March 8, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



255 



latter agrees that anthropology properly 

 takes its place in the faculty of philosophy ; 

 but his division of the science is open to 

 doubt. He would class all its branches un- 

 der two groups : those relating to, 1. phys- 

 ical anthropology; and, 2. psychical anthro- 

 pology, or 'ethnology.' Under the latter, 

 he includes pre-liistoric archjeologj' ; and 

 not seeing very clearly where in such a 

 Bchemc ethnograjihy would come in, he 

 takes the short cut of leaving it out alto- 

 gether I This is a serious omission, as in 

 many respects descriptive racial and tribal 

 anthropology alone oflers the indispensable 

 raw material on which to build up a true 

 science of man. His opinon, that at least 

 two instructors, one for the physical and 

 one for the psychical side, are desirable, 

 will, of course, commend itself; but each 

 should at the .same time be well versed in 

 the side which he does not teach. 



GUATEMALA:^ ANTIQUITIES. 



UxDEE the sensational title ' An Ameri- 

 can Herculaneum,' a writer, M. X, West, 

 in ' La Xufure,'' November 3, describes the 

 site of an ancient city, three kilometers 

 from Santiago Amatitlan, Guatemala. His 

 story is that at a depth of five or six meters, 

 under a mass of volcanic cinders and tufa 

 thrown out by some sudden eruption, there 

 have recently been discovered the remains 

 of a village with all the appurtenances of 

 its dailj- life, finely di'corated pottery, stone 

 implements and images, the foundations of 

 its buildings, and blocks bearing inscrip- 

 tions in unknown characters. More aston- 

 ishing is the statement that along with 

 these were cups of graceful shape of glass, 

 sometimes colored. This Ciists serious doubt 

 on the whole narrative, unless ' voclanic 

 glass,' i. e., obsidian, is intended, as nowhere 

 on the American continent had glass-making 

 l>een discovered by the natives; and, indeed, 

 it is very doubtful if at any point they had 

 reached the art of glazing pottery. 



At the Madrid Exposition, in 1892, the 

 Lake of Amatitlan figured as the locality 

 where an extraordinary seal, Egj-ptian in 

 appearance, and some other j)robable frauds 

 were found. No doubt it was the center of 

 a high native culture, that of the Zutuhils, 

 a Mayan tribe ; and there seems to be also 

 some modern adepts at present in the vicin- 

 ity, whose skill should admonish the col- 

 lector to be wary in investing in articles of 

 that provenance. 



ax excellent ixtrodrctiox to antiikopo- 

 geo(;raphv. 



The various relations which his geo- 

 gi-apical surroundings bear to man in his 

 personal, social and national life constitute 

 the almost new science of ' anthropo-geo- 

 graphy,' to which Professor Ratzel, of Leip- 

 zig, has lately contributed a standard work. 

 In this country it has received little atten- 

 tion fi'om educators since the time of Pro- 

 fessor Guyot, whose ' Earth and Man ' was 

 creditable for its period. The more mod- 

 ern opinions and results have been admi- 

 rably summed up in a little volume writ- 

 ten by Professor Spencer Trotter, of Swarth- 

 more College, under the title ' Lessons in 

 the New Geography " (Boston, D. 0. Heath 

 and Co., 1895). In the compa.ss of 182 

 pages the author presents, in succinct lan- 

 guage, suitable to the student and the gen- 

 eral reader, the relations which have ex- 

 isted between the distribution of land and 

 water, the climates of the various zones and 

 the plants and animals which they produce, 

 to the life and development of the human 

 species. He then proceeds to define the 

 recognized tA'pes or races of men, and to 

 point out their distribution when they first 

 became known. The book closes with ob- 

 servations on commerce and the progress of 

 discovery, and various tables of statistical 

 information. 



Whether as a text-book in schools and col- 

 leges, or as a trustworthy and lucid exposi- 



