August 



1895] 



NATURE 



30/ 



structure." He describes hospitals as institutions " which 

 are founded for the purpose of talcing in some of the waste 

 products of our industrial and social system, and for re- 

 pairing, as far as possible, the injuries which they have 

 suffered "; and he adds : " Such institutions are sometimes 

 pointed out as the glories of our civilisation. They should, 

 on the contrary, be looked upon chiefly as monuments of 

 neglected duties, and the object of all social reformers 

 should not be to extend them, but so to improve social 

 and industrial conditions as to render them almost entirely 

 unnecessary." This will be a new idea to many good 

 people, but it shows that the author is far ahead of the 

 average social reformer. 



Again, he points out that the armies and navies of the 

 world afford most instructive lessons in collective action, 

 and that it would be equally possible to have armies of 

 men organised for industrial worV:, and navies for carry- 

 ing on such commerce as was essential for supplying the 

 wants of the community ; and in his chapter on " Indus- 

 trial Training," he shows how necessaiy it has become to 

 supplement the very imperfect means now rfforded to 

 apprentices to leam their business by some systematic and 

 well-organised system under local or other authorities. 



In the last chapter, on "Industrial Integration," sug- 

 gestions are made as to the course of future legislation. 

 The author thinks that it will be made increasingly diffi- 

 cult for people to live upon unearned incomes, while the 

 equalisation of opportunities will reduce the rewards of 

 extra ability. How this is to be effected is not made 

 clear ; but the author is decidedly of opinion that " the 

 resumption of the ownership of the land by the community 

 is a first essential to equality of opportunity"; concluding 

 with the rather weak remark, that " the methods to be 

 adopted to bring this about will require very careful con- 

 sideration, and must be comparatively slow in their 

 operation." 



After quoting the opinion of the late Mr. Werner 

 Siemens, that the progress of science will lead not to the 

 increase of great factories, but to the return to individual 

 labour, Mr. Dyer adds : — 



" The factory system will continue, and no doubt be 

 extended, for the supply of the common necessaries of 

 life, but the applications of electricity and other methods 

 of obtaining motive power will enable large numbers of 

 small industries to be carried on in country districts. 

 This movement will ultimately bring about a society of 

 integrated labour, which will alternate the work of the 

 field with that of the workshop and manufactory. In order 

 that the e\ ils arising from unlimited competition may be 

 avoided, these departments of work will all be so co- 

 ordinated that a considerable region will, to a large extent, 

 be self-contained as regards its requirements, and will 

 produce and consume its own agricultural and manufac- 

 tured necessaries of life." 



This conclusion has been reached by the present writer 

 and some others, mainly from broad considerations of 

 economy. But when it is set forth in a work which pro- 

 fesses to trace and discuss " the evolution of industry," 

 we expect to be shown that it is a logical and inevitable 

 result of the evolution that has occurred and is now- 

 going on. This is nowhere done, and in this respect the 

 book must be pronounced a failure, although there is 

 much in it with which every friend of progress and ever)' 

 student of social science must heartily agree. 



.■\LFRED R. VV'.ALLACE. 

 NO. 1347, VOL. 52] 



MA VAN HIEROGL YPHICS. 

 A Primer of Mayan Hieroglyphics. By Daniel G. 

 Brinton. Publication of the University of Pennsylvania 

 .Series in Philology, Literature, and Archaiology, vol, 

 iii. No. 2. (London : Ginn and Co.; 



ALL who are interested in .\merican archaeology (and 

 especially those who do not read German, must 

 feel greatly indebted to Dr. Brinton for his " Primer of 

 Mayan Hieroglyphics," for in this little book he has 

 brought together the result of work done during the last 

 few years in America, England, and Germany, and his 

 own extensive knowledge of the subject of which he 

 treats gives the highest value to his selections and his 

 comments. 



That there has been a distinct advance made all along 

 the line cannot now be doubted, and material for study 

 has not only increased, but has been made more generally 

 available to the student 



Dr. Brinton divides the Maya inscriptions into their 

 three elements — mathematical, pictorial, and graphic, 

 and proceeds to review them in that order. He first de- 

 scribes Prof. Forstemann's interesting investigation into 

 the Maya notation for the higher numbers, and then 

 enumerates the various divisions of time in use amongst the 

 Mayas, and points out that the bringing of these irregular 

 numbers into unison with the lunar and stellar years is 

 the difficult task which lies before the investigator. 



" We need not search " [in the inscriptions] " for the 

 facts of history, the names of mighty kings, or the dates of 

 conquests. We shall not find them. Chronometry we 

 shall find, but not chronicles ; astronomy with astrological 

 aims ; rituals, but no records. Pre-Columbian history 

 will not be reconstructed from them. This will be a dis- 

 appointment to many ; but it is the conclusion toward 

 which tend all the soundest investigations of recent 

 years." 



Whilst dwelling upon the elaborate and careful re- 

 searches of what may be called the astronomical school 

 of investigators. Dr. Brinton does not fail to give an 

 instance of how far they differ from their rivals, by quot- 

 ing the explanation given of a certain series of figures in 

 the " Codex Cortesianus," which, in agreement with 

 Forstemann, he supposes to represent the position of 

 certain celestial bodies before the summer solstice, whilst 

 Prof. Cyrus Thomas says of them, " It may be safely 

 assumed that these figures refer to the Maya process of 

 making bread"! Such differences of opinion would 

 seem to indicate that the study of the inscriptions has 

 not yet emerged from the stage of guess-work, and to a 

 great extent this is undoubtedly the case ; but it is satis- 

 factor\- to mark how the happy guess-work of the last few 

 years, and the criticism it has provoked, has led to a solid 

 foundation of ascertained fact from which a fresh start 

 can now be made. 



Under the heading of " Pictorial Elements," Dr. Brinton 

 gives us a list of the Maya gods and their attributes, 

 gathered chiefly from old Spanish records. Regarding 

 some of those deities, he has already published some 

 interesting studies in ".American Hero M)ths." He 

 then proceeds to discuss the cosmogony of the Mayas, 

 and in the following pages deals with the pictorial repre- 

 sentations of the Maya divinities, referring continually to 

 the list published in 1892 by Dr. Schellhas in the Zcit- 

 schrift fiir Ethnologic. 



