SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 417 



principle of executive supremacy with immediate responsibility is the 

 purpose of the book. Mr. Bradford would obtain this by giving the repre- 

 sentatives of the administrative departments seats in the House, with power 

 to suggest legislation, make explanations, and participate in debate. His 

 final argument is that it can not be charged that democracy is a failure; 

 but, " with a wholly new force introduced into the world, the proper ma- 

 chinery for its application has not yet been employed. In its nature it 

 is reasonable, sound, and, on the whole, beneficent." Using the words of 

 an English writer, " the failures of government in the United States are 

 not the result of democracy, but of the craftiest combination of schemes 

 to defeat the will of democracy ever devised in the world." 



WE have already published a fairly comprehensive review of Richard 

 Semon's In the Australian Bush,* based upon the German original, by 

 Prof. E. P. Evans, in the fifty-second volume of the Monthly (November, 

 1897). But little needs to be added to what Professor Evans has said of 

 the book besides announcing the appearance of the English edition, the 

 translation for which was written under the author's own superintendence, 

 and the contents of which do not differ in any important particular from 

 the German impression. Professor Semon went to Australia on a special 

 zoological mission, and spent two years there. His purpose was the study of 

 the wonderful Australian fauna, the oviparous mammals, marsupials, and 

 ceratodus (lungfish). These animals represent forms which, with a few 

 notable exceptions, have long since become extinct in other countries, where 

 they have to be studied in such parts of their bony forms as happen to have 

 been preserved in the rocks, while here they can be examined alive and in 

 the flesh " living fossils," as the author fittingly calls them, links between 

 the present age and one of the geological periods of the past. His observa- 

 tions on these subjects are in course of publication in a special scientific 

 work, not quite half of which has appeared. The present volume consists 

 in the notes of travel and adventure, the dealing with men, the anthropo- 

 logical studies, and what we might call the obiter observations of the ex- 

 pedition. Almost simultaneously *with Professor Semon's narrative we 

 have from the same publishers another book, on The Native Tribes of Cen- 

 tral Australia,\ which deals more fully, exclusively, and perhaps more ex- 

 pertly with the anthropology of a part of the Australian continent. Of the 

 authors, Mr. Gillen has spent the greater part of the past twenty years in 

 the center of the continent, and as sub-protector of the aborigines has had 

 exceptional opportunities of coming in contact with the Arunta tribe ; and 

 both of them have been made fully initiated members of that tribe. Though 

 both about Australia, the two books do not cover the same ground. Aus- 

 tralia is very large, and its physical conditions are such that the groups 

 of tribes inhabiting the various regions have for a long period of time been 

 isolated from one another and have followed different lines in develop- 

 ment. Professor Semon's observations were made in the Burnett district 

 of northeastern Queensland, while those recorded in the work of Spencer 

 and Gillen were made in the very center of South Australia and of the con- 

 tinent. Consequently, in reading them we read really about different 

 things. In addition to the investigation of various customs, such as those 



* In the Australian Bneh, and on the Coast of the Coral Sea. Being the Experiences and Observa- 

 tions of a Naturalist in Australia, New Guinea, and the Moluccas. New York: The Macmillan Com- 

 pany. Pp. 558. Price, $6.50. 



t The Native Tribes of Central Australia. By Baldwin Spencer and F. J. Gillen. New York: 

 The Macmillan Company. Pp. 671, with maps and plates. Price, $6.50. 

 VOL. LT. 81 



