502 ! NATURE 
enough, but far more obscure is the question, who 
were this old dark-haired race of Silurians? The author, 
touching on the theory connecting them with Iberians or 
Basques, is quite alive to the slightness of the evidence 
pointing this way, and not less cautious as to the ancient 
words belonging to pra-Keltic tribes said to be preserved 
in Irish or Welsh. 
Mr. Elton’s department of original research lies espe- 
cially in ancient legal customs, on which he has for years 
been the leading authority at the English Par. Indeed 
the desire to get back to the historical meaning of customs 
which the law-books utterly fail to explain, is plainly the 
motive which has led him into the wider investigations 
embodied in this book. Naturally he is always on the 
look-out for legal relics of the earlier inhabitants, and for 
instance makes a striking remark on the succession of 
Pictish kings being not from father to son, but to the 
nearest male relative traced through the female line. 
This custom of kinship through the mother, which 
still marks many of the lower tribes of mankind, 
did not belong to the Kelts, who shared with other Aryans 
the rule of descent on the father’s side, and it is fairly 
argued that the squalid tattooed Picts were of an older 
race, and kept up their ruder law of marriage. Again, the 
ancient custom still prevailing in many English districts, 
in the Vale of Taunton for instance, that the land goes 
not tothe eldest but the youngest son, is here discussed 
more fully thanit ever has been. The author’s view is that 
whereas in the Aryan nations the eldest son's birthright 
was connected, as in India at this day, with the duty of 
keeping up the offerings to the divine ancestors, so the 
opposite custom of youngest-right may have come down 
from the religion of some ancient race in England, where, 
as among the Mongols still, the youngest son was the 
“ fire-keeper’’? and inherited the home. In Germany, 
youngest-right is frequent, and there it is on record that 
that quaint fetish or idol the mandrake root, dug up from 
under the gallows, half human in form and possessed 
by its familiar demon, used to descend at the house- 
father's death to the youngest son, on condition of his 
performing the pagan rite of burying bread and money 
in the grave. This is an interesting argument, though 
perhaps it may be answered that in new countries where 
the sons as they grow up go out and make homes of their 
own, the youngest son is the natural caretaker and heir 
of the parent's house and fields, and it is as likely that he 
performed the religious duties because living there made 
him the proper person, as that he became the heir because 
he had to perform the religious duties. How monuments 
and rites of older tribes find new and changed places in 
the religi.n of their conquerors, is here often brought into 
view. St. Boniface found the Frieslanders using as an 
altar a rude stone dolmen, probably a tomb built ages 
earlier by bronze-age inhabitants ; the fierce Teutons would 
make a captive creep through the narrow opening of the 
upright stones, and then ‘‘sent him to Woden.” After 
this, it does not seem surprising that our country folk 
should believe the rude stone dolmens on our hill-sides to 
have been altars for human sacrifice. Among earlier 
rites lasting on into Christianity, one of the most pic- 
turesque is that of Brighid the Keltic fire-god’s daughter, 
who passed into St. Bridget, patron saint of Ireland and 
still name-giver to Biddy the typical Irish housemaid, 
But St. Bridget held to her old goddess-nature, and till the 
suppression of the monasteries her everlasting fire was 
kept up at Kildare by her nineteen nuns, who might not 
defile by blowing with their breath the flame sacred 
the “ woman of the mighty roarings” ; each nun tended 
the fire one night in turn, but on the twentieth she who 
went off duty said “ Brigit ! take care of your own fire, fo’ 
this night belongs to you.’’ We are puzzled by Mr. Elton’ 
remarks on the worship of Mithra, that ancient Aryan 
solar deity whose Oriental worship became so popular in 
Britain during the Roman occupation. The usually-known 
evidence seems to imply that the Mithra-worshippers fixed _ 
his divine birthday, the “ Dies Natalis invicti Solis,” on 
December 25, because the sun’s birth would naturally be 
at the winter solstice, while it was not till long afterwards: 
that this appropriate date was adopted for the Christian, 
Dies Natalis, Christmas Day, Mr. Elton appears to take 
it the other way, as though the Mithra-worshippers for 
the sake of popularity borrowed the festival from the _ 
Christians, If he has some new evidence in this direc- 
tion, it ought to be carefully gone into, and at any rate it 
will be well to clear the point up in the next edition. 
What has now been said will give an idea of the more 
special researches in this important work. Readers of | 
this journal will not disapprove of our having passed over 
weighty but ordinary historical topics, such as the in- 
vasions of Britain by Romans and Saxons, in order to — 
give space for tracing lines of beliefs .and customs. 
Some of these may seem trifling, but in the scientific 
study of history every trifle tells which can show a line of 
continuity from age to age and from race to race. 
EDWARD B. TYLOR 
4 
WORKS ON THE MICROSCOPE ' 
The Microscope and its Revelations. By William B. 
Carpenter, M.D., LL.D., C.B., F.R.S. Sixth Edition. 
Illustrated by 500 Wood Engravings and Twenty-six 
Plates. (London: J. and A. Churchill, 1881.) 
Practical Microscopy. By George E. Davis, F.R.M.S., 
&c. Illustrated with 257 Woodcuts and a Coloured 
Frontispiece. (London: David Bogue, 1882.) 
R. CARPENTER is to be congratulated on the 
recent publication of the sixth edition of his very — 
useful work on the Microscope and its Revelations, the | 
more especially as now having the command of his own 
time, this edition is not only the expression throughout 
of his own matured views, but also contains a large 
amount of new matter. 
A work like this which has proved itself so great a 
favourite needs but a brief notice at our hands. It is 
without doubt the book for the English reader to buy, 
who wishes to work as an amateur with the microscope ; 
and should any such proceed further with the study, and 
penetrate into the mysteries of animal or plant life, he 
will find himself none the worse, but a great deal the 
better for the lessons he will have learnt in these pages. 
The general plan of Dr. Cargenter’s book is good ; it 
begins with a short chapter on the Optical Principles of 
the Microscope. The question of there being a limit to the 
magnifying powers of the object-glasses, or whether there 
is a minimum behind which nothing can be seen, is not 
entered upon. The next two chapters-—on the Construc- 
no 
