June i i, 1896J 



NA TURE 



135 



principal reason is that when people start a museum they forget 

 one thing. If you were starting a school the first thing you 

 would think of would be the schoolmaster. A church is of no 

 use without a minister ; a garden is (jf no good without a 

 gardener. None of these things are expected to take care of 

 themselves, yet that is what is exiiected of nearly all the 

 museums in the country. They are set up and the exhibits are 

 arranged, but the last thing anybody seems to think anything 

 about is the curator. A curator is the heart and soul of a 

 museum, and yet we have museums going to decay because 

 nobody thought of the expense that is needful to keep a curator 

 and his staff going. If the thousands, aye, tens of thousands, 

 which have been spent on so-called technical education had only 

 been spent in founding really good local museums — places where 

 any one wishing to know about any bird, or stone, or plant, 

 might go and see for themselves — for I maintain that a museum 

 in its proper sense should be a place of instruction, not merely 

 showing things stuffed and dried like miserable mummies, but 

 giving instruction as to its nature and habit, and any other we 

 might wish to know — what an immense store of useful inlorma- 

 tion would have been gained." 



Pithecanthropus is still to the fore. Early this year the 

 Royal Dublin Society published the paper Dr. Dubois read 

 before that .Society (if. N.\ture, No. 1362, vol. liii., 1895, 

 p. 115), and now he has published a further communication in 

 the Anatoni. .4iizei\'er{vo\. xii. p. I), with several illustrations, in 

 which he reiterates his conclusions. A table is given of 

 nineteen anatomists who are classed according to whether they 

 believe Pithecanthropus to be a simian, human, or transitional 

 form ; but we imagine that some may object to be tabulated in 

 this form. It is a pity that the ideal reconstruction of the 

 cranium on p. 15, should require to be corrected in two points. 

 Dr. R. Martin has also published a small pamphlet on "further 

 remarks on the Pithecanthropus question," in which he quotes 

 the opinion of a large number of writers on the subject, and 

 particularly lays himself out to attack Mrchow ; he believes that 

 it is "a low variety of the species hoiiio." M. L. Manouvrier 

 concludes in the current number of the Bull. Soc. (C Anlhrop. 

 Paris (vi. 4= ser. fasc. 6) his erudite " Deuxieme etude sur le 

 Pilheianthropits erct/its comme precurseur presume de I'homme." 

 This is the most searching scrutiny to which the remains have 

 been subjected, and it forms the most important contribution to 

 the general discussion. It will be remembered that the Javan 

 femur is very human in its characters, the only non-typical 

 differences (putting aside the pathological bony outgrowth) being 

 in the popliteal region. M. Manouvrier has thoroughly dis- 

 cussed this point after having examined several hundred femora, 

 and he finds that the femur of Pithecanthropus fits in a series 

 with normal human femora, and it is not more simian than 

 human ; the peculiar variation of the Javan femur is associated 

 with a «eak musculature, and the latter may possibly be partly 

 due to the pathological condition already noted ; when another 

 femur is discovered, it may be yet mure human than this one. 

 In his discussion on the skull, M. Manouvrier gives three 

 alternative ideal restorations and several other comparative 

 diagrams, and he comes to the conclusion that " the Trinil race 

 has arisen from a race of species of very short stature." This 

 is very important from a theoretical point of view ; and, with 

 the evidence now to hand, there seem to be grounds for believing 

 that in the evolution of man the femur assumed its human 

 characters in advance of the skull. M. Manouvrier denies that 

 this is a case of microcephaly, and believes that the "missing 

 link" has been found. 



Reproductions of the decorative artistic efforts of primitive 

 folk are always of great value provided they are perfectly 

 accurately copied. Mr. R. L. Jack, the Government Geologist 

 NO. 1389, VOL. 54] 



of (Queensland, has recently published a plate 01 reproductions 

 of aboriginal cave-drawings from the Palmer Gold Field (Proc. 

 Roy. Soc. Queensland, xi. ), and though we welcome all signs of 

 interest taken in native matters, we cannot but feel some 

 suspicion in the present instance, as there are discrepancies 

 between the figures and the text in certain details. Reproduc- 

 tions of aboriginal drawings lose almost the whole of their value 

 unless the strictest accuracy is preserved. We hope that our 

 colonial scientific societies will publish as many exact tran- 

 scriptions of native art as they can obtain from travellers, before 

 it is too late. 



Prof. R. Semon, of Jena, whose brilliant investigations on 

 the development of Ceratodus and the Monotremes has already 

 been referred to in these pages, has also turned his attention to the 

 Anthropology of Australia. We cull from our contemporary 

 Die A^a/iir {iSg6, No. 20) the conclusions to which Dr. Semon 

 has arrived respecting the vexed question of the origin of this 

 people. As to culture grade the Australians are ranked above 

 the Veddas, and slightly below the African Pigmies and the 

 Bushmen ; the Fuegans are of about the same grade, but the 

 natives of Brazil and the Eskimo are higher. The Australians 

 and Dravidians of India belong to one of the main stems of 

 humanity. The Veddas of Ceylon, judging from the investiga- 

 tions of the Sarasins, belong to a small Pre-Dravidian branch ; 

 these arose at a low-culture grade, and have not made any 

 progress since. Other early branches of the primitive Dravido- 

 Australian stem seem to be the curious Ainus of Japan, and the 

 Khmers and Chams of Cambodja. The White Race ("Cau- 

 casian") probably came from the Dravidian branch, and thus 

 we Europeans are related to the low savages of Australia ; very 

 distantly, it is true, but these are nearer to us than are the 

 Negroes, Malays, or Mongols. It may be noted that these 

 conclusions of Prof. Semon's agree pretty closely with opinions 

 expressed by several English anthropologists. 



Dr. Wesley Mills, Professor of Physiology in McGill 

 University, Montreal, has recently published in the Transac- 

 tions of the Royal Society of Canada (second series, section iv. 

 vol. i. pp. 191-252) a series of papers on the psychic develop- 

 ment of young animals. A year earlier. Dr. Mills published the 

 first paper of the series dealing with the psychic development of 

 the dog (St. Bernard and Bridlington terrier). This is now 

 supplemented by observations on the cat, mongrel dog, rabbit, 

 and guinea-pig, and, among birds, the pigeon and the chick. 

 The records are in the form of diaries, from which comparisons 

 and conclusions are then drawn. There is so little systematic 

 record of observations on the instincts and habits of young 

 mammals, that Dr. Wesley Mills' papers are especially welcome. 

 Dr. Mills has also contributed to a discussion on instinct in the 

 correspondence columns of Science during the last few weeks, in 

 which Prof. Mark Baldwin also took part. Prof. Baldwin's 

 letters (March 20 and April 10) and Dr. Mills' criticism (May 

 22) should be read by those interested in the interpretation of 

 the phenomena of instinct in the light of modern theories of 

 heredity. 



During the last six or seven years, the observation of the 

 pulsations from distant earthquakes has been facilitated by the 

 invention of delicate instruments, such as the horizontal and 

 bifilar pendulums and the long vertical pendulums used in Italy. 

 The investigation of these interesting phenomena suffers, how- 

 ever, from two or three serious disadvantages, which can hardly 

 be removed except by some form of combined action. The in- 

 struments employed are of several different types, and they are 

 very unequally scattered over the earth's surface. Many pulsa- 

 tions, again, are recorded which, though of the usual seismic 

 character, cannot be traced to any known earthquake, there 



