May 15, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



741 



us to make further divisions so as finally to 

 reach continuous and consistent area! units. I 

 formed my division into life districts according 

 to the primary conditions of life, and I never 

 claimed that all the localities on the earth show- 

 ing the same primary conditions of life should 

 be continuous ; I only claimed that the smallest 

 areal units of zoogeographical division should 

 be continuous. Different conditions of life have 

 existed since the beginning of the geological 

 history of the earth ; the secondary divisions 

 into regions of the marine life districts, which 

 were formerly continuous in a greater or less 

 degree, are made according to the topographi- 

 cal continuity, which was interrupted by the 

 introduction of climatic differences in much 

 later times. The assigned districts of life are 

 old, and during a long time they were the only 

 zoogeographical divisions of the seas. The dif- 

 ferent regions of the life districts are of a com- 

 paratively recent date, and their existence did 

 not begin until a differentiation of climate took 

 place. 



Prof. Gill further suggests that the life dis- 

 tricts themselves are of unequal value, and 

 they should be seggregated into two primary 

 categories, marine and inland. I agree per- 

 fectly with this view, as the same view is main- 

 tained in my book, the title of which reads : 

 'Principles oi marine zoogeography, ' thus leaving 

 out of view the consideration of inland districts. 

 Further, I expressly state (p. 18-20) that the 

 diagnostic value of my five life districts differs, 

 for if we were to establish a perfectly philo- 

 sophical division we should have to introduce 

 other districts, but only the five named are of 

 practical value. The fact that the marine life 

 districts are unequal as regards the number of 

 subdivisions I cannot consider as an objection 

 to their correctness. Indeed, in this respect 

 they are unequal, but if they are unequal in 

 nature why should we try to correct nature in 

 proposing a scheme on paper in which the 

 divisions would appear more equal than they 

 really are ? 



I am glad that Prof. Gill by his remarks has 

 given me an occasion to state again in a concise 

 form my reasons for neglecting the inductive 

 or statistical method in zoogeography. I think 

 that practical results favor my method, es- 



pecially since there is a remarkable parallelism 

 in both divisions, Prof. Gill's and mine. This 

 fact suggests that an agreement of both is at 

 least possible, and then, perhaps, some of the 

 scientific terms of Prof. Gill would have the 

 priority and should be used, as most of the 

 'terms used by me are certainly in that particu- 

 lar sense of more recent date. 



Arnold E. Ortmann. 

 PEiNCETOisr College, May, 1896. 



' THE CHILD AND CHILDHOOD IN FOLK- 

 THOUGHT.' 



To THE Editor of Science : In the issue of 

 March 27th Dr. Brinton has dwelled on the lit- 

 erary merits of Dr. A. F. Chamberlain's book 

 'The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought.' 

 As, aside fi'om its literary aspirations, the book 

 is intended as a contribution to Anthropological 

 Science, I may be permitted to add a few words 

 from this point of view. 



Dr. Brinton has well said that the book rep- 

 resents a vast amount of compilatory work. 

 The author deserves our thanks for having 

 delved in numerous odd books in which we 

 should hardly expect to find information on the 

 subject of childhood, and for having extricated 

 a considerable number of references from ethno- 

 logical literature. He has thus largely increased 

 the available material on studies of childhood. 

 These references he has conveniently arranged 

 in a bibliographical index. 



While this preparatory work is very meri- 

 torious, particularly in so far as it refers to un- 

 common books, the attempt at a scientific ar- 

 rangement of the material thus obtained does 

 not appear successful. If scientific description 

 was the author's aim it was incumbent upon 

 him to arrange his material from certain points 

 of view in a systematic way. If he desired by 

 inductive methods to investigate certain phe- 

 nomena it was his duty to array his facts for the 

 purpose of finding the elements common to all 

 of them. His book fills neither the one nor the 

 other requirement. 



A characteristic instance of lack of organic 

 connection is the seventh chapter, ' Affection 

 for Children.' The subject-matter treated is as 

 follows: Parental love, the dead child, mother- 

 hood and infanticide, the dead mother, fatherly 



