May 17, 1883] 



NATURE 



59 



votaries than ever. On opening, the other day, a book of 

 the curious "Anglo-Israelite" sect, I met with the follow- 

 ing passage, written in evident seriousness by a seeker 

 after proofs that the British nation are the Lost Tribes of 

 Israel: — " I am even now acquainted with many words in 

 current use in some parts of the West of England that 

 were in common use by Israel of old, and that I have not 

 found in use in any other country — such as goad, gourd, 

 barm, leaven, comrade, lattice, chambering, nay, score, 

 gallon, cruse, lintel, latchet, girdle, pitcher, platter, glean, 

 &c, &c." It takes a little thought to understand the full 

 depth of ignorance of a man who, finding these words in 

 the English Bible, thought they were used by the ancient 

 Israelites. Why I ask you to notice it is that the author 

 of the volume it is printed in says that 100,000 copies of 

 his work have been sold ; there is, indeed, no doubt but 

 that this abject nonsense has a far larger circulation than 

 all the rational ethnology published in England. It opens 

 a window by which we can see into the state of education 

 of its readers, who mainly belong to the lower middle 

 class, and whose thousands of schools are as yet unvisited 

 by the University Delegates on the one hand or the Edu- 

 cation Department on the other. Even our Public Ele- 

 mentary education, good as it is in many respects, passes 

 some questionable anthropology. Happening to look a 

 few days ago at a Third Standard book on English 

 History, I was surprised to find a picture of a South Sea 

 Islander, tattooed all over, standing to represent the con- 

 dition of the ancient Britons, who are described as 

 savages. Now this is hardly an appropriate designation 

 for a pastoral and agricultural people, who had a gold 

 coinage, and whose war-chariots even the Roman legion- 

 aries found troublesome to deal with. 



Having now attempted to support the claims of the 

 problems of human nature to fuller recognition in our 

 system of advanced education, it may be well to observe 

 by way of caution that anthropology, while contributing 

 materials to other sciences, does not dictate the conclu- 

 sions which each science is to draw from them. It has 

 not a rule of morals, a system of politics, or a doctrine of 

 religion to teach, only a series of facts showing the stages 

 through which each of these has been developed, and 

 with these the counsel that the anthropological way of 

 studying human conduct is to trace its principles along the 

 historical line of their change and progress. Anthro- 

 pology, though acknowledging degeneration as an impor- 

 tant factor in human life, gives no encouragement to 

 pessimist theories of society. The clinging to life by 

 savage and civilised alike is a measure of their judgment 

 that with all its ills it is a substantial good, to be valued 

 and defended. That the tendency of mankind is toward 

 industrial progress need not be proved, for it is not 

 denied. That moral progress is on the same footing rests 

 on the main fact that man obtains the happiness he seeks, 

 not only through his own sensations but by sympathy 

 with the enjoyments of others ; now beings whose interests 

 are thus consonant with the prosperity of those around 

 them are plainly on the road to good rather than evil. 

 At the same time facts constantly presenting themselves 

 in anthropology guard the student from a prejudiced 

 optimism. He has the picture constantly before him of 

 low-cultured but kindly and truthful tribes of favoured 

 climates, into whose midst the march of civilisation is 

 bringing the beginnings of trade and wealth, and with 

 them temptations to selfishness and dishonesty. At every 

 step in the advance towards prosperity he sees, accom- 

 panying the growth of knowledge and the raising of the 

 social standard, a series of concomitant evils, the break-up 

 of the old stage, the failure to assimilate the new. Often 

 a dispiriting lesson, this is yet of the highest practical 

 value, for it elucidates what the statesman should be ever 

 striving to learn, how, in the remodelling of institutions, 

 to gain the utmost advantage while minimising the 

 accompanying loss. 



To conclude: my explanation of the unsymmetrical 

 way in which I have here put forward the cause of 

 anthropology must be that the necessity of the case com- 

 pelled me to a certain scrappiness of treatment. For 

 presenting my subject thus in shreds and patches I am 

 tempted to apologise in that well-worn lecturer's jest, the 

 story of the man who had a house to sell and carried 

 about a brick as a specimen. Perhaps, however, there 

 may be more of a moral in this story than is commonly 

 supposed. I cannot help fancying that the flippant Greek 

 who first told it ha,d actually seen something of the kind 

 done in sober earnest. He may have watched some 

 grave Roman going down to the prastor' s court carrying 

 a tile in his hands, which in the lawsuit was to be the 

 legal symbol of the house itself, just as a farm would be 

 represented by a sod of its turf, or as one of our Teutonic 

 forefathers, living in a wooden house, would transfer it by 

 handing over a chip from the doorpost. This indeed is 

 the very position in which I find myself placed in under- 

 taking to treat of anthropology in two lectures. Because 

 the whole structure is loo extensive and too massive to 

 bring into ccurt, I have been obliged to symbolise it by 

 fragments taken here and there, and can only ask that 

 these be accepted as symbols, placing the edifice they 

 represent under the guardianship of the University of 

 Oxford. 



THE ARCTIC METEOROLOGICAL STATION 

 ON THE LENA 



THE last number of the Izvcstia of the East-Siberian 

 branch of the Russian Geographical Society gives 

 further news of the Lena Arctic Meteorological Station, 

 dated October 24, 18S2. This news was brought by the 

 American officers. Messrs. Garber and Schiitze, who left 

 the station on October 25, and reached Yakutsk on 

 November 29. Mr. Schiitze made a sketch of the station, 

 which appeared in the Izvestia, and which we repro- 

 duce. The house brought from Yakutsk proved to be 

 comfortable and warm. It has been erected at the 

 Sagastyr arm of the Lena, on Sagastyr Island (in 

 73 1 22' 30" N. lat., and 144' 14' 46" E. long.) ; the name of 

 this island is very significant : it means " it blows away." 

 Galleries of planks have been erected behind the house 

 to connect it with four pavilions for instruments. Be- 

 sides the coal that has been taken from Yakutsk, the 

 station has a good supply of fuel in the driftwood scat- 

 tered around the station. The Sagastyr arm of the Lena 

 supplies the inhabitants of the station with fresh fish. 

 The health of all the members is satisfactory. Dr. Bunge 

 received a contusion to a rib during the journey, but he 

 is now well, and is besieged by indigenes, who come to 

 him for medical help. Several Tungus families stay at 

 one and two miles' distance from the station, and they 

 are on the best terms with the meteorologists. The tem- 

 perature is very low and, as there is no snow, the 

 prospects are not very brilliant. The soil is frozen to a 

 great depth, and cracks ; the rivers and lakes are covered 

 with a thick sheet of ice, so that the water beneath the 

 ice is shallow, and the fish are in want of air to breathe. 

 The food for the reindeer is frozen. Even at Yakutsk 

 there was but one inch of snow on December 16, and a 

 great inundation is expected for the spring, as well as 

 epidemics, which are said usually to follow inundations. 



As to the journey from Bulun to Sagastyr, it was 

 performed not without difficulties. On August 6 a fresh 

 west wind compelled the boats to stop on unfavourable 

 ground, and the wind blowing with increasing force, it 

 soon turned out a strong storm, blowing from north-west 

 on August 9. The boats were thrown aground close by 

 the banks of the river, and filled with water. The waves 

 rolled above their decks. The chief instruments were, 

 however, safe, as they were landed in time. On August 

 19 the expedition reached the Ketakh settlement, seven 



