July 12, 1889.] 



SCIENCE. 



25 



Though this theory seems more probable than the other, which 

 assumes that the languages of our Indians were brought here from 

 foreign shores, it must be franl<ly admitted that Linguistic Science 

 is not now, and possibly never will be, competent to decide be- 

 tween them. If she is unable to decide fully as to the origin of the 

 Indian's language, how can she be expected to solve the infinitely 

 more complex problem which concerns the ultimate origin of the 

 peoples who spoke them ? She certainly has no solution for this 

 problem now. When she considers the number of linguistic fam- 

 ilies, and the vast length of time it must have taken to develop their 

 languages and dialects, she finds herself confronted by a problem 

 beyond her present powers. And yet the case is not hopeless. 

 Linguistic Science is still in her infancy, and her future may con- 

 tain possibilities far exceeding the dream of the most sanguine. 



When interrogated as to the origin of the Indian, all that she 

 can now say is, that whether the Indian originated on this conti- 

 nent, where he was found, or elsewhere, it was in bygone ages, — 

 ages so far removed from our own time that the interval is to be 

 reckoned, not by the years of chronology, but by the epochs of 

 geologic time. With such problems she affirms that at present 

 she cannot deal. 



I have presented the subject to you to-day, not to answer it, but 

 to aid you in comprehending the tremendous difficulties that en- 

 shroud the problem. Much time and ingenuity have been ex- 

 pended in the past in attempting to force an answer to a question 

 which cannot even yet be answered. The question, however, that 

 really concerns the ethnologist of to-day is not -wJio are the Ameri- 

 can Indians, but -what are they, and what have they accomplished 

 in working out the problems of life, which, ever since his birth, man 

 has grappled with. 



In reading the history of mankind, we are too apt to be blinded 

 by the achievements of our own Aryan race. As the old Greeks 

 classed as barbarians all who did not speak their own tongue, so 

 we are prone to think that most of the good that has come to 

 humanity has come through and by means of our race. In truth, 

 there are valuable lessons to be learned from races less high in 

 civilization than our own. Though many and diverse are the roads 

 that lead man to the higher life, they all pursue about the same 

 course, and time only is required to unite them into one broad 

 stream of progress. 



Many are the lessons taught by anthropology ; but the grandest 

 of them all is the lesson of the unity of mankind, — the unity of a 

 common nature and a common destiny, if not of a common 

 origin. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 

 We hear that the Russification of the German educational 

 establishments in the Baltic provinces goes on apace. The Uni- 

 versity of Dorpat, in particular, is suffering in this respect. Re- 

 cently the Czar specially sanctioned the Russianizing of the faculty 

 of law within the next few years, and now it is intended to trans- 

 fer the theological faculty from that seat of learning and enlighten- 

 ment to Moscow or St. Petersburg, in order to deprive it entirely 

 of its German-Protestant character. German culture evidently 

 seems a dangerous element in the eyes of the Russian Government. 



— Nature states that Herr Victor Apfelbeck, the entomologist, 

 will shortly start, in behalf of the Bosnian Government, on a jour- 

 ney of research in Herzegovina. Last year he discovered in south- 

 ern Bosnia five new species of eyeless cave beetles, and his investi- 

 gations e.xcited much interest among entomologists. 



— The largest tree in Great Britain, and one of the most famous, 

 is the Cowthorpe oak in Yorkshire, which is believed to be some 

 fifteen hundred years old. When Evelyn wrote his " Sylva," in the 

 seventeenth century, its circumference at the ground was seventy- 

 eight feet ; but later, earth was banked up around it, which covered 

 some considerable projections, and reduced its girth. As told in 

 Garden and Forest, at the beginning of the last century its 

 branches overshadowed an area of half an acre of ground. The 

 top or leading branch fell at some unrecorded date, curiously slip- 

 ping down into the hollow trunk, where it remained. In the last 

 century one of the main branches which was blown down proved 

 to be ninety feet in length, and yielded five tons of timber. When 



carefully measured by Dr. Jessop in 1829, the girth of the tree at 

 the ground was sixty feet, and at a yard above, forty-five feet ; the 

 chief remaining limb was fifty feet long and its circumference eight 

 feet, and the height of the tree was forty-five feet. It was then 

 hollow to the top. For many years saplings raised from this tree 

 were sold in pots by the villagers for as much as a guinea apiece. 

