510 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. V. No. 117. 



Professor Gabriel de Mortillet, in the 

 Revue Mensuelle of the Paris School of 

 Anthropology (January 15), succinctly ex- 

 plains these divisions and sets forth, with 

 his usual clearness, the typical products and 

 the fauna which characterize them. He 

 has found no reason materially to modify 

 the opinions he advanced in his earlier 

 works, and still maintains that a careful 

 study of the geological data bearing on the 

 question of the antiquity of man does not 

 allow us to assign it a more recent date 

 than 230,000 years ago. 



THE AFRICAN DWARFS. 



In the Mittheilungen of the Vienna An- 

 thropological Society, for December, Pro- 

 fessor Paulitschke presents his views on the 

 dwarfs of Africa. He referred to the pres- 

 ent localities occupied by them, which are 

 scattered from the Atlas chain in Morocco 

 to the Kalehari desert in South Africa. 

 For a variety of reasons, he believes these 

 dwarfs to be the remnants of a distinct 

 race, not degenerates, but a ' sport ' 

 {Spielart) of Homo Sapiens, which at some 

 distant epoch occupied large areas of the 

 continent and extended to Madagascar. 



Referring to the Dume, the small people 

 found by Dr. Donaldson Smith north of 

 Lake Stephanie, he regretted that so little 

 information was secured about them. But 

 Dr. Smith did obtain a vocabulary of their 

 language and photographs of two of the 

 males, which are printed in his recent vol- 

 ume of explorations. 



D. G. Brinton. 



University of Pennsylvania. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 



A BILL FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF SCIENCE, 



LITERATURE AND ART. 



The new tariff bill now before Congress im- 

 poses a tax of 45 per cent, ad valorem on scien- 

 tific apparatus ' imported especially for colleges 

 and other institutions;' it imposes a tax of 25 

 per cent, on books imported for public libraries. 



on books ' printed in languages other than Eng- 

 lish,' on books 'printed more than twenty years,' 

 and on books ' devoted to original scientific re- 

 search,' and it imposes a tax of 25 per cent, on 

 works of art. This simple statement is the 

 most severe indictment that can be brought 

 against these provisions of the bill. Argument 

 in such a case seems almost useless. 



Import duties are imposed in order to raise rev- 

 enue and, according to one of our political par- 

 ties, to protect home industries from foreign 

 competition. Indirect taxes for purposes of rev- 

 enue are by common consent imposed on those 

 articles whose consumption is not necessary nor 

 useful. Thus the British government collects^ 

 an import duty only on stimulants, narcotics 

 and silverware. The United States govern- 

 ment collects internal revenue only on alcoholic 

 drinks, tobacco, opium, oleomargarine and play- 

 ing cards. Opposed to such commodities ar& 

 scientific instruments and books, which con- 

 tribute the most to the advance of civilization. 

 A single scientific instrument or the book de- 

 scribing it may increase the wealth of the 

 country by millions of dollars. It is inconceiv- 

 able that any government should deliberately 

 impose a special tax on such an instrument or 

 book for purposes of revenue. 



We must suppose that if anyone approve 

 these new duties it is on the ground of protec- 

 tion to home industries — that, for example, 

 they will benefit our instrument makers. But 

 it seems evident that makers of apparatus 

 will be injured by such taxes. If a college 

 must pay 46 per cent, to the government for 

 the apparatus that it imports it will have less 

 to spend on domestic as well as on foreign 

 instruments. If the best models cannot be im- 

 ported from abroad, and if American men of 

 science are prevented from improving instru- 

 ments and inventing new ones, the makers of 

 apparatus in the United States will suffer se- 

 verely. 



But a more important consideration remains. 

 Those who believe in the protection by govern- 

 ment of home industries undoubtedly must re- 

 gard as most important the protection of the 

 industry that contributes the most to the wel- 

 fare and development of the nation. Agricul- 

 ture, manufactures and commerce depend on scl- 



