206 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XX. No 505 



south — on Nyssa aquatica. Trypethelium sprengelii Nyl. On 

 various barks of trees, Key West to Jacksonville. Opegrapha 

 diapharoides Nyl. On oaks froai Jacksonville south. Tbe great 

 genus Biatora has many species. Of these B. cameo -albens Nyl. 

 and B. Floridensis Nyl., found by me on Carpinus, are new, and 

 of tropical derivation. Two other great genera, Arthonia and 

 Oraphis, teem with new species and rare forms. These find here 

 their greatest expression, and the latter is reduced north of Florida 

 to a very few species. 



CURRENT NOTES ON ANTHROPOLOGY.— XVI. 



[Edited by D. G. Br intern, M.D., LL.D.'i 



Linguistics as a Physical Science. 



When one surveys the works on linguistics which have ap- 

 peared in the last few years, especially such as deal with the 

 principles of changes in languages, it is easy to classify their 

 writers into two groups, the one preferring to explain such changes 

 by processes of mind, the other by purely physical conditions. 

 This distinction goes back to that which would regard linguistics 

 as a branch of natural history, and its laws no other than purely 

 physical ones ; or, on the other hand, that which claims the changes 

 in language come chiefly through principles of psychology, logic, 

 and metaphysics. 



Some have aimed at a compromise by saying that linguistics is 

 in its contents a mental science, but in its methods a natural science. 

 Professor H. Schuchardt remarks, in a late number of the Litera- 

 turblatt fiir Ger. und Roman. Philologie. that it would be just as 

 correct to reverse this statement, or to take the position that it is 

 half a natural and half a historical science; provided that in the 

 latter case we understand the two members of the proposition to 

 be successive and not contradictory, the natural element passing 

 into the historical. " Because,*' he concludes, with a remarkable 

 expression of his position, "I believe in the unity of the science, 

 and hold that there is no greater difference between biology and 

 linguistics than between biology and chemistry." 



Garland's Atlas of Ethnography. 



I have had at hand all summer the "Atlas der Volkerkunde," 

 by Dr. Qeorg Gerland, professor at the University of Strasburg 

 (1 Vol., Gotha, Justus Perthes, 1893), and can speak of it now 

 after that much use. It is composed of fifteen folio maps, and, 

 as it is, I believe, the first complete ethnographic atlas ever pub- 

 lished, it will not be out of place to give its contents. They are : 

 I., Distribution of skin and hair; II., Density of population; III., 

 Distribution of religions; IV., Distribution of diseases; V., Cloth- 

 ing, food, dwelling, and occupations ; VI , Location of peoples in 

 1500 and 1880; VIL, Europe in 1880; VIII, Asia in 1880; IX., 

 South-east Asia; X., Oceanica; XL, Africa; XII,, Aboriginal 

 America; XIII., America in 1880; XIV., Linguistic map; XV., 

 Europe about 100-150 after Christ. 



The first impression one has in examining the Atlas — and with 

 me it is one that remains —is that entirely too much is attempted 

 for a work of the size. The charts are necessarily on too small a 

 scale and omit too much to be satisfactory for the special student; 

 and what student is not special nowadays ? The list of subjects 

 above given will be enough to convince the reader that detail 

 cannot be attempted in most of the charts. Turning to the map 

 of the American aborigines, there is an evident lack of classifica- 

 tion. For instance, what does " Peruvian peoples " mean? It is 

 neither a linguistic nor physical group, and scarcely a political one. 

 All tribes of Chili, Patagonia, the Pampas, and Tierra del Fuego 

 are included under one rubric, and called " Chilians or Pata- 

 gonians." Such classifications are worse than worthless, because 

 they are misleading; and these by no means stand alone. 



But it would be unfair to measure this atlas by its treatment 

 of America, which, as usua,l in all works of the kind, suffers the 

 most. In general, the Atlas is one of immense labor and of cor- 

 responding value. It ought to be in the library of every geogra- 

 pher and student of ethnography. 



To Deduce the Stature from the Measurements of the Long 

 Bones. 



This is a problem which has occupied anatomists considerably, 

 without leading to as uniform conclusions as one could wish. 

 There are important ethnic variations in the length of the long 

 bones of both extremities, as is well known, and others run in 

 families, or are peculiar to the individual. Scott says of Rob Roy, 

 that standing straight he could tie his garter below the knee. 

 Such a statement makes an osteologist wish for his bones ! Long 

 fore-arms are ethnically a sign of an inferior race. Hence all 

 proportions must to some extent be modified by considerations of 

 race. 



A general formula has lately been advanced by M. Etienne 

 Rollet, "which seems to me, after comparing it with the measure- 

 ments in Topinard, Schmidt, and others, the most convenient I 

 have seen, and suflSciently accurate. The list of coefBcients is 

 stated as follows in the Revue Scientiflque for August : — 



It is enough to multiply the length of the long bone named 

 by the coefHcient given above, to obtain the height; and by taking 

 the average of a number of such measurements we reach a figure 

 accurate enough for the height of either sex. I say accurate 

 enough, because there is no use in being excessively precise ob 

 this question. It is well known that there is quite a difference ia 

 our stature when we rise in the morning, and when we go to bed 

 after a hard-day's walk. 



The Birch-Tree as an Ethnic Landmark. 



In a late number of the Globus, Dr. Krause of Kiel revievrs th« 

 question of the origin of the Aryan nations as shown by tbe word 

 for birch. The terms for birch and willow are the only two tree- 

 names which are common, or practically so, to all tongues of the 

 Indo-Germanic group. The ancestors of all must have come, 

 therefore, from some locality where these trees were indigenous, 

 and where they were of importance in the economics of the ances- 

 tral horde. The birch meant is the Betula cdba, or white birch, 

 and its uses in primitive conditions are numerous and familiar, as 

 are also those of willow twigs. 



All this is well known, and therefore not new. But the con- 

 clusion which has been drawn from it in favor of the derivation 

 of the Indo-Germanic peoples from the habitat of the birch in the 

 north of Europe is seen to be unsubstantiated, when we learn 

 that the Betida alba flourishes all through Siberia, from the high- 

 lands of Afghanistan to Japan, and that two closely allied species, 

 the acuminata and tbe bhojpattra, are found in various parts 

 of the Himalayas, and in the mountains of centrEfl Asia. In Iran 

 and on the plains of Turkestan none of these trees occurs. It 

 would seem, therefore, that this single verbal identity does not 

 carry us far. 



To show how close the correspondences of the names of the 

 tree are, I will quote some: English, birch; High German, hirlee; 

 Hindustanee, burj; Sanscrit, bhurja ; Italian, bedoja; Latin, betula; 

 Irish, beithe, etc. It is a marvel to see how through unnumbered 

 generations and over so many thousands of miles the word has 

 retained its physiognomy. 



Slavic Archaeology. 



Dr. Lubor Niederle is privat-docent in the branches of anthro- 

 pology and pre-historic archeeology at the University of Prague. 

 That city is quite decidedly Check or Slavic, and much of the in- 

 struction is carried on in the Bohemian dialect of that tongue. 

 In it, also. Dr. Niederle publishes his works, tbe last of which 

 treats of pre-historic man in Europe with especial reference to. 

 the archaeology of the Slavic countries. Tbe title is " Lidstvo t 

 Dobe Predhistoricke." It is to be hoped that of a portion of it he- 

 will prepare an abstract in French or German, as the Bohemian 

 is a dialect with which most scientists are not familiar. The im- 

 portance of such an abstract is the greater because many Slavie 

 observers, especially local archseologists, have in late years taken 



