45-' 



NATURE 



[Sept. 7, 1882 



deficient in fulness, no one can refuse a compliment to 

 the skill with which the learner is led on step by step 

 through the intricacies of reproduction and development. 



The popularity of the work is likely to give Dr. Dalton 

 the opportunity of preparing another edition, and we 

 would suggest, in particular, that further details be given 

 as to the physiology of muscle. A student who has a fair 

 knowledge of the structure of muscular fibre, its chemical 

 composition at rest and in action, its relations to the 

 nervous system, and, in short, the history of its life, has a 

 good grounding in the fundamental principles of physio- 

 logy. Again, the accounts of the ultimate changes in the 

 respiratory process, of the functions of the Kidney, and of 

 secretion are meagre, and give an amount of knowledge 

 not likely to satisfy the requirements of various examining 

 boards in this country. The histology of the tissues and 

 organs might also, with advantage, be given more fully. 



When a teacher writes a text-book it may be taken 

 as an indication of his method of teaching the subject, 

 but often the order in which subjects are discussed is 

 changed from a desire to give a logical and systematic 

 exposition. To deluge a beginner with a sea of facts 

 relating to the chemical composition of the body is likely 

 to confuse him and to make the subject distasteful, but 

 whilst this is a caution to the teacher, it is quite justifiable 

 for an expositor in print to begin with such wearisome 

 details. With Dr. Dalton's method little fault can be 

 found. He leads a beginner, by easy stages, through 

 many difficult problems, whilst it is clear he has thought 

 out the matter for himself and thus can clearly indicate 

 how much may be taken as fact and how much may be 

 accepted as theory. 



Whilst Dalton's " Physiology " is not on a level with 

 that of Dr. Michael Foster in being a representation of 

 the most advanced opinions in physiological science, nor 

 with Hermann's " Physiology " (translated by Prof. 

 Gamgee), Beaunis' " Physiologie," Landois' " Lehrbuch 

 der Physiologie des Menschen," or Carpenter's "Human 

 Physiology," as a repertory of facts, it is a compendium 

 well suited, on the whole, for a student of medicine. As 

 a rule, successive editions of a popular work become 

 larger, but in the present instance the author has been 

 able to sift and refine so as to save space, without injuring 

 the quality of his work. JOHN G. McKf.NDRICK 



OUR BOOK SHELF 



Synthase des Miniraux et des Roches. Par F. Fouque" et 

 M. LeVy. (Paris : G. Masson.) 



THE authors of this work have earned for themselves so 

 high a reputation by their numerous and successful ex- 

 periments in the suithesis of minerals and of rocks, that 

 we may almost take for granted the thoroughness of the 

 work now issued. Till the appearance of this volume the 

 results obtained since 1S72 (when a similar compilation 

 was published by S-'uchs) were to be sought in scattered 

 memoirs ; all results up to the present date are here col- 

 lecte.t into a single treatise, provided with an excellent 

 set of indices. In an interesting but brief introduction 

 (thirty pages) the advantages accruing to mineralogy and 

 petrology from these syntheses are pointed out and the 

 various methods of experiment explained. The next fifty 

 pages are devoted to the experiments having for aim the 

 synthesis of rocks, and the remainder of the volume (300 

 pages) to those which have resulted in the reproduction 

 of minerals. In each instance careful references to the 



original memoirs and a distinct statement of the applica- 

 tion of the results to geology are given. The book is 

 very well printed on good paper, and has for frontispiece 

 a coloured plate showing the appearance in polarised 

 light of thin sections of artificial leucotephrite and basalt. 



L. F. 

 • 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 



[ The Editor dots not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed 

 by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake to return, 

 or to correspond ivith the writers of, rejected manuscripts. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications. 



[ The Editor urgently requests correspondents to keep their letters 

 as short as possible. The pressure on his space is so great 

 that it is impossible otherwise to ensure the appearance even 

 of communications containing interesting and novel /acts.] 



The Australian Aborigines 



I observed in Nature, vol. xxiii. p. 584, a critique from the 

 pen of Mr. D. McLennan upon " Kamilaroi and Kurnai," the 

 joint work of Mr. Fison and myself. On peru ing it I wrote a 

 reply to statements it contained, but owing to various causes I 

 laid it for a time aside. Indeed 1 did not feel in any hurry to 

 reply to criticisms which really did not touch my arguments. 

 A«, however, I observe that attacks are still being made elsewhere 

 upon the conclusions at which Mr. Fison and I have arrived, 

 and that substantially the same arguments are still being made 

 use of which were used by Mr. McLennan, it has seemed to me 

 that the time has arrived to meet these objections at any rate in 

 a general manner. It is not possible in the qjace which I may 

 hope that you will give me in your valuable pages, to enter upon 

 details which would be absolutely necessary to render clear to my 

 critics certain points which they have evidently misunderstood, 

 perhaps from want of clearness on my part, possibly also from 

 want of knowledge by themselves of the subject as it exists in 

 the Australian field. I therefore now confine myself to some 

 prominent points. 



It is absolutely necessary, in order to perceive the structure of 

 an Australian tribe with clearness, to distinguish between clan 

 as a part of its local organi-ation, and class as a part of its social 

 organisation. By this I 'do not mean " clan " in its ordinary 

 acceptation, as, for instance, the "clan of the McPhersons," 

 but a division of the local organisation which stands in relation to 

 a division of the social organisation as mutatis mutandis did the 

 Dime to the Phratria of Attica. These two organisations exist 

 in all tribes with which I am acquainted, but in no two tribes in 

 the same relative proportion. For the local organisation of the 

 Kurnai tribe I have already used the word clan ; for its social 

 organisation I should use the word class. But the only two 

 class-divisions of the Kurnai are the bird totems Yeerung and 

 Djeetgun, which, as my critics take plea ure in pointing out, 

 " divide the tribe into men and women." That there are, how- 

 ever, real totems in an abnormal form, is show n by their ana- 

 logues occurring together with totem classes of the ordinary type 

 in tribes of South Eastern Australia over an area extending 

 more than 600 miles east and west. Some of these tribes have 

 uterine, and others have agnatic descent. 



In exogamous tribes having uterine descent there are no 

 totem-clans ; in tribes having agnatic descent there may be 

 totem-clans where the class and the clan have become coter- 

 minous. The persistent use of this word "totem-clan," without 

 regard to its application, shows in our critics a want of acquaint- 

 ance with the nature of the Australian evidence. 



It is not possible to argue correctly from the customs of one 

 tribe to that of all Australian tribes, as our critics appear to do, 

 for the customs of the tribes are very diverse. Tribes ad- 

 joining each other may be found to have each a distinctly 

 different social organisation. It is a most misleading practice 

 to criticise by arguing from the reported customs of one tribe to 

 the customs of distant or of all Australian tribes. The further 

 my inquiries extend, the clearer this conies out. The case of 

 half-sister marriage among the Kamilaroi is an example. My 

 inquiries have not as yet brought to light 'any other Kamilaroi 

 tribe practising it than that one reported on by Mr. Lance. Yet 

 my inquiries show that the Kamilaroi organisation in classes, 

 sab-classes, and totem-classes extends far beyond the true 

 Kamilaroi country northwards into Queensland, over an extent 

 of country more than eight hundred miles north and south. The 

 classes, sub-classes, and totem classes can be even identified with 



