404 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. I. No. 15. 



vigor of the motlier at the time of birth of 

 the fii-st child and the greater care bestowed 

 uj)on the first child during its early child- 

 hood may be the cause of the phenomenon. 

 The cares of the increasing household tend 

 to weaken the mother and to decrease the 

 amount of motherly attention devoted to 

 later-born children. It is remarkable that 

 the relation of size existing at the time of 

 birth should be reversed in later life ; it 

 having been shown that the weight and 

 length of new-born infants increases fi'om 

 the first-born to the later-born children.* 



A comparison between the above table 

 and others shows that the children of Oak- 

 land exceed those of aU other cities of the 

 United States in which measurenaents have 

 been made, in height as well as in weight. 



Franz Boas. 

 Washington, D. C. 



CURRENT NOTES ON ANTHROPOLOGY ( F.). 

 SUBDrPlSIONS OF THE STOlSrE AGE. 



Those students who make use of Mortil- 

 let's excellent manual ' Le Prehistorique 

 Antiquite de I'Homme,' now a little out of 

 date, will be glad to learn the subdivisions 

 of prehistoric time as taught this winter in 

 his courses at the Ecole d' Anthropologic, 

 of Paris. 



He divides the Stone Age into three 

 ' periods , ' covering sis ' epochs . ' The oldest 

 is the eolithic, beginning with the ' Thenay- 

 sienne,' referring to the rather doubtful 

 flints from the station of Thenay. Above 

 this is the ' Puycournienne,' based on the 

 finds at Puy-Courny. The palaeolithic 

 epochs remain the same as given in his 

 manual, to wit : beginning with the oldest, 

 the Chelleenne, the Acheuleenne, the Mous- 

 terienne, the Solutreenne and the Magda- 

 lenienne. Then follow two epochs which fill 

 in the ' hiatus ' which he formerly taught 

 existed between the palseolithic and neo- 



* H. Fasbender in Ztschr. f iir Geburtsliiilfe und Gy- 

 niikologie, Vol. III., p. 286. Stuttgart, 1878. 



lithic periods. They are the Tourassienne 

 and the Compignyenne, referring to stations 

 on the upper Garonne and the lower Seine. 

 These bring us to the Eobenhausienne, of ~ 

 Zurich, and so on. 



The changes indicated are significant. I 

 have before referred to those of similar 

 character in the scheme of M. Salmon (see 

 Science, p. 254). A leading question has 

 been whether we can trace the oldest his- 

 toric population of Europe in an uninter- 

 rupted culture-development back to the 

 rough stone age {pace, Messrs. McGuire & 

 Co.). This would seem now to be the case; 

 and this carries with it the increased proba- 

 bility that the cradle of the Aryan or Indo- 

 Germanic peoples was in western Euz-ope. 



THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. 



Some years ago the Society of Anthro- 

 pology of Paris passed a resolution to reject 

 aU papers written to show the origin of 

 language; believing that all discusssions of 

 that subject are fi-uitless and time- wasting. 

 One has but to look over the historical 

 sketch of the hypotheses advanced, written 

 recentljr by Professor Stetnthal under the 

 title ' Die Ursprung der Sprache,' to become 

 convinced how much nonsense has been 

 poured out concerning this theme. Among 

 •others, he represents a full analysis of the 

 theories of Ludwig Noire, showing at once 

 their acuteness and the vicious circle of 

 reasoning, arriving nowhere, in which the 

 author involves himself. 



Nevertheless, Noir6 has found admirers 

 in this country, and the Open Court Publish- 

 ing Company of Chicago has j)rinted a pam- 

 phlet of 57 pages, ' On the Origin of Lan- 

 guage and the Logos Theorj', by Ludwig 

 Noire." It will be found an excellent pre- 

 sentation of his views for those who wish 

 to learn them. 



There is but one scientific method of ap- 

 proaching this problem, and that is not the 

 a priori stjde adopted by most MTiters, but 



