December 21, 18S3.] 



SCIENCE. 



805 



ent in all mammalia, and serve to propel the urine 

 outwards or towards the ureter. — {Slud. biol. lab. 

 Johns Hopk. unlv., ii. 4o3.) C. s. M. [531 



ANTHROPOLOGY. 

 Man's place in nature. — One hears now and then 

 the assertion that man is not the highest animal. In 

 proof of this assertion, it is urged that this animal is 

 far more specialized in one direction, and that animal 

 in another. Mr. Lockington takes the ground that 

 specialization is not in itself any proof of advance. 

 Now, the real progress is not to be sought in the 

 specialized offshoots of any series, but in the growing 

 stem from which it is parted. The highest specializa- 

 tion is that biised upon perfection of the greatest num- 

 ber of parts, not upon the great development of one 

 part at the expense of others. '" We need not ask mor- 

 phologists or cmbryolngists whether man is the high- 

 est animal : we have the proof of it every hour before 

 our eyes. His powers of mind are the resultant of 

 his structure, and have enabled him to conquer all 

 other beings in the struggle of life. That animal is 

 highest which possesses the widest range of faculties. 

 This man undoubtedly does. No other animal has the 

 power, by voice or pen, to exaggerate or depreciate its 

 own importance; no other animal can use the powers 

 of nature as he; no other can produce works wliich 

 are proportion.ately comparable to his: and if, there- 

 fore, morphology or embryology contradict the facts 

 of life, then are those sciences unsafe guides, as they 

 certainly are only partial ones." — {Amer. naturalist, 

 Oct. ) J. w. p. [532 



Notation of kinship. — In the study of kinship 

 many schemes of graphic representation have been 

 devised. A perfect system should exhibit three ideas : 

 It should, I. Identify each place in the series; 2.'C"las- 

 sify kindred for each people; 3. E.xhibit afJinity or 

 marriage, as well as kinship. Mr. Francis Galton 

 presents us with a new schcinc, identifying the mem- 

 bers of the series and sex, in which arithmetical no- 

 tation takes the place of letters or pictographs. — 

 (jVn<i(re, Sept. 6.) J. w. p. [533 



Curare. — M. Couty has m.ade extended observa- 

 tions and experiments on the curare poison, and has 

 given the benefit of his studies in a course of lectures 

 in the museum of Uio Janeiro. The investigation 

 closes with a modest confession of ignorance. " The 

 curare," says M. Couty, " demands fresh physiologi- 

 cal studies to comprehend the nature of its relation 

 to the muscles and the nerves, and .also the real sig- 

 nificance of the various phenomena of excitement 

 and paralysis which it occasions, before we should 

 attempt to compreheiul the intimate mechanism of 

 its intoxicating influence." — (Rev. sclent., 1S82, 5S7, 

 etc.) J. w. p. [534 



Color-words in the Rig Veda. — Geiger wrote, 

 ' The men of lliat time [of the Rig Veda] did not and 

 could not call any thing blue.' Mr. Kdward W. Hop- 

 kins reviews the deductions of Geiger, and not only 

 questions the facts lulduced by him, but also doubts 

 whether his application of the statements be admis- 

 sible, even if proved to be facts. The use of color- 



words is not unlike that in other poetic literatures. 

 Mr. Hopkins concludes: 1°. Non-mention of the col- 

 ors green and blue is not proved for the Rig Veda 

 literature; 2°. That the sky is not called blue, nor the 

 fields green, rests on reasons which have nothing to 

 ilo with the development of the retina; .3°. We can- 

 not admit tliat either color-words or color-perception 

 of those who composed the Rig Veda were inexact or 

 imperfect; for the cause of the apparently inexact 

 employment of words lies in the variable and micer- 

 tain color of the objects to which the color-terms are 

 applied. 



If the Vedic literature fail to support the theory of 

 the late development of the color-sense, one of the 

 strongest of the negative proofs is withdrawn; and 

 even the .absence of certain colors in Homer may be 

 deemed, perli<aps, of less significance than has been 

 claimed when we consider that the Niebelungenlied 

 exhibits, twenty centuries later, the same absence ot 

 corresponding colors, and a like ratio in the greater 

 use of terras denoting red and yellow. — (A mer. jotirn. 

 p/i(7., iv. Ifii;.) j.w.r. [535 



The Yuma linguistic stock. — In the year 1877 

 Mr. A. S. Gatschet brought together in two papers 

 all that was then known with reference to the Yuma 

 stock of langu.ages spoken aromid the mouth of the 

 Colorado of the west. Recently he has come into 

 possession, through the Biueau of ethnology and pri- 

 vate correspondence, of new and important material, 

 and has been compelled to publish an appendix to his 

 former papers. This consists of information respect- 

 ing the names and characteristics of the tribes be- 

 longing to this stem; comparative vocabularies of the 

 Yavapai, Ni Mai, and the Seri; the Y'avapai vocabula- 

 ry of Dr. W. II Corbusier; and the Tonto vocabulary 

 of Dr. .John B. White. —(Zd<sc7ir. ethnol., xv. 123.) 

 J. w. p. [536 



The tempering of bronze. — No doubt, native 

 copper attracted the attention of primitive man be- 

 fore any of its alloys; but the difficulty of working it 

 for a long time prevented its general use. How the 

 metal came to be associated with tin in varioiis forms 

 is entirely unknown to us. Arms and implements of 

 bronze in Egypt, Greece, and Gaul, present a con- 

 stant proportion of tin, — twelve per cent. The 

 bronze of cannons is eight to eleven per cent; of 

 bells, twenty to thirty per cent. Recently, .at R^alon 

 (Haiites-Alpes), a peddler's pack of bronze objects 

 h.as been unearthed, showing eighteen per cent of 

 tin. 



The founders of prehistoric times seem to have 

 had three methods of procedure: — 



1°. The alloy was poured into a mould of stone or 

 metal in two pieces. The ridge formeil by the junc- 

 tion was afterwards hammered down. 



2°. A model of wood was pressed upon a layer of 

 sand in a box, to obtain a negative of one side: a 

 corresponding operation gave a moulil of the other 

 side. The two boxes fitted together completed the 

 mouhj. There were still seams requiring to be ham- 

 mered. 



3°. A model of wax was surrounded with soft cl.ay. 

 The clay was then heated to harden it and to melt 



