October 3, 1912] 



NATURE 



00 



The Main Drainage of Towns. By F. Noel 



Taylor. Pp. xi + 313; illustrated. London: 



Charles Griffin and Co., Ltd., 1912.) Price 



12s. 6d. net. 

 Despite the fact that this book is entitled "Main 

 Drainaij-e of Towns," the author has attempted the 

 -almost impossible task of dealing, in the course of 

 -95 pa&es, not only with matters strictly pertain- 

 ing to main drainage work, but also with ques- 

 tions of house drainage, the theoretical side of 

 sewage disposal, sewage disposal works, &c. 



It is therefore scarcely surprising to find that 

 the author has not been successful in his treat- 

 ment of the whole of the above subjects, particu- 

 larly as throughout the work there is unmistakable 

 evidence of the lack of that careful revision of the 

 text so essential to the production of a scientific 

 work of value. 



In justice to the author, it should be stated that 

 he has collected a great deal of useful information 

 in regard to main drainage work, together with 

 a large number of plans, tables, &c., which must 

 have entailed considerable labour. On the other 

 hand, the value of the book is very seriously 

 impaired by the careless way in which it is 

 written, the errors in composition being in many 

 cases so serious as to render the meaning of the 

 text obscure. 



Careful perusal of the chapters relating to the 

 theory of sewage disposal, sewage disposal works, 

 tVc, clearly indicates that the author would have 

 been well advised to have left this part of the 

 subject alone, especially in view of the various 

 excellent text-books already available on the sub- 

 ject of sewage purification. 



The book contains sufficient material for the 

 production of a useful work on the subject of 

 main drainage providing the matter is carefully 

 edited, but as published it certainly cannot he 

 recommended. E. \_ 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for 

 opinion^ expressed by his correspondents. Neither 

 can he undertake to return, or to correspond with 

 the writers of, rejected manuscripts intended for 

 this or any other part of Nature. No notice is 

 taken of anonymous communications.] 

 A Tribe of White Eskimos. 

 CoNSiDER,\BLE inttTfst has been aroused bv the 

 announcement made bv M. Vilhjalmar Stefa'nsson 

 (see Nature of August 22, p. 644), communicated to 

 the Press through Reuter on September 10, that he 

 had discovered a tribe— or, to be more accurate, thir- 

 teen tribes— of white Eskimos living in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Coronation Gulf and Victoria Island. 

 It is stated that ten of these tribes had never heard 

 of white_ people— other than themselves. Conse- 

 quently, it cannot be assumed that this fair com- 

 plexion is derived from the intercourse, so frequent in 

 recent times, between Eskimos and the men of 

 whaling ships. The telegraphed account states that 

 " M. Stefansson believes the white Eskimos are 

 descendants, of the colony which set out from Nor- 

 way to Greenland some time after the discovery of 

 that island. Ethnologically, the white Eskimos bear 

 not a single trace of the Mongolian type, differing in 

 the shape of the skull and eeneral features, colour 

 XO. 2240, VOL. 90] 



of eyes, and texture of hair, which in many cases is 

 red. They spoke Eskimo, though the explorer 

 thought he detected some Norse words. They prob- 

 ably numbered two thousand. Many of the'm had 

 perfectly blue eyes and blonde eyebrows." 



It is, of course, quite possible that a newspaper 

 correspondent may have given a very free rendering 

 of the statements made to him by M. Stefansson. 

 But, in any case, it is important to bear in mind 

 that a description of a race of fair-complexioned 

 Eskimos, living on the shores of Davis Straits, was 

 printed in Europe in 1658. This account occurs in 

 De Poincy's " Histoire Naturelle & Morale des lies 

 Antilles de I'Amerique," which was published at 

 Rotterdam in that year, and contains . a chapter 

 (xviii.) incorporating the narrative of Nicolas Tunes, 

 captain of a Flushing vessel, just returned from 

 Davis Straits at the time when De Poincy was 

 occupied with a description of the narwhal — a subject 

 which led him into a long digression on the hunters 

 of the northern narwhal. De Poincy indicates the 

 locality in question in the following terms, here trans- 

 lated from his somewhat archaic French: — "The 

 captain, from whom we have received this narrative, 

 having set out from Zealand at the end of the spring 

 of 1656, with the intention of discovering some new- 

 source of trade in those northern lands, arrived at 

 the end of June in Davis Straits, whence, having 

 entered a river which begins at 64° 10' N. lat., he 

 sailed to the seventy-second degree, where the land 

 about to be described is situated." 



A very full description is given of the natives, but 

 only the following sentences need be quoted here : — 

 "As regards the inhabitants, our travellers report 

 having seen two kinds, who live together on the 

 most friendly terms. Of these, one kind is described 

 as verv tall, well-built, of rather fair complexion, and 

 very swift of foot. The others are very much smaller, 

 of an olive complexion, and tolerably well-propor- 

 tioned, except that their legs are short and thick. 

 The former kind delight in hunting, for which they 

 are suited by their agility and natural disposition, 

 whereas the latter occupy themselves in fishing. .Ml 

 of them have very white, compact teeth, black hair, 

 animated eyes, arid the features of the face so well 

 made that they present no notable deformity. More- 

 over, thev are all so vigorous and of such a strong 

 constitution that several of them who have passed 

 their hundredth year are still lively and robust." 



In the small, olive-complexioned, short-legged 

 people here described, there is no difficulty in recog- 

 nising true Eskimos. Those of the tall, compara- 

 tively fair type may easily have been the descendants 

 of the Norse colonists, intermingled, it may be. with 

 Eskimos. It is believed by many— for example, by 

 Dr. Nansen ("In Northern Mists," London, rgii. 

 vol. ii.. p. 103) — that the early Norsemen in Green- 

 land were not exterminated by the Eskimos, but were 

 graduallv absorbed by them through successive inter- 

 marriages. .Admitting this, it would seem that the 

 fusion of the two races was still only partial in 1656. 

 Tunes and his comrades speak of black hair as 

 common to both types, but that need not mean 

 much. If black hair was not common among tenth- 

 century Norsemen, there would have been no distinc- 

 tion in Harald's designation of haar-fager. 



However, the point is that an expedition of ihe 

 year 1656 reported a tall, light-complexioned caste of 

 natives living on the shores of Davis Straits at the 

 same time as others of genuine Eskimo type. It is 

 quite possible that the former, still retaining their 

 individualitv, mav have migrrated westward to 

 Victoria Land. ' David M.xcRitciiie. 



4 .'Xrchibald Place, Edinburgh, September 23. 



