March 24, 1893.] 



SCIENCE. 



163 



is stated — in quite another connection — to have been noted for 

 his " veracity ; " and this is qiiiie borne out, in this instance, by 

 the evidence of two contenipoiary writers and the minute-booli 

 of the College of Physicians. 



That these skiffs were " kayaks," and that their occupants were 

 practically Eskimoes, is what I have never seen called in question. 

 The first writer (Wallace) conjectures that they actually were 

 Eskimoes from Davis Straits. This also is the explanation offered 

 by some critics, whose preconceived notions prevent them from 

 entertaining the idea that certain European castes, within com- 

 paratively recent times, may have been (ethnologically) Eskimoes. 

 Wallace's son, editing his father's book in 1693, thinks it "a little 

 unaccountable how these Finn-men should come on this coast," 

 from so great a distance as Greenland. And Brand (1701), who 

 calls them also "Finland-men," regards it as "strange" and 

 " wonderful" that tliey should come even from Finland, — assumed 

 by him to be their home. Orkney tradition, which styles them 

 " Finns" and " Fin-folk," connects them with a certain island in 

 Orkney, with Shetland, with Norway, with the Faroe Islands, 

 and even with Iceland. 



It is perhaps within the bounds of possibility that Greenland 

 "kayakkers" made their way to the Orkneys, via Iceland, the 

 Faroes, and Shetland, about the year 1680. But this assumption 

 seems to me so unreasonable that I cannot entertain it. Were 

 the "Finn-men" of 1701 the immigrants of 1682, and had they 

 been living in retirement about the Orkneys all that time ? Or, 

 when pursued by the Orkney fishermen, as they often were, did 

 they retreat on each occasion to Greenland? But it is futile to 

 suggest questions such as these. It is much more reasonable to 

 assume that the stories about "Finns" and "Fin-folk" (though 

 blended in modern times with impossible stories about seals) have 

 an actual historical basis, and relate to a people whose home was 

 in Europe and not in America. 



I dare not trespass further upon your valuable space, or I would 

 say more with regard to the various points selected for criticism. 

 I shall only add that the reference to the Delaware Finns of the 

 seventeenth century is not my own, but is quoted (at p. 36); that 

 "Finn" and "Lapp" were once used interchangeably, though 

 now distinct; and that, according toC. F. Keary ("The Vikings,'' 

 p 157), the Scandinavian peninsula, almost as far south as the 

 60th parallel, " was Lapp or Finnish territory " in the ninth cen- 

 tury, which allows of possible surviving remnants at a much later 

 date in that region, — not to speak of the British Isles. 



David MacRitchie. 



Edlnburgb, March 7. 



A Possible Source of Confusion as to the Origin and Character 

 of Certain Shells. 



It is quite possible that in studying the fossils of a single 

 stratum of rock or even so small a fragment as a hand specimen, 

 one may find examples over which he pauses. Wide divergences 

 may exist between shells that lie side by side. They have evi- 

 dently been deposited from the same waters. Apparently, they 

 have flourished under like surroundings of depth and character 

 of water. Yet one example may bear traits of fresh-water origin, 

 while another may be as distinctly of marine growth. 



The key to the anomoly may probably be found in what is now 

 going on along our lake shores. Take as illustration the inter- 

 mingling of marine and lacustrine forms on the borders of Lake 

 Cbamplain. In favorable places there are found closely packed 

 accumulations of unios and related shells. The waves that have 

 brought these to the shore have at the same time been gnawing 

 at the banks of clay of the Cbamplain epoch. In these are im- 

 bedded saxicava and associated forms. The clay is worked 

 over by the waters; the finer particles drift out into the lake, 

 the coarser with the liberated shells sink down among the unios. 

 So a firm stratum is made from forms now existing in the waters 

 and those that long ago flourished there. These deposits await 

 the phenomena that have consolidated like ones along shores in 

 older geological time, after which shells of different origin and 

 character may be bi'oken from the same rock. 



Henet M. Seely. 

