AXUAKY 5, 1905] 



NA TURE 



225 



needles have been disturbed before or at the time of 

 large earthquakes. Speaking generally about these 

 investigations, Baron Kikuchi considers that they 

 promise to throw light upon the state of underground 

 stress, and as one of the chief objects of the E. I. C. is 

 to devise means to predict earthquakes which may be 

 taken as announcements that stress has been relieved, 

 it will be recognised that the inquiries relating to local 

 magnetic disturbance are of a promising nature. 



Other phenomena which receive attention are vari- 

 ations in latitude, the determination of gravity, under- 

 ground temperatures, seiches, changes in the level of 

 water in wells, and the elastic constants of rocks. 



The last section of this interesting volume is an 

 account of investigations which have been made with 

 the object of reducing the disastrous effects of earth- 

 quakes to a minimum. To the prac- 

 tical person this is no doubt the most 

 important branch of all seismological 

 research. Already it has accomplished 

 much, and after a severe shaking we 

 have learned that in Japan new types of 

 structures are to be seen standing 

 amongst the ruins of older types. 



We welcome Baron Kikuchi 's 

 volume, and trust that although its 

 circulation is private it may also be 

 wide. 



maps, very numerous and complete, illustrate both the 

 tribal areas and the range of the various social 

 systems. 



In this matter of organisation Dr. Hewitt traces the 

 gradations in a way conclusive enough to point to the 

 probable course of evolution. In particular he reduces, 

 the problem of exogamy to the bisection of the com- 

 munity into two exogamous intermarrying moieties — 

 the typical Australian system — which bisection is. 

 based, as he implies, on the prohibition of marriage 

 between brothers and sisters. It is to be regretted that 

 he does not fully discuss this ground of exogamy. He 

 quotes Dr. Frazer and the present writer as having 

 independently reached the same conclusion, and it 

 seems that we are at last approaching unanimity as 

 to this primal law of human social relations. He 



THE FOUNDER OF AUSTRALIAX 

 ANTHROPOLOGY.'- 



P)R. A. W. HOWITT is our highest 



••-^ authority on the native tribes o' 

 Australia. Ever since the publication 

 of " Kamilaroi and Kurnai," in 1880, 

 he has been adding to our knowledge 

 of the most instructive and interesting 

 aboriginal population in the world. 

 The present work, therefore, which 

 summarises the data collected by him 

 during forty years of personal inter- 

 course with the " blackfellows," is of 

 the greatest importance. Most of the 

 material here incorporated was written 

 up before 1889; a few modifications of 

 theory and many new facts have been 

 introduced, and some corrections made, 

 but the broad deductions remain un- 

 altered. 



The main body of the work is pre- 

 ceded by a useful summarv and 

 criticism of the principal views that have 

 been put forward as to the origin and 

 ethnological affinities of the Tas- 

 manian-.Australian stock ; Dr. Howitt 

 rejects both the Dravidian and the 

 Malayan hypotheses. The tribes here 

 dealt with came into contact with the white man at 

 a date too early, perhaps, to allow them much chance 

 of survival ; many of them are now practically extinct, 

 and most of them are at least deorganised. The area 

 they occupied is about one-quarter of the continent, 

 e.xtending on the north to near the tropic of Capricorn, 

 and on the south bordered by the Southern and Pacific 

 Oceans, connected by Bass Strait. This area has a 

 wide range of climate and temperature, and the tribes 

 themselves present almost every variety of social 

 organisation, from that of the Dieri and central dis- 

 tricts through the ordinary Australian tvpes to the 

 unique system of the Kurnai in Gippsland". Excellent 



: Tribes of Souih-Ea 



Ma. 



NO. 1836, VOL. 71] 



agrees with Spencer and Gillen that the primary 

 functions of totemism were in existence before 

 exogamy became established, and that the relation 

 between totemism and exogamy is secondary only. 

 On the other hand he sees no reason to modify his 

 original view that the bisection was a reformatory 

 measure, instituted after a long reign of the " Un- 

 divided Commune." It is doubtless impossible to- 

 deny some purposiveness to the innovation, if innova- 

 tion it was; Mr. Lang is here inclined to agree. But 

 to engineer such bisection in a large undivided com- 

 mune seems beyond the powers even of primitive man.. 

 .\ shorter way may be easily suggested : — the moieties 

 practically correspond to two groups of intermarrying 

 relatives; we may suppose, then, to begin with, two 

 small families or fire circles, .\ and B, making inter- 



