FKIilUARY 1, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



129 



believing that such are far more perma- 

 nent and therefore more racial than the 

 minor variations whicli have engaged the at- 

 tention of others. His arguments are drawn 

 from a con.scienti<)us study of ample series 

 from various (juartei'S of the globe, and 

 tiiough some of his refinements may not be 

 sufticiently established, the general prinei- 

 ples he advocates merit the careful consid- 

 eration of cranial specialists, as containing 

 some new and certainly correct observations. 

 A short prefatory note by myself introduces 

 tlie author to the American public. 



THE AKVAX CRADLE-LAXD. 



If anybodj' thinks that the question 

 whether the primitive Ai-yan horde lived in 

 Europe or Asia has been settled, he is mis- 

 taken. Two publications of late date show 

 that the defenders of the old theory of their 

 central Asian origin are nowise lacking in 

 vigorous argument. 



Prof. August Boltz, of Darmstadt, in a 

 pamplet Das Vcdavolk in geinen Ge.iaintver- 

 hiiltnmen, has worked out the problem of 

 the origin and earliest migrations of the 

 Aryans quite to his own satisfaction. He 

 adds two maps, on which the reader can 

 trace very clearly how they began in the 

 great Tarim liasin and about Lob Nor, and 

 journeyed westward across tlie Pamir pla- 

 teau, on the western slojje of which they di- 

 verged, the Celtic stem wandering north- 

 west into Europe north of the Black Sea ; 

 the Greek, Latin. Etruscan and Slavic 

 l)ranches by way of the Hellespont and the 

 islands ; the Iranian group remaining in 

 Pei-sia, while the Yeda-folk or Indo-Aryans, 

 ascended the mighty passes of the Hindu 

 Kusch and Karakorum ranges to reach the 

 fertile valleys to the south. These are 

 pretty plans, but we look in vain for a sub- 

 stantial support to them. 



Turning to Eui-ope, M. De Nadaillac's 

 admirable summary of the results of the in- 

 vestigations in the lake-dwelling of that 



continent (in a conti'ibution to the Revue 

 dex Quedionn Hcientifiijuex for October last, en- 

 titled Le.-< Pojndatioiit Lacudres de VEurope) 

 lifts the veil as far as at present possible on 

 European culture in neolitliic times — those 

 times when the Arj'an stock began its wide 

 wanderings. The writer inclines to their 

 Asian origin: l)ut with his customarj' frank- 

 ness he acknowledges that nowhere in the 

 debris of these ancient dwellings has there a 

 single positive sign of Asiatic art been dis- 

 covered, nor any relic such as we might 

 suppose even a savage tribe would carry 

 from its pristine home. Until down to a late 

 period of prehistoric time, European culture 

 seems to have lieeu indigenous. For a 

 clear and accurate summarj' of what it was 

 among the lake-dwellers, the student would 

 do well to peruse the article referred to. 

 D. a. Brinton. 

 r.vivEnsiTY OF Pennsylvania. 



TCHEBYCHEV* 



Of Kussian mathematicians, second only 

 to Lobachevsky should be ranked I'afiuitij 

 Lvovitsch Tchel)ychev. 



Born in Russia in 1821 and formerly 

 professor at the University at St. Petersburg, 

 he reached deservedly the very highest 

 scientific honors, being privy councillor, 

 the representative of applied mathematics 

 in the Imperial Academj- of St. Petersburg, 

 in 18r>0 made member of the famous Section 

 I.-Geometrie, of the French Academic des 

 Sciences, and afterward A»socir Hranger, 

 the highest honor attainable by a foreigner. 



His best known work is the justly cele- 

 brated Mhnoire mr leg nombres premiers, 

 Academic Imperiale de Saint Petersbourg, 

 (1850), where he established the exi.stence 

 of limits within which the sum of the log- 

 arithms of the primes inferior to a given 

 number must be comprised. This memoir 

 is given in Lioiivllle's Journal, 1852, pp. 306 

 -390. 



* Deceased December 8, 1894. 



