July 24, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



109 



servations are numerous and accurate. 

 They lend solid support to the conclusions 

 he advances, the most interesting of which 

 are as follows : 1. The Basques present a 

 definite physical type not encountered else- 

 where in Europe and limited to their lin- 

 guistic boundaries. 2. There is sufficient 

 evidence that they migrated into France 

 from the Iberian peninsula since the fall of 

 the Koman Empire, and therefore the an- 

 cient Aquitanians, Ligurians, etc., were not 

 Basques, as has so often been maintained. 

 3. The general anatomical peculiarities of 

 the Basques separate them distinctly from 

 the Asiatic or Mongolian type, and stamp 

 them as European. 4. Their earliest home 

 must have been in some part of the Iberian 

 peninsula, but there is no proof that they 

 at any time occupied all of it. Nor is it 

 possible to say that the Basque was the 

 primitive speech of this people. It may 

 have been forced upon them by some con- 

 quering tribe now disappeared. 



THE TOLTECS IN FABLE AND HISTORY, 



There are still some writers who believe 

 in the fabulous ' Empire of the Toltecs,' 

 the shadowy realm which in Mexican 

 myth extended its dominion over vast 

 areas and millions of men . The historical 

 aspects of the question are examined anew 

 by Dr. P. J. J. Valentin! in the Zeitschrift 

 fur Ethnologie, No. 1, 1896. 



He begins by denying the legends of the 

 Mex;ican chroniclers. ' There was neither 

 an empire, nor a nation, nor a language of 

 the Toltecs.' He pursues his inquiry along 

 the line principally of the Mayan traditions, 

 and analyzes with acuteness the confused 

 accounts they have preserved. Evidently 

 to them, Tulan or Tula was a sort of generic 

 term and was applied to various localities. 

 Although usually derived from the Nahuatl, 

 it may also be explained from Mayan radi- 

 cals, with equal if not greater appropriate- 

 ness. In a later and general sense he be- 



lieves that it answered to the notion of 

 town or city, as contrasted to country, and 

 consequently of all that is civil and urbane 

 as opposed to rustic ; just as we see in these 

 Latin terms. 



The article is accompanied with a map 

 showing the location of tribes and towns in 

 Chiapas and vicinity, and its arguments 

 will aid in clearing away many visionary 

 notions about this alleged ancient people. 



D. Gr. Brinton. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 

 ASTRONOMY. 



The observatory of Yale University has pub- 

 lished the fifth part of the first volume of its 

 'Transactions.' It contains the results of a 

 heliometric triangulation of the principal stars 

 of the cluster in Coma Berenices by Dr. F. L. 

 Chase. The final result is a catalogue of the 

 places of thirty-three stars for the epoch 1892.0.. 



In the Astronomical Journal of June 29th Dr. 

 See communicates the elements of the orbits of" 

 forty binary stars computed by himself. The 

 table of elements is of interest because all the 

 orbits have been obtained by a nearly uniform 

 process. Dr. See finds that the average excen- 

 tricity of the forty stars considered is 0.45, but 

 he draws no other general conclusions as to the 

 general characteristics of binary star orbits. 



In the Astronomical Journal of July 8th Dr. 

 S. C. Chandler publishes his third catalogue of 

 variable stars. Progress in this department of 

 astronomical science has been so rapid of late, 

 that it has not been possible to keep pace with 

 new discoveries by merely issuing supplements, 

 to the former catalogue of variables. The fol- 

 lowing paragraph of Dr. Chandler's introduc- 

 tion to his catalogue is not without interest. 

 Dr. Chandler says : 



' ' Very few stars within reach of the astrono- 

 mers of the northern hemisphere, who have so 

 actively devoted their energies to this class of 

 work, have been seriously neglected. It is es- 

 pecially interesting to note the fact that this 

 harmonious development has been obtained 

 without any concerted scheme of ' cooperation,' 

 but by the free will and independently planned 



