526 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. I., No. 18. 



thickness, undisturbed, and containing several bowl- 

 ders of large size. 



Further research in the deposit, especially after a 

 very severe storm, brought to light other rude imple- 

 ments which seem to be very old, and a human wisdom 

 tooth. Dr. Abbott reviews also the discussion respect- 

 ing the age and geological relation of the beds. — 

 (Proe. Bost. soc. nat. hist., xxii.) j. w. p. [1056 



Nago language and proverbs. — Under the title 

 of ' Les nrnrs peinls par eux-memes' (Paris, 188.3), the 

 Abbe Bouche, late missionary on the Slave Coast, 

 presents an interesting pamphlet containing a large 

 number of proverbs in the Nago language, with both 

 literal and liberal translations and explanatory re- 

 marks. The proverbs show much of the customs 

 and modes of thought of the people, and give a favor- 

 able view of their intelligence. They are, however, 

 in large part extracted from the ' Vocabulary of the 

 Yoruba language,' by Samuel Crowther, a native 

 Nago, afterwards bishop of the Anglican church, 

 though the Abbe Bouche claims to have made im- 

 portant emendations in the linguistic part of the work. 



This pamphlet is the first publication of L'oeuvre 

 de Sai)it Jerome, which was lately instituted to fur- 

 nish mission-schools with ' classical works in the 

 language of the natives,' or, in other words, to facili- 

 tate the study of the several languages in current 

 texts of those languages, not to rely upon forcing 

 a translation of religious works into the foreign 

 tongue, which in many cases does not contain the 

 words necessary to express the ideas connected with 

 the Christian religion. This new departure in the 

 right direction, by missionaries, is the mode em- 

 ployed by the Bureau of ethnology of the Smith- 

 sonian institution, and its general adoption will prove 

 of the highest philologic value. — j. w. p. [1057 



Chuckchis and Chuckchi-land. — An unsigned 

 article on the Chuckchi describes their distribution, 

 migrations, mode of life ; the habits of the bands who 

 live by herding reindeer, by trade between the Ameri- 

 can Innuit and the Russians on the Anui and Anadyr 

 rivers, or by coast-fisheries ; the care and diseases of 

 the deer ; the fishing population of eastern Siberia, 

 and the fish they catch ; and the initiation, purposes, 

 and results of the Maidel-Neumanii expedition to 

 Chuckchi-land. The harmonious relations between 

 the Russians and reindeer-Chuckchis now existing, 

 and the manner in which they were brought about, are 

 clearly stated. There is little new ethnological matter 

 in the article, but a good deal of useful and interesting 

 historical material, while the rest has been brought 

 up to date. — {Deutsche geogr. bl., vi. ii.) w. h. d. 



[1058 

 EGYPTOLOGY. 



Book of the dead. — The editing of a critical 

 edition of the Book of the dead was, by resolution 

 of the International congress of orientalists held at 

 London, committed to the hands of M. Edouard Na- 

 ville. The work is now done, and is to be published 

 under the direction of the academy of Berlin. It 

 has been edited from the papyri of the seventeenth to 

 twentieth dynasties. There is but little before that 

 period to contribute to this edition ; and, after that pe- 

 riod, the acquaintance with the hieroglyphs of the 

 Bonk ot the dead was lost, and the chapters were 

 written in the hieratic characters. The scribes copied 

 mechanically, without understanding the signs they 

 traced ; and so the papyri in hieroglyphs, after the 

 twentieth dynasty, are filled with errors. The most 

 important papyri, which have been made the base of 

 the present work, are those of London (9,900 and 

 9,964), of Paris (IIL 1, HL 85, III. 93), and that of 

 Mesemneter. These are all texts of the eighteenth 



dynasty. Almost all the chapters of the Book of the 

 dead, as published by Lepsius, have been found else- 

 where, and forty-thiee chapters, hitherto unedited, 

 have been added. The first volume will contain the 

 text and all the variants of the vignettes, which 

 often differ from those published by Lepsius. The 

 second volume will contain the variants of the text. 

 While the title, ' Book of the dead,' has been re- 

 tained, Naville calls attention to the special name of 

 the book in Egyptian, 'per em hrou,' and says, "I 

 believe that it means ' departure from the day ' 

 ('sortie dujour') ; that is, departure from his day. 

 The Book of the dead contains expressions like the 

 following: 'I have been delivered from the evil of 

 those who are in their days,' or again, ' I have 

 not blasphemed the King during his day,' where 

 the variants are, 'during the continuance of his 

 life.' To leave his day is not really to lose life or 

 existence (life c<mtinues beyond the tomb), it is 

 merely to be delivered from the period set for every 

 terrestrial life, and to have neither beginning nor 

 end, — an existence without limits in time or space : 

 hence the frequent addition to the expression, ' de- 

 parture from the day,' of ' under all the forms 

 which the deceased wishes ' ; that is, to become 

 released from the limits of time and space. . . . 

 Whatever advantage there might have been in taking 

 the Egyptian title, though imperfectly translated, yet 

 I believe that now it is better not to break with 

 usage, and to call the book ' Book ot the dead ' until 

 Egyptologists agree upon a translation of the ex- 

 pression of 'per em hrou ; ' for which I propose ' de- 

 parture from the day or from his day.'" — {Bevue 

 egyptol., iv.) h. o. [1059 



EARLY INSTITUTIONS. 

 Land-system of the Franks. — H. Hahn sums 

 up the conclusions of Dr. Schroder in his book enti- 

 tled ' Vie Franken uiid ihr redd.' He tells us how the 

 writer takes a position opposed to that of von Inama- 

 Sternegg, whose Wirthschaftsgeschichte we read with 

 so much satisfaetiot\ a few years ago (IS79). Accord- 

 ing to this new view, the freemen were distributed in 

 strictly communistic village communities (dorfer rait 

 strenger flurgemeinschaft), under the over-lordship 

 (obereigenthum) of the kings. This, we are told, was 

 the condition of things as late as the sixth century. 

 After that time, the system of isolated farmsteads 

 with private estates (einzelhof-system) was introduced 

 very generally. According to von Inama-Sternegg, 

 as the reader will remember, the einzelhof-system was 

 the primitive system. We are quite at a loss to im- 

 agine upon what grounds this new theory can rest. 

 It seemed to us that that of von Inama-Sternegg was 

 well established by the testimony of the early records. 

 We wonder, for example, how Dr. Schroder recon- 

 ciles his theory with the statement of Tacitus in Ger- 

 manla 16: 'Colunt discreti ac diversi,' and with that 

 other statement (Germ. 2.t), that the freemen had 

 slaves set out upon the land like Roman coloni. We 

 wonder, too, how he explains the references to private 

 property In arable meadow, and even forest-land, in 

 Lex salica, xxvii. And what did the freemen do with 

 their slaves, if they lived in communistically organ- 

 ized villages? Slaves are mentioned in at least nine 

 sections of the Lc.x salica. Then, we remember all 

 the early formulae and documents in which landed 

 property is described. How can Dr. Schroder do 

 away with all this testimony? We must not, how- 

 ever, attempt to discuss, still less must we criti- 

 cise, an argument of which we have seen only a 

 very brief report. — (Mitt. hist, litt., 1882, heft :1. ) 



D. W. R. [1060 



