May 22, 1885.] 



KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



431 



■which a baby is held. For " come " they beckon, as it 

 were to draw the person to them, and " go " is shown by 

 ■waving the hand outwards ; pushing hiiu away. For the 

 pronouns, "I 'the foretinger is pointing towards the pit 

 of the speaker's stomach, for " thou " it is pointed towards 

 the person spoken to, for '-he" the thumb is sonutimes 

 pointed over the right shoulder. For " red " the inside of 

 the lip is touched, to express '"green " the grass is pointed 

 to. Interrogation is shown by looking or pointing about 

 in an uncertain ■way. I am not now speaking of the 

 finger language which is taught to deaf-and-dumb children, 

 and is an artificial system based on the ordinary 

 alphabet, and by means of which words are spelled 

 in the ordinary way. Gesturt> language, such as that 

 above referred to, is not taught, but seems to be 

 naturally developed in the deaf and dumb, who attain a 

 proficiency in it which their teachers could never acquire. 

 Some of the signs used become, in the course of time, con- 

 ventional, but the majority sufficiently retain their natural 

 character to be recognisable by the civilised deaf and dumb 

 ■when used by the savage, and vice versd. Mr. Tylor 

 says : " I am sure that a skilled deaf-and-dumb talker 

 ■would understand an Indian interpreter, and be himself 

 understood at first sight, with scarcely any difficulty. The 

 Indian pantomime and the gesture-language of the deaf and 

 dumb are but diflferent dialects of the same language of 

 nature,* to which, as he remarks elsewhere,! the Chinese 

 mythic description of the primeval language may be ap- 

 plied. "Suy-jin first gave names to plants and animals, and 

 these names were so expressive that by the name of a thing 

 it was known what it was." " The best evidence," he 

 says, t "of the unity of the gesture-language is the ease 

 and certainty ■with ■which any savage from any country can 

 understand and be understood in a deaf-and-dumb school. 

 A native of Hawaii is taken to an American institution, 

 and begins at once to talk in signs with the children, and 

 to tell about his voyage and the country he came from. A 

 Chinese who had fallen into a state of melancholy from 

 long want of society, is quite revived by being taken to the 

 same place where he can talk in gestures to his heart s con- 

 tent." A deaf-and-dumb boy was taken to see some Lap- 

 landers, and one of the women who ■would not speak at 

 first, when she discovered his condition, got quite friendly, 

 and chatted in gestures about reindeer and other subjects 

 which interested her. 



There is an oft-repeated story of two savages of different 

 tribes who married ; neither could speak the other's tongue, 

 nor did either make any advance towards learning it, yet 

 they lived together in peace and harmony for many years, 

 conversing wholly in signs. 



Captain Burton states that white men prefer interpreters 

 learned in the art of sign-making to those better acquainted 

 with the verbal language. " A man being sent among 

 the Cheyennes to qualify himself for interpreting, returned 

 in a week, and proved his competence ; all that he did, 

 however, was to go through the usual pantomime, with a 

 running accompaniment of grunts." 



It is possible for a connected speech to be delivered 

 wholly in signs, and Captain Burton gives the following 

 narrative as a specimen of how an Indian would render it. 

 " Early this morning, I mounted my horse, rode off at a 

 gallop, traversed a kanyon or ravine, then over a mountain 

 to a plain, where there was no water, sighted bison, followed 

 them, killed three of them, skinned them, packed the flesh 

 upon my pony, and returned home." The signs would be 

 arranged thus : " I — this morning — early — mounted my 

 horse — galloped — a kanyon — crossed — a mountain — a plain 



* " Early History of Man," p. .35. t Ibid. p. GO. Z Ibid. p. 54. 



— drink — no ! — sighted — bison — killed — three — skinned — 

 j)acked llesh — mounted — hither." 



Taken in connection with Captain Burton's example, 

 the following is of interest, as there is great similarity 

 between the modes in which the savage and the deaf child 

 express themselves. " A boy saw a tree on which several 

 birds were sitting. Ho thought to himself, ' 1 Nhould like 

 to catch some of these,' so he crept gingerly under the tree, 

 took out his pocket-handkerchief, spread it on the ground, 

 and began to .shake tho tree. To his great astonishment, 

 the birds did not fall down, but all ilew away. Very 

 disappointed, he took up his handkerchief again, and went 

 home. What an ignorant boy." A deaf anddumb child 

 would tell this exciting episode in the following way : — 

 Sign for boy — there — tree — many — birds — lia]ii>y — think 

 — some— birds — I ; then ho would look towards the 

 imaginary tree, step towards it on his toes, puts his 

 hand in bis pocket, take out his handkerchief, sjiread it on 

 the ground, and shake the tree. All this is done with a 

 joyful expression ; but then he looks up, oj)ens his mouth 

 with astonishment, which passes quickly into disappoint- 

 ment, and then bends down, picks up his handkerchief, 

 puts it away, retreats with his head down and looking sad. 

 Finally he laughs, shrugs his shoulders, and makes the sign 

 for ignorant or don't know, the grouped fingers being put 

 to the head, and then quickly opened out from it.^'' 



A still more interesting example of a continuous nar- 

 rative expressed in signs is quoted by Mr. Tylor, f being 

 the last will and testament of a man named .John Geal, 

 who was deaf and dumb, and could neither read nor write. 

 The will is too long to copy here, but a few of the expres- 

 sions used therein may be quoted with advantage. When 

 referring to his money, he touched his trousers pocket ; to 

 more general property, he swept his arms all round. He 

 laid his head on the palm of his hand, with his eyes closed, 

 to signify " death, decease," and put his forefinger into his 

 mouth for " child " — a sign which has always been popular, 

 and which an ancient Egyptian would have understood, for 

 on the monuments, Horus, the son of Isis and Osiris, is 

 always represented with his forefinger in his mouth, to show 

 that he is a child. The sign, douljtless, originated in imi- 

 tation of the sucking of infants. 



CHATS ON 

 GEOMETRICAL MEASUREMENT. 



By Richard A. Proctor. 



TUE CYLINDER. 



A. We turn now from prisms and pyramid.s, to cylinders 

 and cones. With which of these shall we begin 1 p*?J 



M. With cylinders ; for they bear the same relation' to 

 prisms that cones bear to pyramids ; and we had to deal 

 with prisms before we could deal with pyramids. __ ■"E''t:j 



A. What is the curved suface of a cylinder ? 



.)/. I can only answer for the case of a right cylinder, — 

 the curved surfaces of oblique cylinders cannot be deter- 

 mined without the higher mathematics. 



A. Can you deal with any light cylinder ? 



M. No ; only with the right circular cylinder. 



A. What then is the surface of a right cylinder? 



.!/. It Ls equal to a rectangle, one side of which is equal 

 in length to the circumference of the circular base of the 



* The story ia from Moriz Hill's "Anleitung zum Spracbun. 

 teiTieht Taubstummer Kinder." 1840. 

 t " Early History of Man," pp. 20-30. 



