ig2 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. XVllI. No. 452 



agine how takiog they were. Everyone who had to do with them 

 fell in love with them [these fierce mastiffs]. Contact with civ- 

 ilization had not improved the morality of the natives, but in their 

 natural state they were truthful and honest, generous and self- 

 denying. He had watched them sitting over their fires cooking 

 their evening meal, and it was quite pleasant to notice the ab- 

 sence of greed and the politeness with which they picked off the 

 tit-bits and thrust them into each other's mouths. The forest and 

 sea abundantly supplied their wants, and it was therefore not sur- 

 prising that the attempts to induce them to take to cultivation had 

 been quite unsuccessful, highly as they appreciated the rice and 

 Indian corn which were occasionally supplied to them All was 

 grist that came to their mill in the shape of food The forest sup- 

 plied them with edible roots and fruits. Bats, rals, fiying foxes, 

 iguanas, sea-snakes, mollusks, wild pig, fish, turtle, and last, 

 though not least, tlie larvse of beetles, formed welcome additions 

 to their larder. He remembered one morning landing by chance 

 at an encampment of theirs, under the shade of a gigantic forest 

 tree. On one fire was the shell of a turtle, acting as its own pot, 

 in which was simmering the green fat delicious do more educated 

 palates; on another its flesh was being broiled, together with some 

 splendid fish; on a third a wild pig was being roasted, its drip- 

 pings falling on wild yams, and a jar of honey stood close by, all 

 delicacies tit for an alderman's table." 



These are things which we might suppose anybody who has 

 eyes to see, and who is not wilfully blind, might have observed. 

 Btit when we come to traditions, laws, and particularly to re- 

 ligion, no one ought to be listened to as an authority who cannot 

 converse with the natives. For a long time the Mincopies have 

 been represented as without any religion, without even an idea of 

 the Godhead. This opinion received the support of Sir John 

 Lubbock, and has been often repeated without ever having been 

 re-examined. As soon, however, as these Mincopies began to be 

 studied more carefully, — more particularly as soon as some per- 

 sons resident among them had acquired a knowledge of their lan- 

 guage, and thereby a means of real communication, — their re- 

 ligion came out as clear as daylight. According to Mr. E. H. 

 Man, they have a name for God — Paluga. And how can a race 

 be said to be without a knowledge of God if they have a name 

 for God ? Piiluga has a very mythological character. He has a 

 stone house in the sky; he has a wife, whom he created hunself, 

 and from whom he has a large family, all except the eldest being 

 girls. The mother is supposed to be green (the earth V) , the 

 daughters black ; they ai-e the spirits, called Moroioin ; his son is 

 called Pijchor. He alone is permitted to live with his father, and 

 to convey his orders to the Morowin. But Puluga was a moral 

 character also. His appearance is like fire, though nowadays he 

 has become invisible. He was never born, and is immortal. The 

 whole world was created by him, except only the powers of evil. 

 He is omniscient, knowing even the thoughts of the heart. He 

 is angered by the commission of certain sins, — some very trivial, 

 at least to our mind, — but he is pitiful to all who are in distress. 

 He is the judge from whom each soul receives its sentence after 

 death. 



According to other authorities, some Andamanese look on the 

 sun as the fountain of all that is good, the moon as a minor 

 power; and they believe in a number of inferior spirits, — the 

 spirits of the forest, the water, and the mountain, — as agents of 

 the two higher powers. They believe in an evil spirit also, who 

 seems to have been originally the spirit of the storm. Him they 

 try to pacify by songs, or to frighten away with their arrows. 



I suppose I need say no more to show how indispensable a study 

 of language is to every student of anthropology. If anthropology 

 is to maintain its high position as a real science, its alliance with 

 linguistic studies cannot be too close. Its weakest points have 

 ahvays been those where it trusted to ihe statements of authorities 

 ignorant of language and of the science of language. Its greatest 

 triumphs have been achieved by men such as Dr. Hahn, Bishops 

 Callaway and Colenso, Dr. W. Gill, and last, not least. Mr. Man, 

 who have combined the minute acciu'acy of the scholar with the 

 comprehensive grasp of the anthropologist, and were thus enabled 

 to use the key of language to unlock the pei-plexities of savage 

 customs, savage laws and legends, and, particularly, of savage 



religions and mythologies. If this alliance between anthropology 

 and philology becomes real, then, and then only, may we hope to 

 see Bunsen's prophecy fulfilled, that anthropology will become 

 the highest branch of the science for which this British Associa- 

 tion is instituted. 



