232 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XX. No. 507 



feet. That, to be sure, was not very much, but it must have 

 materially altered the relative lengths of the wet and dry seasons. 

 Thus we have direct evidence to the following eflfect: For 

 many thousand years, going back far beyond the recognized 

 period of human habitation, the climate has been very much as it 

 is at present. That was preceded by a slow rise of the land out 

 of the sea, which caused the climate to change from wet to dry. 

 But under the wet climate the elevation of the land was still too 

 great, and perhaps the duration of the epoch was too short, to 

 produce a luxuriant tropical vegetation; otherwise there would 

 be to-day extensive coal-fields. However, the wet climate was 

 sufficient to greatly alter the face of the country. Lake Titicaca 

 was of enormous area, fed perhaps by the melting glaciers. In 

 the almost continuous rainy season, huge turbid rivers roared and 

 tumbled down tliese western slopes of the Cordillera, while on 

 each mountain summit vast quantities of snow fell, only to pur- 

 sue its way down the steep slopes, carving out valleys, building 

 up ridges, and by its melting wearing out deep ravines, which 

 grow smaller as they become lost in the broad level plain below. 

 Under such luxuriance of moisture the valley of Arequipa must 

 have teemed with animal and vegetable life, the barren hills to 

 the south were clotlied in green, and the desert of La Joya blos- 

 somed like a garden. 



CURRENT NOTES ON ANTHROPOLOGY.— XVII. 

 [Edited by D. Q. Brintan, M.D., LL.D.'\ 



The Ancient Vans. 



The people who in proto-historic time lived at the foot of Mount 

 Ararat, on the plains around Lake Van, and about the head- waters 

 of the Araxes, were known to Herodotus as the Alarodi, which is 

 a Greek form of the Assyrian Urartu, of which Ararat is the 

 Hebrew form. They seem to have called themselves Chaldeans, 

 Chaldi, but their language was neither Semitic nor Aryan. They 

 learned to write it in cuneiform characters, and a considerable 

 number of their inscriptions have been recovered, dating 750-850 

 B.C., about. 



In a late number of the Zeitschrift fur Ethnologic is a valuable 

 contribution to our knowledge of these inscriptions by Messr.s. 

 Belck and Lehmann. The former traversed some five thousand 

 kilometers of Russian and Turkish Armenia last year, and care- 

 fully copied quite a number of hitherto unknown Vannio inscrip- 

 tions ; to the decipherment of which Dr. Lehmann devoted himself 

 with much success. They date from half a dozen different reigns 

 previous to the destruction of the Vannic kingdom by Tiglath- 

 pileser in 742 B.C. 



The most interesting, the longest, and the most difficult to de- 

 cipher, on account of the new words and ideograms it contains, 

 is one from the stele of Rusas. It apparently was set up to cele- 

 brate the completion of some important works in irrigation and 

 laying-out of gardens and orchards. 



The inscriptions are carefully reproduced in autotype, and 

 offer new and valuable materials for students of this little-known 

 tongue. 



Laws of Human Evolution. 



The most valuable summary of the facts and laws of human 

 evolution that I have seen for a long time is contained in the Cart- 

 wright Lectures for 1893, delivered by Professor Henry F. Osborn 

 of Columbia College, New York. These admirably clear and able 

 addresses, three in number, discuss the many knotty questions 

 involved in this topic with temperate judgment and a complete 

 mastership of the facts. 



Many of his conclusions are of the utmost importance to the 

 practical anthropologist, and to the majority will have a novel 

 force; for instance, that man is anatomically quite degenerate, 

 only his hand and his brain comparing favorably with mammalian 

 anatomy generally. He is now in a state of very rapid evolution, 

 or rather transformation, for, according bo our author's figures, 

 more than thirty of his organs are degenerating to twenty which 



are developing. This action is especially active in certain centres, 

 of which eight are mentioned ; but in them the rate of change is 

 by no means uniform. The most conspicuous variations are re- 

 versions, and in the matter of advance, the evidence is abundant 

 that structure lags far behind function. 



In the muscular system the evolution of a new type consists in 

 the accumulation of anomalies in a certain direction by heredity. 

 There are on the average nine anomalies of the muscles in each 

 individual. How these come about is variously explained. The 

 French theory that all anomalies reproduce earlier normal struc- 

 tures, seems too absolute. Here comes in the puzzling question 

 as to what is the active force in producing variations, and pre- 

 serving those which are valuable to the species. After a careful 

 review of the evidence, the lecturer reaches the conclusion that 

 the theory of use and disuse, along with the hereditary transmis- 

 sion of acquired variations, encounters less difficulties than that 

 of the accumulation of fortuitous favorable variations by natural 

 selection. 



Of course, the theories of Weissmann, that acquired traits do 

 not become hereditary, have to be considered, and are not found 

 to be sufficiently established. 



Suggestions for a Universal Language. 



The evolution of linguistics is in two opposed directions; on the 

 one hand, there are societies and patriotic guilds constantly culti- 

 vating and preserving dialects and isolated languages, printing 

 papers in them, and trying to make the rest of the world learn 

 them; and, on the other, there is a growing party demanding 

 that some one or a very few tongues be adopted for the general 

 commercial, social, and scientific business of the world. The 

 latter class is again divided into those who would select one or 

 two of the already existing languages, and their opponents, who 

 think a new and simple tongue had better be manufactured for 

 the purpose. Of the latter the Internationale Weltsprache 

 Gesellachaft of Vienna is among the most active. It has just 

 issued a " Grammatik der Weltsprache" (Mondolingue), which is 

 but one of its many publications in favor of the tongue devised 

 by Dr. Julius Lott, from whom (Wien, II. 2. Schiittelstrasse 3) 

 these publications may be had. 



Professor A. MacFarlane of Austin, Texas, has also a valuable 

 paper in the Texas Academy of Science Transactions, on " Exact 

 Analysis as the Basis of Language.'' He reaches the conclusion 

 that a natural language is better suited to scientific development 

 than one which is artificial. Another recent writer on the same 

 subject is M. Raoul de la Grasserie of Rennes, France. 



Languages of the Gran Chaco. 



The extensive district in northern Buenos Ayres called El Gran 

 Chaoo, " The Great Hunting-Ground," has been linguistically 

 almost a terra incognita. Inhabited by numerous roving tribes 

 of uncertain affinities, up to the present time we have had of its 

 numerous dialects only one published grammar, and for it no 

 corresponding people could be found, none who speak the tongue 

 which it sets fortli ! 



This want has now been happily filled by two publications 

 which have been issued by the Museo de la Plata; the one, a 

 work composed in 1856 by the Rev. Francisco Tavolini, entitled 

 " Reglas para aprender a hablar la Lengua Moscovita; " the other, 

 by Samuel A. LafoneQuevedo, " Principios de Gramatica Mocovi," 

 Both refer to the same dialect, better known as the Mbocobi. It 

 is closely allied to the Ablpone and Toba, and is a member of the 

 stock which, in my "American Race," I have designated by the 

 Tupi term, "Guaycuru." 



The two works are in a measure supplementary, Mr. Lafone 

 Quevedo having made use of previous writers, principally Barcena, 

 Dobrizhoflfer, and Tavolini, to form his analysis of the tongue. 

 He is also the editor of Tavolini, and holds out the promise of 

 other grammars of the Argentine languages, from unpublished 

 sources. We who interest ourselves in such studies, shall look 

 forward with interest to this series, and hope that the finan- 

 cial storms of the Argentine Republic will not delay its appear- 

 ance. 



