AUGUST 26, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



261 



quotes a Mr. Sullivan, from our country ap- 

 parently, who describes a tribe in Venezu- 

 ela, on the Brazilian frontier, the males of 

 which average four feet eight inches. The 

 reference is too vague to admit of verifica- 

 tion, and if some reader of Science can give 

 further information about the statement it 

 will be welcome to anthropologists. 



THE TURANIANS AGAIN. 



A FEW years ago, in European ethnog- 

 raphy, the Mongolians reigned paramount. 

 As Friedrich Miiller said, ' Mongolian ' 

 or * Turanian ' was a sack into which all 

 nations were thrust who could not be as- 

 signed elsewhere. Basques, Etruscans, Pe- 

 lasgians, Ligurians, all were Mongolian. 



For some time past there has been a lull 

 in this mania ; but in the July number of 

 the Revue de I'Eeole d'' Anthropologie, Profes- 

 sor Herne brings forward a hypothesis sur- 

 passing in eccentricity even those previously 

 advanced in this direction. He makes all 

 the Celts, ' no matter in what region they 

 may be studied,' of direct Mongolian de- 

 scent. They entered Europe in the neo- 

 lithic period, and brought with them a 

 culture and a type of their own, their af- 

 finities being to-day markedly Turanian or 

 Ural-Altaic. Surely this theory is a few 

 years late. 



THE INFLUENCE OF CITIES IN MODEKN LIFE. 



In one of his thoughtful studies published 

 in the Correspondant (May, 1898) the Mar- 

 quis de Jfadaillac discusses the concentra- 

 tion of the population into cities, so marked 

 in our day. Its chief cause is undoubtedly 

 that more money can be made and more 

 amusement obtained in cities than in the 

 country. 



In cities the mortality is greater, the na- 

 tality less, than in the country. Marriage 

 is not so common, illegitimate unions more 

 frequent. Mental alienation increases ; 

 suicides are more numerous. Criminality 

 as a whole is decidedly higher. 



What is the remedy ? asks the collector of 

 the ominous facts. His reply is, unceasing 

 effort to teach men that ' life has an aim 

 nobler than gain, higher than material en- 

 joyment.' All will agree with the conclu- 

 sion. 



D. G. Beinton. 



University of Pennsylvania. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 

 HONORARY DEGREES CONFERRED BY THE UNI- 

 VERSITY OF EDINBURGH. 



We recorded the telegraphic despatch stating 

 that the University of Edinburgh had conferred 

 the honorai'y degree of LL.D. on Professor H. 

 P. Bowditch and Professor Wilham Osier. The 

 University at its medical graduation ceremony 

 conferred the degree on nineteen persons, all of 

 whom but two were in attendance on the meet- 

 ing of the Medical Association. The complete 

 list is as follows : Henry Pickering Bowditch, 

 M.D., member of the National Academy of 

 Sciences, United States of America, Professor of 

 Physiology, Harvard University; Sir William 

 Broadbent, M.D., F.R.S. ; Thomas Lauder 

 Brunton, M.D., D.Sc, F.R.S., Lecturer on 

 Materia Medica, St. Bartholomew's Hospital 

 School, London; Eugene Louis Doyen, M.D., 

 Paris; David Ferrier, M.D., LL.D., F.R.S., 

 Professor of Neuropathology, King's College, 

 London; Joseph Forster, M.D., Professor of 

 Hygiene and Bacteriology, University of Strass- 

 burg ; M. le Comte de Franqueville, Officer of 

 the Legion of Honor, member of the Institute 

 of France; Carl Gerhardt, M.D., Professor of 

 Medicine, University of Berlin; Richard Bur- 

 don Haldane, Q.C., M.P., Jonathan Hutchin- 

 son, M.D., LL.D., F.R.S., Emeritus- Professor 

 of Surgery, London Hospital College ; Theodor 

 Kocher, M.D., Professor of Surgery, University 

 of Berne; August Martin, M.D., Professor of 

 Gynecology, University of Berlin; Johann Mic- 

 ulicz, M.D., Professor of Surgery, University of 

 Breslau ; Ottavio Morisani, M.D., Professor of 

 Midwifery, University of Naples ; William 

 Osier, M.D., LL.D., Professor of Medicine, 

 Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore ; William 

 Playfair, M.D., LL.D., Professor of Obstetric 

 Medicine, King's College, London ; Thomas 



