Apeil 23, 1897.] 



SCIENCE. 



663 



tions, was impressed by the author's claims 

 and secured its publication in London. 



That it should appear as one of the series of 

 the ' Biologia Central!- Americana ' will give it a 

 position liable to credit it to the intelligent 

 public as a scientific work. This it is not in 

 any sense, and no one can be more positive on 

 this point than the author himself. He loses 

 no opportunity to berate all who have attempted 

 to apply scientific methods to the study of the 

 Mayan inscriptions and the ancient calendars. 

 They are 'shoe-string scientists,' ' dilletanti, ' 

 'assumed authorities,' engaged in 'pompous 

 kowtowing to each other.' He, the author, 

 JMr. J. T. Goodman, announces himself as the 

 ' illiterate proletaire ' who is to ' push them 

 rudely from their seats.' Like Walt Whitman, 

 he ' flings his barbaric yawp over the roofs of 

 the world.' That was fine in Whitman, but 

 he was a poet ; though Mr. Goodman can claim 

 considerable imagination also. 



Needless to add that his pages show no trace 

 of this despised learning. The names of such 

 European scholars as Seler, Forstemann, Rosny, 

 do not once appear. This we may excuse, as 

 Mr. Goodman doubtless extends his contempt 

 to a knowledge of French and German ; but 

 one would suppose that the interesting compu- 

 tations of Dr. Cyrus Thomas, published by the 

 Bureau of Ethnology, would have been vouch- 

 safed a word. But they are not once men- 

 tioned. 



He does not consider any knowledge of the 

 Maya language necessary in order to read the 

 inscriptions, nor an acquaintance with the my- 

 thology or culture of the tribe, nor an investi- 

 gation into the origin of the glyphs. All this 

 is beside the mark. To him, each glyph, each 

 face or figure, each day or month sign, is a 

 numeral, simple or complex. He ascertains 

 their meanings by a ' sort of intuition ' (p. 78) ; 

 he ' arrives at a conviction ' (p. 144) ; he has 

 no doubt of his results, though they obstinately 

 'evade proof (p. 97) ; but at any rate he is 

 willing to bet considerable on their accuracy 

 (p. 33) ; and this certainly ought to be sufficient 

 for anybody except some stupid scientific 

 reader ! 



Occasionally he betrays a slight but regret- 

 table distrust of this original and excellent 



method. He acknowledges that this opinion is 

 'little more than an assumption,' or that 

 identification insufficiently established ; but his 

 faith is not in the least shaken that time and 

 the future big volumes he has in view will 

 demonstrate all his positions to the satisfaction 

 of everybody, excepting always ' the incompe- 

 tent i&w'' (p. v.), by which polite reference he 

 means his betea noirs, the scientific students of 

 the subject. 



His main thesis is that, ' with the exception of 

 the priests and their assistants, all the person- 

 ages of the codices and inscriptions, ornaments 

 and accessories, are composed of numeral 

 signs ' (p. 85). In illustration, he portrays the 

 head of the 'long-nosed god,' so frequent in 

 the Dresden Codex, and finds a numeric value 

 in each of its elements, in the eye, the ear 

 ring, the head dress, and even in the celebrated 

 nose itself, which we learn stands for 13. 

 This has been equalled in Mayan research 

 only by the late Dr. Cresson, who dissected 

 in a similar manner the glyphs and figures, 

 but who found, not numbers, but phonetic ele- 

 ments, in each curve and crook of the work of 

 the aboriginal artist. 



The crown and completion of Mayan numera- 

 tion Mr. Goodman discovers in the bird which 

 surmounts the cross in the well-known tablet 

 at Palenque. This is the sign of the ' grand 

 era ' of the Mayas, which he figures out to be 

 374,400 years. He has not fully dissected the 

 bird, and is not quite prepared to assign the 

 arithmetical value of each of its legs, etc. ; but 

 that is merely because he has ' not found time ' 

 for it (p. 84); and this does not in the least dis- 

 turb his ' belief. ' 



To one unprepared by twelve years of study 

 of hieroglyphs it is at first a little choking to 

 swallow such a large antiquity for the Mayan 

 culture ; but Mr. Goodman wisely warns us that, 

 in view of his researches, "we shall have to let 

 out the, strap that confines our notion of his- 

 tory," and acquire a 'wider mental range' 

 than we have hitherto enjoyed (p. 149). To go 

 back ten thousand years in the history of the 

 happy Mayan people is to him but a trifle. 



It is rather difficult to take this big volume 

 seriously. Even the formidable tables which 

 fill its last hundred pages fail to dispel the feel- 