 Mlddebury, Vt. 



BOOK-REVIEWS. 



A Microscopic Study of Changes due to Functional Activity of 

 Nerve Cells. Reprinted from the Journal of Morphology. 

 By C. F. Hodge. Boston, Ginn & Co. 

 The present investigation is the beginning of a new line of re- 

 search, and Professor Hodge is to be congratulated on his suc- 

 cessful pioneer work. It consists of an account of a long series 

 of patient observations made upon the spinal nerve-cells of the 

 frog and the cat under the influence of stimulation through the 

 spinal nerves. The general conclusion is that stimulation of the 

 nerve-cell produces changes, in the structure of the cell, which 

 are visible to the microscope. The most noticeable and tangible 

 of these changes is the shrinking of the nucleus. This shrinking 

 of the nucleus was seen in all of the experiments described, and 

 that it was not a pathological change was proved by the fact that 

 a rest after the stimulation caused in a few hours a recovery of 

 the nucleus to its normal size. Perhaps the most interesting re- 

 sults of the whole series of experiments was a comparison of the 

 nerve-cells of the spinal cord and brain in animals killed in the 

 morning after a nighfs rest, and similar animals killed at night 

 after a day's activity. In every case a very striking difference 

 in the microscopic appearance of the nerve cells was manifest. 

 The whole line of work is extremely suggestive and very promis- 

 ing of important results in the future. 



Hie Naturalist on the River Amazons. By Heney Walter 

 Bates. With a memoir of the author by Edward Clodd. 

 Reprint of the unabridged edition. New York, D. Appleton 

 & Co. 395 p. Map. ' 8°. 

 Among the thousands of volumes that crowd the shelves of our 

 great libraries there are few that have ever reached the honor of 

 a second edition. Fewer still attain a third and fourth, and rare 

 indeed is the instance of one that, decade after decade, and gen- 

 eration after generation, continues to delight the human soul. 

 The vast majority of printed books are as ephemeral as the May- 

 fly, born and dying in the same hour, read and forgotten as we 

 read and forget the gossip of a Sunday paper. Those volumes 

 that, no matter how often they are reprinted, are always fresh 

 and new, and which give delight to the younger as they did to 

 the older generation, we christen "classics." Some have come to 

 us from ancient Greece and Rome : others from the Middle Ages : 

 some from more recent days. In no single century, however, 

 are there more than a small number that ever reach the pinnacle 

 of public approval and become designated as classics. The more 

 books there are the greater the numbers that are cast aside; so 

 that in our time, when thousands of volumes are being poured 

 from the press year after year, the chances that any one will be 

 successful in achieving the highest honor are shght indeed. A 

 book must possess more than usual worth: give to the jaded 

 world some new ideas, and be couched in language to be read by 

 old and young with equal pleasure. Books like the one at present 

 under review belong to that category which includes such vol- 

 umes as White's Selbourne, Darwin's Voyage, and Wallace's 

 Malay Archipelago, — books which have fulfilled the requirements 

 of classics, and which have been accorded that title by a grateful 

 public, 



No one can err, we believe, in placing Bates's "Naturalist on 

 the River Amazons" among the foremost books of travel of this 

 age; and no one who has read it, but recalls its graphic pages 

 with delight. Pages that bring to those who have not seen with 

 material eyes the wonders of the tropic zone, images of delight; 

 and that recall to those who have seen these wonders visions of 

 never-to-be-forgotten pleasure. It is said of the ornithologist 

 Gould, who had long desired to visit the forests of the Amazons, 

 that, meeting Bates after the appearance of his book, he exclaimed : 

 ' ' Bates, I have read your book ; I have seen the Amazons ! " It 

 is now thirty years since the first edition appeared. Since then 

 many others have been pi'inted, mainly based, however, upon the 

 second edition. This, upon the advice of his publisher and to 

 his lasting regret. Bates abridged to a considerable extent. The 

 public is, therefore, most grateful to have reproduced, as in the 

 beautiful volume before us, the unabridged words of the author. 



