February 24, 1893.] 



SCIENCE. 



109 



neer, and the reverse. But whether the reader is proposing to 

 work in the department of science or in that of consiruction, Dr. 

 Holman's work will prove a most useful and instructive aid. 

 Direct measurements and the theory of errors, the method of 

 least squares and the establishment of criteria, indirect measure- 

 ments and the best ways of planning their applications, estimates 

 ■of precision and approximation in the solutions of the most im- 

 portant problems, illustrations of good work, with instructions 

 for special cases, as for calibration of instruments, measurements 

 of efficiency, and other similar matter, make the book one which 

 the engineer and the physicist alike will find valuable, and they 

 may place beside Kohlrausch as an authority, and as a useful sup- 

 plement, if not a substitute, to that standard work. 



The work of the publishers is, as usual, well done. We notice 

 the imprint of Drummond, as its compositor and electrotjper, and 

 take it to be an assurance of careful work in composition, and 

 especially in the mathematical portion of the work. Supple- 

 menting the proof-reading of so accurate an author, it gives com- 

 forting assurance of freedom from those usually too frequent 

 errors which annoy the reader of the first edition of a work of 

 this kind. 



Seventh Annual Report of the State Board of Health of the State 

 ofMaimi,im\. 399 p 8°. 



By far the greater part of this report is devoted to the consid- 

 eration of school hygiene and school- houses in a paper by Dr. A. 

 G. Young, secretary of the Board. This interesting compilation 

 should prove of value in stimulating reform in school methods 

 and school buildings. It clearly and forcibly presents those 

 fundamental principles of individual and public hygiene about 

 which there is substantial agreement among sanitarians. It is 

 humiliating to have to believe that too often those having imme- 

 diate charge of such matters either disregard these principles or 

 are ignorant of them altogether. Reform can be brought about 

 only by adding line to line and precept to precept. 



In the reports of the local boards of health it is observable that 

 eases of typhoid fever occur with ominous frequency in the reports 

 of the small towns where well-water is used for drinking. 



The Mound Builders, Their Works and Belies. By Rev. Stephen 



D. Peet, Ph.D. Vol. I. Chicago, Office of the American 



Antiquarian, 1892. 376 p. 8°. 



It appears from the preface that this is the first of a proposed 



series of five volumes relating to the ancient history of the area 



of the United States. The author is well known ts students of 



that branch as the founder and editor of the American Antiquarian, 



a specialist's journal, which has survived for many years, and is 



a repertory of much valuable information. 



In several respects Dr. Peet's opinions about the mound-builders 

 differ from those current in Washington or Boston. To him, 

 ■" There was a mound builders' age in this country as distinctive 

 as the Neolithic age in Europe" (p. 31). This age " began some 

 time after the glacial period and ended about the time of the ad- 

 vent of the white man" (p. 34). Geographically, he limits them 

 to the Mississippi Valley, but nevertheless attributes to them the 

 mica mines of South Carolina, the shell-heaps of Florida, and the 

 rock-inscriptions wherever found. He is not in sympathy with 

 the theory that the raoimd-builders were the ancestors.of any of 

 the natives met by the early explorers, but believes they had a 

 «ivilization and a religion of their own, not to be identified with 

 those of the Redskins of later date. He thinks it likely that the 

 much-discussed " elephant pipe " and "Davenport tablet" attest 

 their knowledge of alphabetic signs and their familiarity with the 

 mammoth and the mastodon; and perhaps he is not wrong when 

 he asserts of these relics (p 47), "The evidence in their favor is cer 

 tainly as reliable as that which has reference to the rude stone relics 

 which have been described in Wright's • Ice Age.' " He himself is 

 not quite convinced that there were any palaeolithic people in the 

 Mississippi Valley, — in which he is in accord with some very 

 recent debaters of that question. He says (p. 36): "We imagine 

 that the mound-builders were the first people who occupied the 

 territory after the close of the glacial period." Whence they 

 came he answers as follows: "The same race that built up the 



ancient cities of Mexico pushed eastward and colonized the Mis- 

 sissippi Valley " (p. 112). 



