450 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IV. No. 91. 



vious old-rock ridges, the local accumulation 

 of ground water is known as a ' soak. ' Much, 

 of the sandy surface is occupied by Triodia 

 irritans, known as spinifex, or needle grass ; 

 a gray-green, hard spiny bush, growing so 

 dense in places as to impede travelling. 

 Elsewhere there are patches and belts of 

 herbage fit for pasture, and of dense scrub 

 forests. Trains of camels with Afghan 

 drivers are often seen on the way to the 

 gold fields. 



NOTES. 



The voyage of the Norwegian whaling 

 steamer Antarctic in the South Polar seas, 

 1894-95, already familiar from the narra- 

 tive of Borchgrevinck, one of the seamen, 

 is described by the captain, L. Kristensen, 

 in the transactions referred to in the pre- 

 ceding paragraph. 



The Geological Magazine (London) for 

 March contains an account by Preller of 

 the Merjelen lake, enclosed by the Aletsch 

 glacier, in Switzerland, with an excellent 

 photographic plate. 



La topographie aux' Etats Unis is'^the title 

 of an appreciative article by Gen. de la Noe, 

 director of the geographical service of the 

 French army (Ann. de Geogr., v., 1896, 

 143-155). He gives particular attention 

 to Gannett's Manual of Topographic Meth- 

 ods, with especial praise to the advice on 

 ' sketching,' for which, curiously enough, 

 even the French army engineers have no 

 equivalent expression. 



W. M. Davis. 



Haevakd Univeesity. 



CUBBENT NOTES ON ANTHBOPOLOGY. 

 questionaries for ethnographical re- 

 search. 

 Various anthropological societies and 

 governments have from time to time pub- 

 lished series of queries to guide travellers 

 who desire to study the people in the 

 countries they visit. One was issued in 

 1889 by the French Soci6t6 d' Anthropol- 



ogic, prepared by the able hands of a com- 

 mittee consisting of MM. Hamy, Hovel- 

 acque, Vinson and Letourneau. It is need- 

 less to add that it is thorough and well di- 

 gested. Moreover, it is brief, covering only 

 sixteen pages, and yet the committee claim 

 with general justice that no really impor- 

 tant points are omitted. 



The latest publication of the kind is 

 the ' Instrucktion fiir ethnographische Beo- 

 bachtungen und Sammlungen in Deutsch 

 Ost-Afrika.' It is published in the ' Mit- 

 theilungen aus den Deutschen Schutzgebie- 

 ten' (Band IX., 1896, Heft 2), and was 

 prepared by Dr. Von Luschan. The in- 

 structions are arranged in a series of ques- 

 tions, 88 in number, and are accompanied 

 by a separate sheet or sheets, to be filled 

 out with somatologic observations. The sep- 

 arata, which are intended for distribution, 

 are interleaved, and contain a number of 

 blank pages at the end for notes and are 

 firmly sewed in linen covers. These minor 

 precautions aid materially in the practi- 

 cal utility of such a publication. 



the teaching op ethnology. 



In the ' Bastian Festschrift,' Dr. Ernst 

 Grosse has a timely article on the teaching 

 of ethnology in high schools and universi- 

 ties. It is to be regretted that he contrasts 

 ethnology with anthropology, instead of 

 making it a branch of that general science, 

 which it properly is. However, he appre- 

 ciates what ethnology is in itself, defining 

 it as ' The science of the culture of peo- 

 ples.' He also assigns it its just position, 

 speaking of it as a ' science destined to open 

 a new era in the whole history of civiliza- 

 tion.' 



Entertaining these views, he cannot un- 

 derstand why it is so neglected in institu- 

 tions of education, but inclines to attrib- 

 ute this to its somewhat revolutionary 

 character, and to the limited opportunities 

 it at present offers for pecuniarily profitable 



