5 86 



NA TURE 



[April 19, 1906 



as a preliminary study, but, so far as it goes, it has 

 considerable value and interest. The Aeta of Zam- 

 bales are of a dark chocolate-brown colour, and when 

 pure their hair is woolly ; the men have an average 

 height of 5 feet 2 inches ; they are broad-headed, the 

 cephalic index of the men averaging 82 and that of 

 the females 86; their noses are exceedingly broad, but 

 they have practically no prognathism. The Negritos 

 studied by the author are not in the most primitive 

 condition, as they have ceased to be purely nomadic 

 hunters, and have taken to a little agriculture. It is 

 to be hoped that Mr. Reed, or some other competent 

 person, will pay especial attention to the real nature 

 of the " scattered families " that wander from one 

 place to another; to discover this it will be necessary 

 to learn the names and relationships of every in- 

 dividual of each community, and this should be done 



for several communities, then we shall learn whether 

 they are clans with mother-right or families with 

 father-right. It is important to map out the hunting 

 grounds, and to record whether they consist of 

 personal property. 



Despite the similarity of name, there is no reason 

 to connect the Battak of Palawan with those of 

 Sumatra. They are a wild, hunting folk, who culti- 

 vate one or two tuberous plants, and in a few places 

 plant small fields of rice. They gather gums, which 

 they carry to the coast and trade for rice, beads, &c. 

 They wear a scanty garment of bark cloth. They are 

 a mixed Negrito people, and appear to be analogous 

 to the Sakai of the Malay Peninsuk. The present 

 paper is only a slight sketch ; doubtless these interest- 

 ing people will be carefully studied in the future. 



NO. I903, VOL. -J7,] 



They, like the Negritos of Zambales and elsewhere, 

 are worth special investigation, as they represent the 

 first stage of the passage from a hunting to an agri- 

 cultural mode of life. No people in this stage of 

 culture has been at all adequately studied from the 

 sociological point of view, and our American 

 colleagues have here a fine opportunity for investi- 

 gations that are much needed by ethnologists and * 

 sociologists. 



The term Igorot (the form " Igorrote " is 

 barbarous) is one of those names like Dyak, which 

 has been used so loosely as to be worthless ; etymo- 

 logically it means mountaineer, and therefore can 

 have no racial or even tribal significance. The gram- 

 matical study by Dr. Scheerer is concerned with that 

 division of the Igorot who know themselves as Ibaloi 

 and their language as Nabaloi. Contrary to popular 

 opinion, the author can trace no Chinese influence 

 among the people, but, on the other hand, he has 

 found among Ibaloi personal names some that are 



Fig. 4.— Ibaloi Women (Girl on Right Side). 



pure Japanese words. At present it is impossible to 

 say whether these are more than accidental similari- 

 ties, or to determine in which direction the loan may 

 have taken place. Nabaloi, like all Philippine 

 dialects, is agglutinative, built up of roots and 

 particles ; it belongs to the great Oceanic linguistic 

 stock. A. C. Haddon. 



THE OCEANOGRAPHY OF THE PACIFIC. 

 A NOTABLE addition to our knowledge of the 

 ■**■ Pacific Ocean is contained in a paper by Dr. 

 James M. Flint, published as Bulletin No. 55 of the 

 LInited States National Museum. In the early part 

 of the year 1899 the LT.S.S. Nero, a steam collier of 

 nearly 5000 tons, which had been purchased for use 

 during the Spanish-American war, was fitted out and 

 dispatched from San Francisco with instructions to 

 survey a route for a telegraph cable between the 