 It is now a venerable ruin, but most picturesque in its decay. It 

 stands in a green paddock, carefully protected from injury, with its 

 ancient limbs supported by props. An idea of its size may be 

 gathered from the statement that at least forty persons can stand 

 within its cavity, and that its circumference is greater than that of 

 the Eddystone Lighthouse, which was confessedly designed on the 

 model of an oak. 



— Does the cuckoo ever hatch its own eggs ? Herr Adolf Miil- 

 ler answers this question in the affirmative, and has given in the 

 Garientatibe a full account of a case which he himself claims to 

 have observed. A translation of this account has appeared in the 

 Ibis, and is reproduced in the new number of the Zoologist. The 

 latter periodical prints also a translation of an article in which 

 Herr Adolf Walter disputes the statements of Dr. MUUer, who, he 

 thinks, must have made a mistake. The same subject is dealt 

 with in the June number of the Selborne Magazine by Mr. C. Rob- 

 erts, who quotes from " Zoonomia " an interesting passage, in 

 which Dr. Erasmus Darwin expresses his belief that the cuckoo 

 sometimes makes a nest and hatches its own young. In this passage 

 Dr. Darwin gives an extract from a letter of the Rev. Mr. Wilmot 

 of Morley, near Derby, describing an instance brought to Mr. Wil- 

 mot's notice in July, 1792, by one of his laborers, and afterwards 

 closely watched by Mr. Wilmot himself. Mr. Wilmot was confi- 

 dent that the bird was a cuckoo. 



— There is a note by Dr. Charles Waldstein in the London 

 AthencEicm of June 8 which will no doubt attract much attention. 

 Dr. Waldstein states that recently, while in Constantinople, he was 

 shown photographs by Hamdy Bey of the sarcophagi discovered 

 some time since at Sidon ; and he is of opinion that the discovery 

 is one of the most important made in this century, and, moreover, 

 that excepting the Elgin marbles, and the Hermes of Praxiteles at 

 Olympia, " no works of ancient Greek art have been found of 

 greater artistic interest and merit." One of the sarcophagi con- 

 tains a portrait of Alexander. Hamdy Bey does not positively 

 assert that this is the tomb of Alexander, but Dr. Waldstein thinks 

 he will be justified in pointing to the possibility of such being the 

 case. 



— • At the New York meeting of the American Institute of Min- 

 ing Engineers, February, 1889, Mr. John C. Smock of Albany, 

 N.Y., read a paper on " The Iron-Mining Industry of New York 

 for the Past Decade," from which it appears that the total product 

 of the iron-mines of the State in 1888 was 1,207,000 tons. This 

 sum includes all the returns received from the mining companies 

 and carefully made estimates for three mines unreported. Ac- 

 cording to the " Ninth Census," New York produced 14 per cent 

 of the iron ore mined in the country. Ten years later, the State 

 produced 1,262,127 tons, or 15.4 per cent, and ranked third in the 

 list of States. In 1886 the production of all the iron-mines in the 

 country, as estimated by James M. Swank, general manager of the 

 American Iron and Steel Association, was 10,000,000 tons. In 

 1887, according to the same authority, it amounted to 11,300,000 

 tons. New York mines produced in the former year about 900,- 

 000 tons, and 1,100,000 nearly in the latter year, or 10 per cent 

 of the whole. In 1888 the same average proportion was main- 

 tained, but the rank changed to fourth, falling behind Michigan, 

 Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. According to the last report of the 

 American Iron and Steel Association, the total for the United 

 States in 1888 was 12,050,000 gross tons. The fluctuation in the 

 totals for the State during the decade have not been so great as 

 might be inferred from the sharp fluctuations in the prices for pig- 

 iron ; and the steadiness in the figures for 1886, 18S7, and 1SS8 is 

 remarkable proof of the enduring capacity of the mines of the 

 State. The variation from year to j-ear is not as great as it is in 

 the magnetic iron-ore districts of New Jersey. The production of 

 the iron-mines in New Jersey in 1S80 was 745.000 tons. In 1SS5 

 it had fallen to 330,000 tons, and in 1SS7 had risen to 547,000. 



