Nov. 4, 1 8 So] 



NA TURE 



15 



All that I\Iiss Bird tells us of her visit to the Ainos is 

 ■well worth quoting ; but we have space for only one more 

 quotation, and that with reference to their physique : — 



" After the yellow skins, the stifif horse hair, the feeble 

 eyelids, the elongated eyes, the sloping eyebrows, the flat 

 noses, the sunken chests, the Mongolian features, the 

 puny physique, the shaky walk of the men, the restricted 

 totter of the women, and the general impression of de- 

 generacy conveyed by the appearance of the Japanese, the 

 Ainos make a very singular impression. All but two or 

 three that I have seen are the most ferocious-looking of 

 savages, with a physique vigorous enough for carrying 

 out the most ferocious intentions, but as soon as they 

 speak the countenance brightens into a smile as gentle as 

 that of a woman, something which can never be for- 

 gotten. The men are about the middle height, broad- 

 chested, broad-shouldered, 'thick-set,' very strongly built, 

 the arms and legs short, thick, and muscular, the hands 

 and feet large. The bodies, and specially the limbs, of 

 many are covered with short bristly hair. I have seen 

 two boys whose backs are covered with fur as fine and 

 soft as that of a cat. The heads and faces are very 

 striking. The foreheads are very high, broad, and pro- 

 minent, and at first sight give one the impression of an 

 unusual capacity for intellectual development ; the ears 

 are small and set low ; the noses are straight, but short, 

 and broad at the nostrils ; the mouths are wide, but well 

 formed ; and the lips rarely show a tendency to fulness. 

 The neck is short, the cranium rounded, the cheek-bones 

 low, and the lower part of the face is small as compared 

 with the upper, the peculiarity called a 'jowl ' being un- 

 known. The eyebrows are full, and form a straight line 

 nearly across the face. The eyes are large, tolerably 

 deeply set, and very beautiful, the colour a rich liquid 

 brown, the expression singularly soft, and the eyelashes 

 long, silky, and abundant. The skin h-:s the Italian 

 olive tint, but in most cases is thin, and light enough 

 to show the changes of colour in the cheek. The teeth 

 are small, regular, and very white ; the incisors and 

 'eye teeth' are not disproportionately large, as is usually 

 the case among the Japanese ; there is no tendency 

 towards prognathism ; and the fold of integument which 

 conceals the upper eyelids of the Japanese is never to be 

 met with. The features, expression, and aspect are 

 European rather than Asiatic. 



" The ' ferocious savagery ' of the appearance of the 

 men is produced by a profusion of thick soft black hair, 

 divided in the middle, and falling in heavy masses nearly 

 to the shoulders. Out of doors it is kept from falling 

 over the face by a fillet round the brow. The beards are 

 equally profuse, quite magnificent, and generally wavy, 

 and in the case of the old men they give a truly patri- 

 archal and venerable aspect, in spite of the yellow tinge 

 produced by smoke and want of cleanliness. The savage 

 look produced by the masses of hair and beard, and the 

 thick eyebrows, is mitigated by the softness in the dreamy 

 brown eyes, and is altogether obliterated by the exceeding 

 sweetness of the smile, which belongs in greater or less 

 degree to all the rougher sex. 



" I have measured the height of thirty of the adult men 

 of this village, and it ranges from 5 feet 4 inches to 5 feet 

 6i inches. The circumference of the heads averages 22'i 

 inches, and the arc, from ear to ear, 13 inches. According 

 to Mr. Davies the average weight of the .'\ino adult 

 masculine brain, ascertained by measurement of Aino 

 skulls, is 45'90 ounces avoirdupois, a brain weight said to 

 exceed that of all the races, Hindoo and Mussulman, on 

 the Indian plains, and that of the aboriginal races of 

 India and Ceylon, and is only paralleled by that of the 

 races of the Himalayas, the Siamese, and the Chinese 

 Burmese. Mr. Davies says, further, that it exceeds the 

 mean brain weight of Asiatic races in general. Yet with 

 all this the Ainos are a stupid people !" 



The coast Ainos, Miss Bird tells us, she found had 



more hair on their bodies than those in the interior, and 

 in some other respects differed in appearance, a difference 

 probably to be accounted for by their mode of life and 

 their surroundings. The Aino garments are often exceed- 

 ingly handsome, being decorated with "geometrical" 

 patterns in which the Greek fret takes part, in coarse 

 blue cotton, braided most dexterously with scarlet and 

 white thread. The modesty of the women is very remark- 

 able, sometimes almost excessive even to European 

 notions ; nor do they seem to be the unmitigated drudges 

 that most savage women are. The great hero of the 

 Ainos is Yoshitsund, who is also the most popular hera 

 of Japanese history ; the Ainos worship him, and Miss 

 Bird was permitted to visit his shrine on a hill near 

 Biratori, the Aino village at which she spent most of her 

 time. He lived in the twelfth century, and was the 

 brother of the Shogun of the time, whose jealousy, accord- 

 ing to some, compelled him to take refuge in Yezo. 

 "None believe this more firmly than the .'\inos them- 

 selves, who assert that he taught their fathers the arts of 

 civilisation, with letters and numbers, and gave them 

 righteous laws, and he is worshipped by many of them 

 under a name which signifies Master of the Law. I have 

 been told by old men in Biratori, Usu, and Lebungt?, that 

 a later Japanese conqueror carried away the books in 

 which the arts were written, and that since his time the 

 arts themselves have been lost, and the Ainos have fallen 

 into their present condition ! On asking why the Ainos 

 do not make vessels of iron and clay as well as knives 

 and spears, the invariable answer is, ' The Japanese took 

 away the books.' " This, combined with some other 

 things which Miss Bird tells us of these Ainos, makes it 

 seem quite possible that they are now a degenerate 

 remnant of a people who formerly were comparatively 

 cultured, and who may possibly have had "books" which 

 the Japanese, their conquerors and masters, " took 

 away." These strange people are certainly worthy of 

 further study. The illustrations we are able to give, by 

 the kindness of Mr. Murray, will give the reader some 

 idea of their appearance and habits. We strongly recom- 

 mend the reader to go to Miss Bird's volumes for further 

 information of what she saw and heard while sojourning 

 among them. 



Again we commend these two works to all who desire 

 to get, in comparatively short space, a very complete view 

 of the past history and present condition of Japan. 



BELL'S PHOTOPHONE 



BY the courtesy of Prof. Graham Bell we are at length 

 able to do somewhat ampler justice to his latest 

 discovery than has hitherto been possible. He has 

 supplied us with certain details not hitherto published, 

 and has also furnished us with drawings of his apparatus 

 and experiments. Prof Bell is at present in Paris, and, 

 as was mentioned in our columns last week, has there 

 repeated some of his experiments. 



Our readers are already aware that the object of the 

 photophone is the transmission of sounds both musical 

 and vocal to a distance by the agency of a beam of light 

 of varying intensity ; and that the first successful attempts 

 made bv Prof Bell and his co-labourer, Mr. Sumner 

 Tainter,' were based upon the known property of the 

 element selenium, the electric resistance of which varies 

 with the degree of illumination to which it is exposed. 

 Hence, given a transmitting instrument such as a flexible 

 mirror by which the vibrations of a sound could throw into 

 vibration a beam of light, a receiver consisting of sensitive 

 selenium forming part of an electric circuit with a battery 

 and a telephone should suffice to translate the varying 

 intensities of light into corresponding varying intensities 

 of electric current, and finally into vibrations of the tele- 

 phone disk audible once more as soiduL This funda- 



