October 21, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



545 



valuable resume of this work, collecting to- 

 gether, from his many articles, the best 

 methods of preparing each compound of 

 the class, and in many cases adding much 

 hitherto unpublished information. The re- 

 sume will be of the greatest help to all fu- 

 ture workers in this interesting field, for 

 much as has been done by Dr. Gibbs, 

 Professor Jorgensen and others, the ground 

 can be said to be hardly more than broken. 



A PRACTICALLY new field has been opened 

 in the same number of the Zeitsclirift, by 

 Professor Sabanejeff, of Moscow, that of 

 structural isomerism in inorganic com- 

 pounds. While there seems to be no in- 

 herent reason why structural isomers, 

 which are so familiar in organic chemistry, 

 should not exist among inorganic com- 

 pounds, no undoubted cases have hitherto 

 been proved. The two isomeric sodium 

 potassium sulfites N'aKSOj and thiosul- 

 fates NaKSjOj of Eohrig and of Schwieker 

 are doubtful, and Hantzsch has shown that 

 the two nitramins NH^NO^ are rather 

 stereoisomers than structural isomers ; in- 

 deed, Hantzsch says that it seems probable 

 that structural isomerism is perhaps con- 

 fined to the compounds of carbon. Sabane- 

 jefF has attacked this problem with great 

 success, and his first article deals with salts 

 of ammonium, hydroxylamin and hydrazin. 

 He describes seven pairs and one triplet of 

 structural isomers, three of the fifteen com- 

 pounds being new and nine never before 

 analyzed. Among the pairs are hydroxyl- 

 amin hypophosphite, NHjOjHjPOj, and 

 acid ammonium phosphite, ]SrH3H3P03 ; hy- 

 drazin phosphite, N2H^H3P03, and acid am- 

 monium amidophosphate, NH2P0(0H)j- 

 NH3 ; and the triplet, ammonium oxyamido- 

 sulfonate, NH(OH)S03H.]SrH3, hydroxy- 

 lamin amidosulfonate NH2SO3H.NH3O, and 

 hydrazin sulfate, N^H^H.^SO,. In all these 

 cases the salts are well chai-acterized and 

 stable. This work is of great importance, 



as it settles the fact that structural isomer- 

 ism is a general property and not peculiar 

 to the compounds of carbon. 



J. L. H. 



CURRENT NOTES ON ANTHROPOLOGY. 

 CEANIOLOGICAL OPINIONS. 



The subject of craniology in its relation 

 to anthropology is taken up by Dr. E. Leh- 

 mann-lSTitsche in an article in the Eevista 

 del Museo de la Plata (Tom. IX., 1898). 

 After some preliminaries, he points out 

 with distinctness the inability of a single 

 physical peculiarity, such as the cranial in- 

 dex, to fix racial lines ; and draws a com- 

 parison between the two theories most re- 

 cently propounded, the one by Wilser and 

 the other by Sergi, showing how they are 

 in absolute contradiction. 



His conclusion is that ' craniology, as at 

 present studied, is incapable of defining 

 typical or racial characteristics.' Much of 

 this, he argues, is due to a confusion of 

 biological and racial factors of develop- 

 ment. 



Dr. Marina, in his ' Studii Antropologici ' 

 (Torino, 1897), concludes with the affirma- 

 tion : " The terms ' leptoprosopic ' and 

 ' chamseprosopic,' no more than those of 

 ' dolichocephalic ' and ' brachycephalic, ' are 

 competent for distinguishing the varieties 

 and types of the human skull." 



Some may remember that in a work pub- 

 lished eight years ago I advanced precisely 

 this opinion about craniology (,' Races and 

 Peoples,' pp. 19, 20). 



ANCIENT GRAVES IN MAINE. 



Dr. Charles C. Willoughby, chief as- 

 sistant in the Peabody Museum, in Vol. I., 

 No. 6, of the ' Archffiological Papers ' pub- 

 lished by the Museum, gives a careful ac- 

 count of his investigations of the prehistoric 

 burial places along the coast of Maine. It 

 is well illustrated, with four plates and fifty 

 drawings in the text. 



The graves differed in age. Beads of na- 



