August 21, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



221 



auspices of the Society. In comment, it may- 

 be said if Great Britain to-day supplies the 

 most active explorers and holds the great- 

 est colonial possessions in the world in spite 

 of the lack of instruction in geography so 

 generally complained of, what will she be- 

 come when this branch of instruction is 

 duly organized ! 



THE PAMIRS. 



An entertaining narrative of exploration 

 by Curzon over the Pamirs to the source of 

 the Oxus (London Geogr. Jour. July, Aug.) 

 discusses the meaning of Pamir, discarding 

 the ' roof of the world ' as fantastic, and 

 concluding, with much appearance of truth, 

 that a Pamir is an elevated valley (12,000- 

 14,000 ft.), floored with broad slopes of 

 waste from the adjoining lofty mountains 

 (20,000 ft. + ), drained by a medial stream, 

 which runs noisily over a stony bed, mean- 

 ders through a peaty tract or spreads in a 

 lake ; buried in snow for seven winter 

 months, but affording abundance of summer 

 pasturage, although devoid of trees and cul- 

 tivation. The further statements that the 

 Pamir is ' a mountain valley of glacial for- 

 mation,' and that the inability of the medial 

 stream to scour for itself a deeper channel is 

 due to the ^ width of the valleys and the 

 consequent absence of glaciers on any scale ' 

 seem to be open to question. Eight differ- 

 ent Pamirs are described and mapped. 



W. M. Davis. 



Haevaed University. 



CURRENT NOTES ON ANTHROPOLOGY. 

 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE METOPIC SUTURE. 



A WELL studied memoir on this subject is 

 that of Dr. G. Papillault, published by the 

 Anthropological Society of Paris (La Suture 

 Metropique, et ses K-apports avec la Mor- 

 phologic Cranienne, pp. 122. Paris, 1896). 

 His results are derived from a comparison 

 of a long series of skulls of different ages, 

 sexes and races. They clearly indicate 

 that the presence and persistence of the 



metopic suture is an evidence of superior 

 mental (cerebral) activity and superiority, 

 because this persistence unquestionably 

 finds its point of departure in the brain 

 itself. It is seen most frequently in wo- 

 men and children, and is not uncommon 

 in the ISTegritos. These facts, however, 

 do not impair the author's position. The 

 superiority he refers to is relative to weight 

 and height, and in that sense he claims that 

 the brain of the female and the child does 

 rank above that of the adult man. 



He does not affirm the intellectual superi- 

 ority of metopics in an absolute sense, but 

 that the capacity and functional energy of 

 their brains are greater in proportion to the 

 whole body than in others. Moreover, he 

 very pertinently adds that nothing is more 

 difficult than to pronounce positively on the 

 intelligence of a race or an individual. 

 Civilization and success are not sure 

 criteria, as every one must admit. The 

 demonstration of his position is ably argued. 



THE SVASTIKA AND THE TRISKELES. 



It is singular to how many possible ori- 

 gins these famous symbols lend themselves. 

 The latest is proposed by the well-known 

 explorer, Karl von den Steinen, in a paper 

 contributed to the Bastian Memorial Vol- 

 ume. He believes that the svastika was 

 developed from the conventional outline of 

 the stork, and the triskeles from that of the 

 domestic fowl! He brings forward con- 

 siderable learning and ingenuity to demon- 

 strate his thesis, and succeeds in rendering 

 it as plausible as a dozen other hj^potheses 

 which have been advanced. How the svas- 

 tika came to be in America, where we have 

 no storks, he fails to explain ; in fact, does 

 not refer to the American examples of these 

 figures, which for an Americanist, exprofesso, 

 is an unexpected oversight. At the close 

 he makes some observations on the Eunic 

 alphabets, which he believes are something 

 more than modifications of Latin letters. 