Allow me in conclusion once more to quote some prophetic 

 words from the address which Bunsen delivered before our sec- 

 tion in 1847: 



•' If man is the apex of the creation, it seems right, on the one 

 side, that a historical inquiry into its origin and development 

 should never be allowed to sever itself from the general body of 

 natural science, and in particular from physiology. But, on the 

 other side, if man is the apex of the creation, if he is the end to 

 which all organic formations tend from the very l^eginning, if 

 man is at once the mystery and the key of natural science, if that 

 is the only view of natural science worthy of our age, then ethno- 

 logical philology (I should prefer to say anthropology), once es- 

 tablished on principles as clear as the physiological are. is the 

 highest branch of that science for the advancement of which this 

 association is instituted. It is not an appendix to physiology or 

 to anything else; but its object is, on the contrary, capable of be- 

 coming the end and goal of the labors and transactions of a scien- 

 tific association." 



Much has been achieved by anthropology to justify these hopes 

 and fulfil the prophecies of my old friend Bunsen. Few men live 

 to see the fulfilment of their own prophecies, but they leave disci- 

 ples whose duty it is to keep their memory alive, and thus to pre- 

 serve that vital continuity of human knowledge which alone ena- 

 bles us to see in the advancement of all science the historical evo- 

 lution of eternal truth. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



#** Correspondents are requested to be as brief as poasible. Tlie writer's name 

 is in all cases required as proof of good faith, 



(hi request in advance^ one hundred copies of the number containing his 

 communication iriU ie furnished free to any corresiiondent . 



Communication with Other Planets. 

 I NOTICE a letter from Sir Robert Ball with reference to the re- 

 cent bequest of a French lady of 20,000 francs for a method of 

 signalling to other planets. He enumerates different met'iods, but 

 he does not speak of one method which I have never seen discussed 

 but which seems to me worthy of mention. On a moonless clear 

 night the electric and gas lights over such a large territory as New 

 York and its suburbs must present the appearance to a spectator 

 in Mars of a spot of light on the dark side of our globe If, now, 

 on such a night, from the middle of some large dark area, for ex- 

 ample, the Atlantic Ocean, brilliant flashes of light be regularly 

 sent forth in certain forms, there would he a chance of its being 

 interpreted by the inhabitants of other spheres, and they might 

 thereby be induced to signal us in return. 



But there is a bare possibility of direct communication by taking 

 advantage of the meteor currents in the great ocean of space in 

 which we move. If on breaking open a meteorite we should find 

 a chipped flint or other instrument, we should conclude that the 

 portion of space from wliich it came had intelligent inhabitants. 

 If, now, we can by the aid of modern explosives project into some 

 meteor shoal a ball of iron containing at its center some object of 

 human design, the ball might ultimately come to some other 

 planet and be found by its inhabitants. Such a procedure would 

 be analogous to casting a bottle inclosing a message upon the ocean 

 to be wafted by the currents to some intelligent eye. 



The wild schemes of one generation are often achieved in the 

 next. Jules Verne's ■' Around the World in Eighty Days" and 

 "Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea" have been in a measure 

 realized, and possibly his "Voyage to the Moon" is the next ro- 

 mance to be realized in some fortn. An initial velocity of seven 

 miles a second would be required to project a body beyond the 

 earth's attraction, and it is not too much to hope that this will soon 

 be attainable at the present rate of progress in the science of ex- 

 plosives. A projectile sent from the earth would have considerable 

 value as a direct astronomical experiment on meteorites, even if it 

 should fail in bringing tidings from another planet. 



HmAM M. Stanley. 



Lake Forest, 111., Sept. 26. 



