464 



♦ KNOWLEDGE • 



[Mat 29, 1885. 



and iu facilitating intercourse Vjetween East and West 

 Whilst the sea has thus burst its bau-iers in that direc- 

 tion, there have been local recessions before the sedi- 

 ment which has been brought down by fluvial action, 

 and this operation is admirablj' explained in the chapter 

 treating of the hydrograiihy of the Po, which, the 

 authors remark, " in its behaviour may be looked upon as 

 a typical river." If the account lacks the eloquence with 

 which Mr. Ruskin describes the movement of that river 

 in his story of the deposition of the sands on which Venice 

 stands,* it falls no whit behind in clearness and instruc- 

 tiveness. The map of the Po basin in the Glacial epoch 

 which is given shows the extension of the sea at that 

 period over the jilains of Lombardy and Piedmont as far 

 inland as Turin, the proof of this being in the marine shells 

 of extant species found at no great depth beneath the 

 alluvial sediment deposited by the Po. During that epoch 

 the river, born amongst the " aged snows," was fed from 

 the ice-caverns of the huge glaciers which then filled the 

 Alpine valleys, and of which the glaciers of to-day are the 

 shrunken and slowly-diminishing successors. These monster 

 ice-ploughs furrowed the valleys deeper, and ground the 

 rocks that clasped them into powder, which was borne in 

 solution by the river and spread out as fruitful soil, from 

 which was to spring the corn, the olive, and the vine. The 

 same resistless agency — water, solid or liquid — is busy 

 today, riving asunder the porous and saturated rocks till 

 the big fragments slide down their sides in avalanches, or, 

 in the more noiteless process of denudation, washing these 

 rocks away particle by particle, till the highest crests of 

 Matterhorns and less isolated peaks shall be levelled, and 

 •even the lovely lakes of Switzerland and Northern Italy be 

 choked with the boulders and filled with the alluvium of 

 the so-called " everlasting hills." 



Throughout the physical section the authors have wisely 

 based their exposition on the general principles set forth in 

 Professor Geikie's masterly paper on " Geographical Evo- 

 lution," and to the same authority are probably due the 

 suggestive observations cu the numberless changes which 

 have left so little of tlie material of the original Europe. 

 But the temptation to dwell on that interesting story must 

 be resisted, and it will here suttice to repeat commendation 

 of the earlier part of the work as aliording an excellent 

 conspectus of the general causes determining the present 

 aspects of the European continent. 



The heterogeneous ethnical elements in the peoples of 

 Europe are treated of separately in the several political 

 groups, but upon the general subject of the ethnology and 

 philology of the European race-* tlie appendix furnished by 

 Professor Keaue, which is the distinctively valuable 

 feature of this, as of the preceding volumes, should be 

 carefully studied. It begins with a survey of the earliest 

 inhabitants of Europe — the men of the Stone Ages, whose 

 relation to any existing stocks is unestablished. 0( the 

 most ancient race, the savages of the Drift (whether pre- 

 Glacial or inter-Glacial, is unsettled), nothing whatever is 

 known, save that they then appear to have been widely 

 spread over both hemispheres : nor, in view of the enor- 

 mous duration of the Ancient Stone Age, and of the 

 bridgeless interval between it and the Newer Stone Age 

 which is continuous to this day, can possible links between 

 successive races be recovered. Professor Keane hardly !a}'s 

 stress enough on the difterent geological Conditions of 

 these Ages, or on the remoteness of the one in contrast 

 to the historic nearness of the other. But, despite these 

 <Iiflerences, there are no sufficient grounds for the common 



* Vide "Stones of Venice" (both large and small eJitions) ; 

 chapter "The Throne." 



assumption that the latest men of the Old Stone Age 

 and the earliest men of the Newer Stone Age were 

 racially distinct, or that a vast untenanted interval sepa- 

 r.ites the latest epoch of the Old Stone Age from the 

 earliest epoch of the Newer. It is true that in the former, 

 Britain was still united to the mainland, and that in the 

 latter it was separated ; but, impassable to savage races 

 as the sea between us and the continent may now be, 

 the channel which divides England from France may then 

 have been a fordable river, across which races in slowly 

 advancing civilisation pai-sed and intermixed. Be this as it 

 may, " the pioblem of the true relation of prehistoric man 

 to the present inhabitants of Europe remains an unsolved 

 rid.lle." 



The composite character of these last is next explained ; 

 the assumption of an Aryan stock pure and unaffected by 

 non- Aryan stocks, is dismissed ; but Professor Keane, 

 while admitting that the great linguistic familif s of Europe 

 — the Aryan aud the Finno-Tatar — correspond, on the 

 whole, with the racial aftlnities of the peoples comprised 

 within them, is careful to insist on what philologists have 

 too often ignored, that " speech and race are not cunvertible 

 terms." As illustrating this, he remarks that " ivithin 

 two generations the victorious Northmen of the Seine 

 valley completely foi'got their Norse tongue and adopted 

 the Romance of their Gallic subjects. These Ganls them- 

 selves had, on the other hand, previously changed their old 

 Keltic speech for the Latin of their Roman masters. In 

 this region of northern France, there have thus arisen 

 racial complexities of all sorts, but never any permanent 

 linguistic confusion, one language simply displacing another 

 without producing any mixed forms of speech, which, if 

 they exist at all, are certainly the rarest of philological 

 phenomena." In treating of the subdivision of the great 

 European families, the interesting question of the Asiatic or 

 European origin of the Aryans, which has come more to 

 the front lately, is discussed, the opinion of Professor Keaue 

 inclining in favour of Asia. But any survey of the argu- 

 ments ]iro and co7i would till too much space; and, moreover, 

 the suViject has a quite subordinate value to the larger one 

 respecting the races in whom perchance both Aryan and 

 non-Aryan may find a cnmmon ancestry, bplying the Pro- 

 fessor's definition of the fair Cauca.sian and yellow Mongolian 

 as ''two everlasting primeval elements." Enough has been 

 said to indicate that the Appendix is of singular value 

 throughout, and its learned author, in the absence of any 

 authoritative manual on the subject, would render a service 

 to ethnology by collecting the several appendices, with 

 necessary additions of races not comprised in the series, and 

 issuing them in a separate volume. 



EoYAL Victoria Hall, WATERLOo-TiRiDGE Eoad. — On the 10th 

 inst., the last of the season's series of penny lectm-es was given 

 by Professor Perry on " Spinning Tops." The lecturer described 

 the curious rigidity produced by rapid motion, showing in illustra- 

 tion, smoke-rings. Spinning-tops do not fall down ; when thrown 

 about their axes maintain their original directions, as the axis of 

 the earth does, the earth being, in fact, a gigantic spinning-top. 

 A top in motion does not fall down, but rises up gradually to its 

 highest position. When struck, it does not move in the direction 

 which might be expected ; a blow towards the north, for instance, 

 makes it move towards the west. Various peculiarities in the 

 motions of tops were shown in illustration of similar motions in 

 the axis of the earth. The motion known as precession, for 

 instance (which causes the axis of the earth slowly to alter its 

 direction, so that 13,000 years hence our seasons will be reversed), 

 was shown to be analogous to the circles described by a spinning- 

 top. It was also explained that the paths of rifle bullets de- 

 pended on the same laws which govern spinning-tops. A very 

 attractive variety entcrtainm.ent has been provided for the Whit- 

 suntide holidays. The annual Flower Festival for children will 

 be held to-morrow afternoon (May 30), from 2 to 4 o'clock. 



