514 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLVT. No. 1195 



by moUuscan and f oraminiferal shells are then 

 discussed and from this to a consideration of 

 the form of horns and tusks the passage is 

 easy. A brief discussion of phyllotaxis fol- 

 lows and is succeeded by a chapter on the 

 shapes of eggs and other hollow structures, 

 after which one finds an interesting descrip- 

 tion of the mechanical principles illustrated by 

 the structure of individual bones and by the 

 skeleton as a whole. The concluding chapter 

 is an exposition of Professor Thompson's 

 method of comparing the form of different 

 organisms, or of their parts, by inscribing, 

 for example, the outline of the skull of 

 Hyracotherium in a system of Cartesian co- 

 ordinates and then determining the defor- 

 mation of the system necessary for a similar 

 inscription of the outline of the skull of a 

 horse. A graphic representation is thus ob- 

 tained of the manner of growth characteristic 

 of this particular line of evolution, and the 

 method may thus serve in certain cases as a 

 test of phylogenetic afSnity. 



This brief outline may give some idea of 

 the scope of the book, but it altogether fails 

 to indicate the interesting and suggestive 

 manner in which the various topics are 

 treated. Professor Thompson's style is marked 

 by a clearness of expression which makes 

 every page of interest and his book is one 

 that may well be recommended as revealing 

 food for thought and fields for investigation 

 which have been too much neglected by stu- 

 dents of morphology. J. P. McM. 



Tsimshian Mythology. By Franz Boas. Based 

 on Texts recorded by Henry "W. Tate. 

 Paper accompanying the Thirty-first Annual 

 Keport of the Bureau of American Ethnol- 

 ogy, 1909-1910. Washington, Government 

 Printing Office, 1916. Pp. 1037 ; 3 plates ; 24 

 text figures. 



The core of this paper consists of English 

 versions of sixty-four Tsimshian myths and 

 three war tales, written down for the author by 

 Mr. Henry W. Tate, a Tsimshian Indian of 

 Port Simpson, B. C, in his own language, be- 

 tween 1902 and the year of his death, 1914. 

 The translations were made by Professor Boas 



on .the basis of " a free interlinear rendering by 

 Mr. Tate." 



However, unlike most ethnologists who have 

 published Indian stories. Professor Boas has 

 not rested satisfied with the mere printing of 

 " material," important as such publication un- 

 doubtedly is, nor even with the addition of 

 comparative footnotes. He has made this work 

 the occasion and the basis for studies of sev- 

 eral different aspects of Tsimshian ethnology, 

 and for what is by all odds the best investiga- 

 tion of the distribution of American myths and 

 mythic elements which has so far appeared, 

 one which goes a long way toward satisfy- 

 ing the often-voiced demand for a concordance 

 of American myths. Besides the usual tables 

 of contents, bibliography and alphabet explana- 

 tory of the characters representing native 

 sounds used in the work, it contains an intro- 

 ductory description of the Tsimshian, and, 

 best of all, a summary of the comparisons and 

 a detailed index to the references used in the 

 comparison, the latter prepared with the as- 

 sistance of Dr. H. K. Haeberlin. In appen- 

 dices III. and IV. students of American In- 

 dian languages will find useful material re- 

 garding the speech of the people among whom 

 these myths were current. The work is also 

 used as a medium for the publication of seven 

 Bellabella and ten Nootka tales, by Dr. Liv- 

 ingston Farrand and Mr. George Hunt re- 

 spectively. 



The longer studies to which reference has 

 been made are "A Description of the Tsim- 

 shian, Based on Their Mythology" (pp. 393- 

 477), a treatise on "Tsimshian Society" (pp. 

 478-564), and finally the " Comparative Study 

 of Tsimshian Mythology" (pp. 565-871), al- 

 ready mentioned as the crowning feature of 

 this work. 



While the value of myths as sources of in- 

 formation regarding the general ethnology of 

 the tribe from which they were collected has 

 frequently been commented upon, so far as I 

 am aware we have here the first attempt to 

 write an ethnological description based entirely 

 upon them. For this reason, if for no other, 

 the result is of interest. It shows that Tsim- 

 shian stories contain an incomplete, but upon 



