340 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. XX. No. 515 



gascar. They present frequent oases of classical hysterical at- 

 tack and occasional epidemics of choreo-mania, affecting both 

 sexes. A negress of the Soudan was lately a patient in the cele- 

 brated clinic of Dr. Charcot, in Paris, and displayed the symp- 

 toms characteristic of neui-osis. Civilization, so far from in- 

 creasing this class of maladies, is one of the most efficient agents 

 in reducing them in number and severity. When it is freed 

 from certain elements not essential to it, especially religious ex- 

 citement and competitive anxieties, it acts decidedly as a preven- 

 tive. 



Recent Contributions to American Linguistics. 



The limited number of students who interest themselves in the 

 native American languages will welcome the appearance of 

 another of Mr. J. C. Filling's most excellent bibliographies, this 

 time the " Bibliography of the Athapascan Languages," a work 

 of 135 large octavo double-columned pages, every page testifying 

 to his unbounded industry and model accuracy. I lately showed 

 one of his bibliographies to a distinguished professor of classical 

 archaeology, who assured me that in his own much more widely 

 cultivated field there is no bibliographical work done equal to 

 this of Mr. Filling's. 



The Count de Charenoey, now probably the most accomplished 

 Maya scholar in Europe, has published at Alengon a Maya trans- 

 lation by Father Ruz of Ripalda's " Catechismo y Doctrina." 

 This was well worth doing, but students of the language should 

 be warned that Father Buz wrote a Maya of his own manufac- 

 ture, having " improved " the language so much that the natives 

 scarcely recognized it. 



A most valuable addition to Mexican linguistics is a " Ligero 

 Estudio sobre la Lengua Mazateca," by the Licentiate Francisco 

 Belmar, published at Oaxaca this year. The only previous pub- 

 lication on this language was a short paper of my own in the 

 Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 



M. Raoul de laGrasserie, favorably known from previous care- 

 ful studies in American linguistics, has issued an " Essai d'une 

 Grammaire et d'un Vocabulaire de la Langue Baniva," one of 

 the Arawack dialects of South America. 



Through the kindness of Mr. Wilberforce Eames, librarian of 

 the Lenox Library, I have been enabled to print in the Proceed- 

 ings of the American Philosophical Society an abstract of a gram- 

 mar of the Rio Napo dialects, drawn from a manuscript of the 

 last century now in that collection. These dialects belong to 

 the Betoya stock, of which we have had almost no grammatic 

 material. 



The already rich literature of the Tupi has received a valuable 

 addition by the reprinting of Father Paulo Restivo's " Arte de la 

 Lengua Guarani,"' at Stuttgart, under the competent care of Dr. 

 Christian Frederic Seybold. It is particularly valuable for the 

 very full list of particles, with their use and meaning. Dr. Sey- 

 bold hopes in the future to bring out new editions of the exceed- 

 ingly rare " Explicacion de el Cateoismo en Lengua Guarani," of 

 Nicolas Yapaguay, and the " Katecismo Indico da Lingua Kar- 

 iris," of Father Bernard de Nantes. 



Polynesian Ethnology. 



The Polynesian Society, whose headquarters are at Welling- 

 ton, New Zealand, commenced this year the publication of a 

 quarterly journal devoted to the ethnology, philology, history, 

 and antiquities of Polynesia. The first two numbers contain a 

 collection of generally excellent articles, several of which are 

 printed in the dialects of the islands, with translations. One of 

 some length on the races and prehistoric occupation of the Phil- 

 ippines is a collation from a number of printed sources, not add- 

 ing new material to our knowledge of the subject. An article on 

 the inscriptions of Easter Island, by Dr. A. Carroll, designed to 

 present translations of the inscribed slabs, is singularly unscien- 

 tific and out of place. What is worse, he announces other trans- 

 lations in prospect, which he professes to read through the 

 medium of ten different American languages! This is enough, 

 or should be enough, to secure the non-publication of his paper 

 by any learned society. 

 A number of lists of ancestors, native genealogies, are given. 



In some instances these extend for a hundred generations, the 

 children being carefully taught to repeat them accurately. The 

 length of a generation is estimated at about twenty years, so a 

 maximum of two thousand years would be covered by these 

 records. 



The Aryan Question. 



This question, which, like Banquo's ghost, " will not down," 

 came prominently forward at the last meeting of the German 

 Anthropological Society, held during the first week of August in 

 Ulm. 



Dr. Von Lusohan took the opportunity to make an onslaught 

 on Professor Penka's well-known hypothesis that Scandinavia 

 was the original home of the European race. The trouble is, 

 that at a time when we know a large part of Europe was well 

 peopled, Scandinavia was covered with avast glacier; and no 

 evidence that its soil was occupied during the " Old Stone Age " 

 has yet been adduced. This should be enough to suppress 

 Penka. 



The distinguished craniologist. Professor Kollmann of Basel, 

 declared on the strength of skull-forms that there must have 

 lived in Europe in neolithic times at least three, if not four, 

 '•autochthonous" races, which gradually intermingled and, by 

 this blending of powers, gave rise to that superior intelligence 

 which laid the foundation of European culture and assured the 

 predominance of the white race of that continent in the later his- 

 tory of the world. Certain it is that neither he nor any other 

 craniologist has been able to define either any European or any 

 Aryan "type" of skull; and if the general theory of the cranial 

 type is to be saved at all, it must be by some such ex post facto 

 hypothesis as this. 



The next meeting of the society will be held next August in 

 Hannover. 



Ethnology of the Eskimos. 



A clear and pleasant account of the Eskimos appears in recent 

 numbers of Das Ausland, from the pen of Fridhjof Nansen, the 

 celebrated explorer of Greenland. 



From their close similarity wherever found, and from the slight 

 differences in their dialects, he believes them to have developed 

 from some small and homogeneous stem In comparatively recent 

 times and to have spread along the coasts of the icy sea. He ex- 

 presses some doubt as to whether they occupied the southern 

 extremity of Greenland when it was first discovered by the 

 Northmen. The point from which they spread he believes to 

 have been somewhere on the shores of Behring Sea or Behring 

 Straits. In this he differs from Dr. Rink, who places their 

 earliest assignable abode in the interior of Alaska, and still fur- 

 ther from Mr. Murdoch, who, with greater probability, would 

 locate it about Hudson Bay. 



Nansen's description of the appearance, habits, and arts of the 

 East Coast Eskimos is both amusing and instructive. He found 

 them, in spite of many nasty habits, attractive in character and 

 of good mental ability — all the better, the less they had been 

 subjected to the influence of European instruction and religion. 

 One of their curious superstitions is that they will not touch their 

 hair, in the care of which they take gi-eat pride, with any object 

 made of iron, not even to trim it. This recalls similar objections 

 to that metal in the rites of ancient Rome and Egypt. Physically 

 he describes them as a well-made race, quite of the average 

 European height, the young women sometimes good-looking. 

 The general tone of his article is highly favorable to the stock. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



A MEETING was held recently at the State Capitol, Concord, 

 N.H., upon the call of the Forestry Commission, to see what ac- 

 tion is desirable toward the preservation of the forests among the 

 mountains, and at the head-waters of the principal rivers. The 

 Appalachian Mountain Club was represented by delegates, promi- 

 nent citizens of New Hampshire were present, and much interest 

 was manifested. The meeting formulated certain propositions 

 indicating desirable laws to be secured from the incoming Leg- 

 islature, It is apparent, however, that public discussion is neces- 

 ary to find out what action is desirable and favorable, and to 



