Decbmbee 27, 1901.] 



SCIENCE. 



997 



yet it may be questioned whether even this 

 position is not merely a stepping-stone to- 

 ward a more general view of humanization 

 beginning with many varieties of the un- 

 known prototype in different regions, com- 

 ing up through the multifarious tribes of 

 scientific record, and approaching the dom- 

 inant types of to-day. Certain it is that 

 when a race or congeries of tribes measur- 

 ably similar in physical features — e. g., the 

 Amerinds — are considered with respect to 

 the intertribal relations established by rec- 

 ord and tradition, their history is found to 

 be one of coalescence, through the growth 

 of stronger groups and the assimilation or 

 elimination of weaker, through the inter- 

 change (whether inimical or amical) of ar- 

 tifacts and industrial processes, through 

 more or less frequent intermarriage, 

 through the giving and taking of linguis- 

 tic elements, through the interchange of 

 custom, faith, ceremony, law and other 

 factors of culture which react on mental 

 and bodily exercise and thus shape devel- 

 opment ; the interchange and coalescence 

 may be slow and incomplete, as between 

 the Seri and Guayaqui tribes and their re- 

 spective neighbors, or rapid and compre- 

 hensive, as in the Iroquois and Dakota 

 confederacies, yet it is ever-present, and 

 when the lines of development are traced 

 backward they are invariably found to di- 

 verge more or less widely and point toward 

 more or less distinctive origins. 



What is true of the Amerind tribes in 

 this respect is even more conspicuously true 

 of the African tribes, ranging from the 

 pigmy Akka to the gigantic Zulu and other 

 widely diverse phj'^sical and cultural types ; 

 most of these tribes, too, have been ob- 

 served in actual coalescence with their 

 neighbors, while not a single satisfactory 

 indication of differentiation or increasing 

 distinctiveness has ever been detected ; so 

 that here, too, the developmental lines 

 traced backward are found to diverge and 



multiply up to the very verge of the un- 

 known — the prehistoric, or at least the 

 scriptless, past. And what is true of America 

 and Africa is more or less conspicuously true 

 of other continents and other peoples; every- 

 where the developmental lines converge 

 forward and diverge backward, just as the 

 lines of biotic development diverge forward 

 and converge backward. How this dis- 

 crepancy is to be removed is a question 

 whose importance increases with every ad- 

 vance in the science of anthropology. 



It seems not too much to say that the 

 leading question before the anthropologist 

 of to-day is that relating to the trend of 

 human development and its bearing on the 

 alternatives ( postulate and inference, re- 

 spectively) of monogenesis and polygenesis; 

 for it is easy to see that most of the other 

 questions are affected by this primary one. 

 The definition of race, the discussion of 

 human antiquity and various civil prob- 

 lems of the day are all involved ; and while 

 it is too much to hope for general agreement 

 concerning the fundamental question at any 

 early day, it is none the less desirable to 

 note the trend of multiplying facts and ob- 

 serve their steady set toward the inductive 

 hypothesis of polygenesis rather than to- 

 ward the deductive assumption of mono- 

 genesis. W. J.McGee. 



Bureau of American Ethnology. 



THE ASSOCIATION OF OFFICIAL AGRICUL- 

 TURAL CHEMISTS. 



The eighteenth convention of the Asso- 

 ciation of Official Agricultural Chemists 

 held its meetings in Columbian University, 

 Washington, D. C, November 14, 16 and 

 16, 1901, under the presidency of Dr. L. 

 L. Van Slyke, Chemist of the New York 

 Agricultural Experiment Station, at Gen- 

 eva. The attendance at this meeting was 

 the largest in the history of the Association, 

 reaching 118 members, representing nearly 

 all the States and Territories of the Union. 



