EE2 

race, or merely an aggregate of tribes, possibly of 
varied physical characteristics, more or less closely 
united by a common tongue and a common culture. 
Anthropology and archeology may in time throw 
light, he suggests, on their habitat in the Stone Age, 
“although it will always be difficult to determine 
from the examination of a skull or a stone axe what 
language their owner spoke in life.” Again, we have 
only grave furniture to guide us, and the consideration 
of broad or long skulls is of little help, because the 
cephalic index “is merely a ratio,” and “among the 
living Chinese or in the Neolithic graves of Europe 
long skulls are nearly always found with short skulls, 
and vice versa.” 
Environment, again, affects the cephalic index, 
and the Scandinavians, supposed by some authorities 
to represent the primitive Indo-European type, ““ owe 
their long heads, not alone to race, but partially, 
at least, to hyperthyroidism and ultimately to the 
iodine of the seas near which they have lived, and from 
which they have obtained a considerable part of their 
food.”” The most novel point raised is that of the 
newly discovered Tocharian language in East Turke- 
stan, a centum language, possibly introduced from the 
west, the home of languages of this type. Mainly on 
the evidence of philology the author reaches the con- 
clusion, held by many scholars, that the primitive 
home of the Indo-Europeans was the great plain of 
Central and South-Eastern Europe, including the present 
Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, and Russia south and 
west of the Volga. There is not much original matter 
in this little book, but the points are well put, and it 
will be useful as a guide to the study of a problem which 
has not yet been finally settled. 
The Journal of the Institute of Metals. Vol.27. Edited 
by G. Shaw Scott. Pp. vilit621. (London: The 
Institute of Metals, 1922.) 31s. 6d. net. 
Tue increase of research in non-ferrous metallurgy is 
so rapid that succeeding volumes of the Journal of 
the Institute of Metals show a rapid growth in size. 
Volume 27 contains some interesting papers on re- 
crystallisation and grain growth. The paper by Mr. 
Adcock, containing a beautiful series of photographs 
illustrating recrystallisation in cupro-nickel, an alloy 
which proves very suitable for the purpose of this 
study, will be of material assistance in advancing the 
subject, which has been studied with such good results 
by Carpenter and Elam. Major Smithells’ paper on 
grain growth in tungsten filaments makes use of the 
hypothesis of varying vapour pressure. Condenser 
tubes are considered from two points of view, the 
experience of the Corrosion Committee being utilised 
as a basis for recommendations as to their care in 
practice, while a second paper from the Research 
Department at Woolwich deals with the prevention 
of season cracking by the simple process of removing 
stress by low temperature annealing. The revision of 
the alloys of aluminium and zinc clears up some 
difficult points in the behaviour of this curious system, 
one of the most interesting in respect of its changes 
in concentration of solid solution with temperature. 
Several other papers deal with questions of practical 
importance, and the volume contains a very large 
number of abstracts of work published elsewhere. 
NO. 2778, VOL. IIT | 
NATURE 
[JANUARY 27, 1923 
Arab Medicine and Surgery : A Study of the Healing Art 
in Algeria. By M. W. Hilton-Simpson. Pp. viii+ 
96+8 plates. (London: Oxford University Press, 
1922.) tos. 6d. net. 
In this volume Mr. Hilton-Simpson describes the 
medical and surgical methods of the Shawia of the 
Aurés Massif of Algeria. His record is the result of 
careful inquiry pursued in the course of a number of 
visits to the country, and possesses a peculiar value 
in that it deals with practices which must inevitably 
disappear before the advance of civilisation. Although 
some of the treatment prescribed by Shawia medicine 
is derived ‘“‘from the sorcerer’s defensive armour 
against Jenun,”’ the demons or spirits which cause 
disease, medical practice is not here synonymous with 
magic, as among most primitive peoples. The medical 
practitioner is regularly apprenticed, usually to a 
member of his own family. The medical treatment 
would appear to be derived from the medicine of the 
medieval Arabs. The origin of their surgery is more 
obscure, and it has been suggested, on account of the 
primitive character of their instruments and the 
prevalence of the operation for trepanning, in which 
they take much pride and show much skill, that it may 
possibly go back so far as the Neolithic age. The 
trepanning operation is usually successful, a fact which 
is due perhaps as much to the remarkable vitality of 
the people as to the skill of the surgeon. 
A Naturalist’s Calendar, kept at Swaffham Bulbeck, 
Cambridgeshire. By L. Blomefield. Second edition, 
edited by Sir Francis Darwin. Pp. xviti+84. 
(Cambridge : At the University Press, 1922.) 3s. 6d. 
net. 
Tur Cambridge University Press was well advised in 
adopting Sir Francis Darwin’s suggestion to republish 
this Calendar. Lists such as those compiled by 
Blomefield not only assist the amateur naturalist, 
but are of real value as contributions to the science of 
phenology. A collection of such Calendars embodying 
the notes of some of the scores of observers scattered 
over the British Isles, and based on a consecutive 
series of years, would probably add not a little, in the ~ 
hands of a central receiver, to our knowledge of the 
movements of birds, the awakening of vegetation, and 
other phenomena dependent upon the seasons. 
Woodland Creatures: Being some Wild Life Studies. 
By Frances Pitt. Pp. 255. (London: G. Allen 
and Unwin, Ltd., 1922.) 125. 6d. net. 
“ Srupy any animal, even the most common, care- 
fully, and you will find out something that has hither- 
to escaped notice.” Repeatedly did this sentence 
spring to mind as we read the pages of this charmingly 
written and beautifully illustrated book. The author, 
whether writing of the furred or the feathered creatures 
of our woodlands—of badgers, foxes, dormice, rabbits 
and squirrels, or of woodpecker, bullfinch, kestrel, 
sparrowhawk, owl, magpie and jay,—tells us something 
of habits or of adaptation of structure to habit that 
we have not met elsewhere; and not infrequently 
has shrewd criticism to offer on plausible theories of 
armchair origin. Her photographic illustrations bear 
comparison with the very best. 

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