March 25, 1892.] 



SCIENCE. 



175 



show a finish that we do not find in what appear to be later 

 deposits. 



Prehistoric Commerce Between Africa and Asia, 



The ancient relations which existed between Egypt and the 

 east coast of Africa on the one side, and Mesopotamia and 

 India on the other, are placed in strong light by two articles 

 which have lately appeared in the Verhandlungen der Ber- 

 liner Anthropologische Gesellschaft. 



The one, by G. Schweinfurth, undertakes to show the ex- 

 ternal relations of ancient Egypt by means of the origins of 

 the earliest cultivated plants fouad in the tombs or men- 

 tioned in the inscriptions. Their three earliest and most 

 valuable cereals, wheat, barley, and spelt, he believes were 

 introduced from Babylonia. The fig was imported from 

 southern Arabia, its native home. From Persia were brought 

 the pomegranate and the henna used as a cosmetic by the 

 beauties of the earliest dynasties. From the remoter region 

 of India came rice, sorghum, sesame, and the sugarcane. 

 As all these exotic plants were familiar to the Egyptians at 

 the beginning of their history, they testify to an active and 

 far-reaching commerce before the date of Menes. 



The second paper, by Mr. Merensky, is especially concerned 

 with the culture influences of ancient India on eastern and 

 central Africa. He adduces much historical evidence to 

 illustrate this intercourse, and finds as the result of it the 

 presence of Indian coral and pearls in central Africa, the 

 shape of the hand axe, the musical instrument called the 

 marimba, the use of the betel nut, the worship of fire, traces 

 of a caste system, etc. 



Both articles confirm the growing belief in the wide ex- 

 tension of prehistoric commerce. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



**« Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. The writer'' b name 

 is in all cases required as proof of good faith. 



On requf'st in advance^ one hundred copies of the number containing his 

 communication will be furnished free to any correspondent. 



The editor loill be glad to publish any queries consonant with the charactt r 

 of the journal. 



The Question of the Celts. 



In "Current Notes on Anthropology" (Science, Mar. 11) Dr. 

 Brinton reviews a late essay by Schaatfhausen upon the ethno- 

 graphic position of the Celts. He states; "The difficult problem 

 of the conflicting physical types among the Celtic nations — the 

 one short in stature, brachycephalic, and brown, the other tall, 

 dolichocephalic, and blond — he [Schaaffhausen] summarily solves 

 by supposing either an intermixture with other types or a change 

 in mode of life and climatic environment." 



The first mentioned type is apparently that now represented by 

 the Auvergnats and Savoyards, whose ancestors were the Celts of 

 Csesar. Now Schrader has pretty well established the fact that 

 this race has no claim to the name Celtic other than the fact that 

 at one time they spoke a Celtic dialect. Rather they were Ligu- 

 rians related socially to the Lapps and Finns; and their original 

 language was that now represented by Basque, their Celtic dialect 

 having been acquired from the tall, fair, brachycephalic race 

 which conquered them, and drove them to the south of France. 

 There should be no need to say that community of language does 

 not necessarily imply identity of race; for one only has to look 

 upon the Mexicans, who speak a Neo-Latin dialect, but whose 

 race typs has almost wholly reverted to that of the Aztecs. The 

 French inhabitants of Louisiana cannot now be distinguished by 

 their language, and the speech of Jamaica is an English jargon, 

 though the population is now almost wholly negro. The fact that 

 French is a Neo-Latin language by no means proves any racial 

 connection between the Latins and the French, who are descended 

 from several distinct races. 



Now there is very good evidence that the tall, fair, brachy- 

 cephalic people, whose remains are found in the round barrowa 

 of Britain and in the graves of Belgium, France, and Denmark, 

 spoke the original Celtic tongue. They were the Bel«io Gauls, 

 and they overran France, conquering the short, dark, brachy- 

 cephalic Ligurians and imposing their language upon them. The 

 Ligurian tongue, ancestral to Basque, was a Euskarian dialect 

 related to the Ural-Altaic group, which was ill-fitted to survive in 

 contact with the Aryan speech of the northern race. The best 

 modern representatives of the type of the conquering race are the 

 Danes and Slavs, especially the Lithuanians. 



The tall, dolichocephalic and blond type is certainly represented 

 now by the Swedes, and fair north Germans, and has been well 

 called the Scandinavian type. The Anglo-Saxons and Teutonic 

 tribes belonged to this race, and their speech was ancestral to the 

 German and English. If this be true, and the facts seem well 

 attested, it is hard to see how this tall, fair, dolichocephalic type 

 can be logically drawn into the Celtic controversy. 



In conclusion, it would seem that the conflicting types among 

 the Celtic nations are due solely to the application of the name 

 Celtic to several distinct races, and if that name is i-estricted, as 

 there is excellent ground for doing, to the tall, fair, brachycepha- 

 lic race, the difficulty of conflicting types vanishes. 



P. Max Foshay. 



Rooliester, March 15. 



The Color Question Again. 



I NOTICE in your issue of Feb. 36 an article by Professor Pills- 

 bury of Smith College, in which my name is mentioned in connec- 

 tion with a system of color instruction. 



Perhaps an explanation of the exact scope and intention of this 

 scheme may avoid any misapprehension of the claims that are 

 made for it. 



The sole object has been to apply, as far as possible, scientific 

 facts of color to elementary instruction in color and the artistic 

 use of color. While it is easy to find various indications that the 

 old theory of Brewster has been abandoned by the scientists and 

 the Young-Helmholtz theory of the three primaries, red, green, 

 and violet, accepted in its place, no practical advance in the appli- 

 cation of the latter theory to art instruction has been secured. The 

 following quotation from the publishers' notice of a valuable book, 

 "Theory of Color," by Dr. Wilhelm von Bezold, shows the ad- 

 vanced ground regarding color taken by this scientist : — 



" The theory of three primary colors, red, yellow, and blue, has 

 therefore been abandoned, and with them the whole system of 

 so-called secondary and tertiary colors has fallen to the ground. 

 It might be feared that anarchy would take the place of order in 

 the realm of color after the overthrow of the old system of classi- 

 fication. This is not the case, however, for the system of colors 

 adopted by Professor von Bezold not only affords a ready means 

 of classifying every sensation of color which may possibly affect 

 the eye, but is exceedingly simple." 



But experience has shown that this book, although the ablest 

 attempt to unite the scientific theory of color with the practical 

 use of colors ever offered at the time it was published, has, in the 

 sixteen years since the English translation was printed, had no 

 practical effect on the terras employed by the artists or on the 

 methods employed in color instruction. 



Owing to the fact that the illumination and purity of all pig- 

 mentary colors fall so far below the spectrum colors as found in 

 sunli!<ht, it it impossible with them to produce by the union of 

 the three primaries, red, green, and violet, any reasonable ap- 

 proximation to the colors seen in nature. Therefore it has been 

 practically impossible for artists and art educators to avail them- 

 selves of the scientific theories of color in their work. 



Right here is where we find the real value of the system to 

 which Professor Pillsbury has alluded. It practically bridges the 

 chasm between the science of color and the practice of color in 

 the use of pigments. Instead of beginning with three primary 

 colors seen in the spectrum we are content to select six. By 

 choosing six colors, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet, 

 as they appear in the spectrum, making the best imitations of 



