April 4, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



533 



Patriotism is a more or less constant fac- 

 tor in inspiring one with a love for every- 

 tliing pertaining to the home-land ; archeol- 

 ogy and ethnology, as Avell as form of gov- 

 ernment and commercial, artistic or liter- 

 ary supremacy. We cherish some relic of 

 a vanished race all the more because it was 

 found on the old homestead. Local, na- 

 tional, New World pride has evidently had 

 much to do -with our choice of subjects for 

 special research. Add to all these consid- 

 erations a vast and virgin continent await- 

 ing the anthropologist, and there is little 

 wonder he has given such a relatively small 

 portion of his time to the Old World, or the 

 islands of the sea. 



Out of a total of 589 papers presented in 

 the last twenty years only 32, or 5.4 per 

 cent., were devoted solely to foreign lands, 

 foreign being understood to mean all lands 

 other than the American continent and im- 

 mediately adjoining islands; while 39 

 papers, or 6.6 per cent., were comparative 

 studies involving both American and other 

 lands. 



Of the vice-presidential addresses, four 

 were on archeology, nine on ethnology, four 

 on somatology and two on general anthro- 

 pology. Eleven vice-presidents chose 

 Ameiican subjects, eight chose compara- 

 tive, and not one dealt with a purely for- 

 eign problem. 



In order to determine the geographic 

 distribution of subjects in Section H of 

 the British Association, recourse was had 

 to the ' Reports ' covering the four years 

 1893-96. During that time, 136 papers 

 (reports not included) were read, dis- 

 tributed geographically as follows: 



Europe (including British 



Isles) 55, or 39.9 per cent. 



Other lands 50, or 36.2 per cent. 



Studies involving both Eu- 

 rope and other lands.... 33, or 23.9 per cent. 



Records of the anthropological section of 

 the French Association for the Advance- 



ment of Science during the same period, 

 1893-96, were analyzed with the following 

 results : 



Total number of papers 



read 116 



Studies in Europe 86, or 74.2 per cent. 



Studies in other lands.... 21, or 18.1 per cent. 



Studies involving both Eu- 

 rope and other lands .... 9, or 7.7 per cent. 



The German Anthropological Society 

 may be considered as the equivalent of 

 Section H in the British or American As- 

 sociation for the Advancement of Science. 

 Applying the same geographical test to the 

 work of the German Society of Anthropol- 

 ogy as it appears in the Berichte for 1897- 

 1900, inclusive, the results are as follows: 



Total number of papers read. 88 



Studies in Europe 50, or 56.9 per cent. 



Studies in other lands 14, or 15.9 per cent. 



Studies involving both Eu- 

 rope and other lands .... 24, or 27.2 per cent. 



To arrive at a juster "comparison of the 

 scope and trend of the work done in anthro- 

 pology by the several associations, the same 

 time unit should be used. This would call 

 for the records of our sectional work from 

 1893 to 1896,* inclusive, instead of for the 

 whole twenty years; and the records for 

 these four years furnish the following 

 data: 



Total number of papers 



presented 136 



Subjects pertaining to the 



Americas 105, or 77.3 per cent. 



Subjects pertaining toother 



lands 7, or 5.1 per cent. 



Subjects involving both the 



Americas and other 



lands 24, or 17.6 per cent. 



The percenta.ge of purely foreign studies 

 is even lower for the short period of four 

 years than for the long period of twenty 

 years. On the other hand, there is a 



* The German Berichte for 1897-1900 were 

 selected because they were more accessible at the 

 time of these investigations. 



