

 Pp. xiv -I- 209. (London : Macmillan and Co., 1895.) 



THERE is no more fascinating subject for study than 

 the development of the art of writing through its 

 various stages, from the first rough pictures drawn by 

 primitive man to the alphabets in use among the civilised 

 nations of the present day. But the historic systems of 

 writing go back to a remote antiquity, and although we 

 can trace some of them back many hundreds of years, the 

 question of their first origin is one that is beset with many 

 difficulties. It is at this point, however, that the anthro- 

 pologist comes to the antiquary's help, for he shows that 

 the mind of savage man always works along the same 

 general lines of development. All primitive races, 

 whether in China, Central India, Western Asia, Europe, 

 North Africa, or North America, have used the same rude 

 means to record their thoughts and actions, scratching on 

 their rocks or weapons rough pictures of their possessions 

 and pursuits. The methods used by hunters of the 

 Palaeolithic age to record a successful hunting expedition 

 resemble those which the North American Indian now 

 employs. From these rude pictures the savage passes, 

 by a natural law of development, to the representation 

 of ideas, expressing motion or condition by means of 

 gesture-signs. Then, after certain pictures have become 

 associated with certain words, he begins to use them to 

 express their sound but not their meaning ; in fact, he 

 begins to write phonetically. His pictures, as he writes 

 more rapidly, change to signs, which become more and 

 more simplified, and finally his system of syllabic 

 writing he develops still further till he reaches the most 

 perfect phonetic system of writing, the alphabet. 



Such in brief are the main lines of development which 

 all races follow who work out for themselves the art of 

 writing, and it is this attractive subject that Mr. Hoffman 

 has selected for his book. In the brief preface in which 

 Prof Starr introduces him and his book to the reader, 

 we learn that he has for some years been engaged both in 

 field-work and study among the Indian tribes of North 

 America, and from his book itself we find that his studies 

 have resulted in a most interesting collection of the 

 various methods of writing employed by these primitive 

 races. It is true that many of his examples are already 

 well known from other publications, but the collection 

 does not aim at being original, for the book belongs to an 

 educational series, where original work would be out of 

 place. What was wanted, and what in the main Mr. 

 Hoffman has given us, was a representative collection of 

 the various methods of writing employed by the North 

 American Indians. These are here classified, described 

 clearly and illustrated with numerous small cute ; and for 

 this part of his work we have nothing but praise. But 

 why did not Mr. Hoffman confine his book to the subject 

 in which he is in a sense a specialist ? Why did he seek 