Having solved to liis satisfaction these questions, Dr. Peet pro- 

 ceeds to describe at length, and in part from personal observation, 

 many of the mounds, enclosures, earthworks, implements, orna- 

 ments, and other relics which he attributes to this mysterious 

 people. He devotes chapters to their religions, I heir '-water 

 cult, ' their "solar cult," their symbolism, and their sacrificial 

 rites. 



Much of the work, most of it, we believe, has already appeared 

 in the pages of the American Antiquarian; but those who sj mpa- 

 thize with the opinions of the author will doubtless be pleased to 

 have his contributions collected into a convenient form. He is 

 unquestionably an earnest and honest student of the facts before 

 him, and the conclusions he reaches should, therefore, receive 

 careful consideration. 



So7ne Strange Corners of our Country : The Wonderland of the 

 Southwest. By Chas. F. Lummis. New York, The Century 

 Co. 370 p. Illustrated. 12°. 

 For those readers who have read but a few books of travel on 

 the Southwest, this snug little volume will be quite a revelation. 

 The contents of the twenty-two chapters scarcely contain any- 

 thing that has been written or sketched before, except a few pages 

 on the Moqui snake dance and Indian superstitions. The thor- 

 oughness of his familiarity with Pueblo customs and folk-lore is 

 only equalled by the graphic qualities of his style. In looking about 

 " the strange corners " which the author describes, we are first at- 

 tracted by a prairie-dog hunt, to which the Navajo Indians resort 

 to fill their larder. White people of the Southwest never think of 

 killing this rodent for food, becau.=e it is so difficult to attain with 

 a rifle-ball; but these natives utilize abundant downpours of rain 

 to conduct the floods into their tunnels, and afterwards haul up 

 their dead bodies for a feast. To get rid of the prairie-dog plague, 

 people have proposed to kill them with poisoned apple-quarters. 

 The belief in witchcraftisaspotent among the whites and Indians 

 of New Mexico as it ever was during the Middle Ages. Man- 

 slaughter is committed for any act arousing even the suspicion of 

 witchery, and the fact that one- half of the Isleta people are 

 wizards and witches speaks loudly enough. The " finishing an In- 

 dian boy" shows principles of education in full force now, 

 which our northern Indians began to drop as eaily as a century 

 ago. In the chapter, '' The American Sahara," the wide waste is 

 delineated in colors none too sharp or cruel. Lieutenant; Wheeler 

 is mentioned by mistake as its earliest explorer instead of Lieu- 

 tenant Whipple. The marvellous wealth of objects presented in 

 Lummis's volume will attract ever and again the class of readers 

 and tourists which seeks instruction rather than pleasure in books 

 of travel, and they will hold it dear as a publication of really 

 scientific; value, standing far above most of the productions of our 

 present sensation- laving period of literatuie. 



"The Wanderings of Cochiti" isanother very interesting sketch 

 from our " Wonderland " on the upper Kio Grande. It is printed 

 in the Century Magazine, January, 1893, and describes and also 

 pictures in photographic reproductions the people, customs, his- 

 tory, and scenery of Cochiti, one of the Queres pueblos of northern 

 New Mexico and the celebrated gorge of Tyu-on-yi and its rock- 

 carvings in the vicinity of that pueblo. The scene of Bandelier's 

 archaeologic novel. "The Delight-Makers."' is placed in that lo- 

 cality. 



First Steps in Etruscan. By F. W. Newman. London. 1892. 

 The 8:frusco Libyan Elements in the Song of the Arval Brethren. 

 By D. G. Bkinton. Philadelphia, 1893. 

 These two pamphlets are the latest contributions to the study 

 of the Etruscau problem. The first is written by the eminent 

 and venerable emeritus professor of University College, London, 

 now close to ninety years of age. It is worth while to find a 

 man willing to take "first steps'" in any branch of learning at 

 that time of life. The questions he examines are: By what route 

 came the Etrusc-ans into Italy? He inclines to believe that they 

 came by sea from Asia Minor, and not across the Alps from the 

 northwest, as Taylor teaches. The Etruscan alphabet he con- 



