622 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IV. No. 95. 



Races,' that is, the Polynesians, Australians 

 and Malays. 



It may be appropriate here to ask why the 

 translator renders ' Volkerkunde ' in the title 

 of Book I. by 'Ethnography,' while the work 

 itself he christens 'The History of Mankind,' 

 which it is not in any sense of the phrase, nor 

 is it so called in the original. 



The author sets for himself the task of describ- 

 ing mankind ' as we find it to-day throughout 

 the earth; ' that is, he confines himself to the 

 ethnographj^ of the present age, and does not 

 deal in history or archaeology. His remoter 

 aim is ' to demonstrate the cohesion of the hu- 

 man race. ' In this particular field he belongs 

 to the historic school, and where he finds simi- 

 larities, e. g., in religions of American, African 

 and Australasian tribes, which he cannot ex- 

 plain, he 'predicts' (p. 40) that they 'will be 

 found germs of survivals of Indian or Egyptian 

 tradition.' This antique explanation (why did 

 he not say Hebrew tradition ?) will no longer 

 avail in the light of modern psychologic science 

 applied to ethnography. 



In his detailed descriptions the author has 

 been careful to present an accurate perspective 

 of the life of the ruder races. He aims to give 

 them their just position in the scheme of the 

 world, and safely steers between the rocks of 

 indiscriminate praise and under- valuation. He 

 is constantly on the alert to point out the con- 

 nection between special forms of culture and 

 the natural conditions which give it color and 

 form. His work is one which will be hailed 

 with pleasure by all interested in the diffusion 

 of knowledge regarding man, and it may be 

 recommended as much the best in the domain 

 which it treats now accessible in English. 



D. G. Brinton. 



Univeesity of Pennsylvania. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



NEW YORK ACADEMY OP SCIENCES, OCTOBER 



5, 1896. 



At the meeting of the Academy, October 5, 

 1896, the following gentlemen were nominated 

 as honorary members of the Academy, and on 

 ballot were duly elected : Prof. James J. Thom- 

 son, Cavendish professor of physics in the Uni- 

 versity of Cambridge, England ; Prof. Felix 



Klein, professor of mathematics in the Univer. 

 sity of Gottingen, Germany ; Prof. Henri 

 Moissan, of the University of Paris, France. 



On the organization of the Section of Astron- 

 omy and Physics, Prof. J. K. Eees stated that 

 the work of the Columbia College observatory 

 upon the variation of latitude had been con- 

 tinued during the past summer in such a man- 

 ner that forty pairs of stars were observed 

 every two weeks. This is a part of the general 

 programme to continue these observations for 

 the next two or three years until the observa- 

 tories contemplated by the National Geodetic 

 Association should be established. Prof. Rees 

 also referred to the work of Dr. Davis, of the 

 Astronomical Department of Columbia, who is 

 about to undertake the reduction of the Piazzi 

 catalogue devoting himself especially to the 

 reduction of declinations. 



Dr. H. Jacoby reported on the proceedings 

 of the meeting held at Paris to consider the 

 astro-photographic star charts. He stated that 

 the 36,000 plates to be used in the catalogue of 

 stars down to the 11th magnitude have nearly 

 all been made, and the work measuring these 

 plates is well under way. The Postdam meas- 

 urements are practically ready for publication. 

 The Paris and Greenwich reports will be ready 

 in from five to seven years. The limit of ac- 

 curacy in all of this work is about 0^^.2 of arc. 

 This catalogue is expected to contain about 

 2,000,000 stars. Wm. Hallock, 



Secretary of Section. 



academy of natural sciences op PHILADEL- 

 PHIA, SEPTEMBER 29, 1896. 



Dr. S. G. Dixon communicated an experi- 

 ment that tends to establish the spore forma- 

 tion in the Tubercle bacillus. A glass tube 

 was made six inches in length, one-half inch in 

 diameter, having two bulbous enlargements 

 situated one and one-half inches apart. Agar 

 Agar nidus was placed in these hanging enlarge- 

 ments and the tube plugged at either end with 

 cotton. After thorough sterilization the tube 

 was placed in the Dixon manipulating chamber, 

 when the cotton was removed from one end and 

 the Agar Agar in one of the culture mediums 

 inoculated with a growth of the tubercle bacil- 

 lus. Then the tube was carefully replugged and 



