January 27, 1893.] 



SCIENCE. 



47 



synonymous with "White Race." I take the greater pleasure in 

 seconding his protest, as in my "Races and Peoples" I discarded 

 the term, and gave similar reasons as his own for denying its 

 right to exist in ethnogi-aphic classification. 



M. Chantre points out that it is demonstrable that none of the 

 so-called Caucasian peoples ever lived in the Caucasus or can be 

 traced to the Ponto-Caspian area. The study of local archseology 

 proves that this tract was comparatively lately inhabited ; that its 

 occupants in early times, as to-day, had no ethnic unity, but were 

 the disjecta inenihra of various stocks, who fled lo these mountain 

 fastnesses as asylums; that tbey are without linguistic or soma- 

 tologic connection ; and that the only proper use of the term is to 

 apply it solely to the tribes occupying the main chain of the Cau- 

 casus, tribes who have no historic or ethnic identity with any 

 others outside this ar^ a. 



Yet so slowly does a correction of this kind penetrate popular 

 science, which is nearly always made up at second or third hand, 

 that the term ' ' Caucasian race " will probably survive in school 

 geographies and encyclopaedias for a generation to come. 



The Unity of Religious Conceptions. 



The curious similarity between the myths and other religious 

 •conceptions of nations far asunder in space and kinship has often 

 impressed students, and has been explained in a variety of ways. 

 An instructive comparison of the early Semites and the Indo-Ger- 

 manic nations in this respect is given by Dr. W. Schwartz in the 

 Zeitschrift fur Ethnohgie, 189i, heft. III. He shows that there is 

 "a whole cycle of mythical conceptions and narrations which are 

 common to Indo Germanic and Semitic peoples." The books of 

 the Old Testament are a rich mine of such. Some of these can 

 hardly be explained otherwise than as direct borrowing, or, as 

 our author prefers, slightly varied versions from some original 

 stock of conceptions belonging to a common ancestry. He is in- 

 clined to consider that the conservation of myths and religious 

 notions is stronger than that of language even. He scarcely 

 seems to allow enough latitude to the fact that certain impressions, 

 which are the same everywhere, are likely to evoke similai' ex- 

 pressions of the religious sentiment. 



The article is an interesting contribution to the science of re- 

 ligion, and shows a proper understanding of its meaning; being, 

 in this, singularly in contrast with the printed circular issued by 

 those Chicago luminaries who represent the " Department of Re- 

 ligion" in "The World's Congress Auxiliary of the World's 

 Columbian Exposition." This astonishing body has summoned 

 a congress of teachers and members of all faiths, "to indicate the 

 impregnable foundations of theism, and the reasons for man's 

 faith in immortality;" blandly and densely unaware, it would 

 appear, that one or both these dogmas are absent as religious ele- 

 ments in many highly-developed religions ! What a spectacle for 

 the world of science ! 



On Demographic Neurology. 



In Dr. Rockwell's letter about the relation of nervous diseases 

 and civilization {Science, Dec. 30), he advances several very 

 judicious observations on their prevalence in the United States, 

 though disagreeing with me entirely on the general thesis. As 

 Dr. Rockwell is aware, this is by no means the first time that I 

 have joined issue with him and his friend the late Dr. Beard, on 

 this subject. I shall not renew this discussion, which was car- 

 ried on in various medical journals, but would ask the attention 

 of readers who would like recent information on the subject to an 

 article by Dr. Irving C. Rosse, professor of nervous diseases in 

 the Georgetown Medical College, which appeared in the ■Journal 

 of Nervous and Mental Disease for July, 1891. 



It is entitled ' ' The Neuroses from a Demographic Point of 

 View," and, apart from its medical value, is interesting to the 

 ethnologist as a contribution to comparative nosology. From 

 quite an extended collation of authorities, he shows that there is 

 as much, if not more, nervous disease in low stages of civilization 

 and inferior races than in those which are higher. In the Dis- 



trict of Columbia, for example, the decedents among the colored 

 people from nervous diseases often exceed those of the white 

 population thirty-three per cent. Dr. Rosse is inclined to believe 

 that a sudden change in the social habits and condition of any 

 race, at any stage of advancement, will result in a prompt devel- 

 opment of neurotic disease. A high civilization, which is stable, 

 excites such a condition less than instability in lower grades. 

 This seems very reasonable. 



Ethnography of the Picts. 



It used to be taught that the Picts, who once inhabited por- 

 tions of northern Great Britain, were so called from the Latin 

 pictus, painted, because they colored themselves with woad and 

 other paints. They were believed to have been Celts, and lin- 

 guistically allied to the Welsh. 



Both these opinions have been challenged. Their name is a 

 Latinized form of Gaelic peht or peght; and from the sparse frag- 

 ments of their tongue preserved, scarcely anything more than 

 lists of kings and names of places, it is quite possible that it be- 

 longs to an allophyllic stock. 



Their material remains are believed to be the numerous earth- 

 houses or weems, found in the Orkney and Shetland Isles, and in 

 many parts of Scotland near the seashore. An excellent descrip- 

 tion of these has recently been privately printed at Edinburgh by 

 David MacRitchie, under the title " The Underground Life." 

 Many of these subterranean dwellings have been carefully ex- 

 plored by archaeologists; but the results it must be said are dis- 

 appointing. Few objects referable to the culture of the Picts 

 proper can be discerned. The ancient notion that they were an 

 undersized people seems borne out by the narrowness of some of 

 the passages. They are not over four and a half feet high, and 

 two or two and a half feet wide. The walls are of stone and 

 sometimes also the roof. The weem is sometimes below the level 

 of the soil, sometimes above it, and is then covered with a mound. 

 Mr. MacRitchie gives a number of plans and illustrations. In the 

 Hebrides these weems were inhabited as late as the close of the 

 last century by a class of predial slaves of debased condition, 

 called sgalag. Perhaps in this word is to be found the rauch- 

 soughtfor original of our colloquial term scalawag. 



The Craniology of Spain. 



Two meritorious authors, Luis de Hoyos Sainz and Telesforo 

 de Aranzadi, published last year an excellent survey of Spanish 

 craniology under the title "Un Avance a la Antropologia de 

 Espana." In text, maps, and tables, it displays the results of the 

 examination of a number of series of skulls obtained from most 

 of the provinces of Spain. The conclusions are drawn with calm- 

 ness and under the proper reserves on account of the material 

 from various areas being incomplete. 



These conclusions point to the presence in prehistoric times of 

 an "indigenous primitive race," characterized by dolichocephalic, 

 leptorhinio skulls. These became modified by a series of inva- 

 sions; first, of a brachycephalic people in the north, whom our 

 authors identify with the Celts; then certain sub-dolichocephalic, 

 leptorbinic peoples, supposed to be Visigoths, Suevi, and " Blond 

 Tamau from Africa""; finally certain later Berber and Moorish 

 hordes, which are described as dolichocephalic and platyrrhinic; 

 though the Berbers in the latter respect have the same index as 

 the average Londoner and Parisian to-day, that is, between 46 

 and 47. 



The most interesting point of the discussion, that which is pe- 

 culiarly the duty of Spanish craniologists to decide, namely, as 

 to whether the primitive stock was identical in osteology with 

 the Basques of the Pyrenees, is left unclear. The fact is, he 

 would be a daring anthropologist who would positively say 

 what the Basque type of skull is. The assertion of Quatrefages, 

 that it is the tete de lievre shape, has now no supporters in Spain. 

 The evidence has proved inconclusive, and with it falls the theory 

 that the Portuguese kitchen-middens are of Basque origin, as it 

 was on such skulls that the theory was based. 



