Fbbeuaey 9, 1900.] 



SCIENCE. 



215 



religion, society, language and art, can be 

 applied to music. Moreover, if Mr. Fill- 

 more's presentation is correct it is hard to 

 avoid the conclusion that the Omahas, 

 though unconscious of it, are at the same 

 stage of musical culture as he was; for he was 

 just able to account for every peculiarity of 

 their music, but only by bringing in " pretty 

 much the whole ground of modern har- 

 monic structure," including " the use of 

 the third and sixth relationships in har- 

 mony, one of the most notable peculiarities 

 of the Modern Eomantic school" (p. 62). 

 One cannot resist the suspicion that the 

 writer has portrayed a cloud-land, not real 

 hills lying as distant from his point of view 

 as savagery is from civilization, — a suspi- 

 cion strengthened by a multitude of facts, 

 that there is no space here even to hint at. 

 But lest this criticism be misunderstood 

 let us remind ourselves that in reporting 

 music, as in writing 'histoi-y or producing a 

 picture, there are two distinct ways of work- 

 ing ; one aims either at a photographic, lit- 

 eral, scientific, analytical presentation, or 

 at an artistic one ; rarely at both. If the 

 worker's aim be not regarded his most suc- 

 cessful portraiture may be considered false; 

 the artist disregards details, aiming rather 

 at the impression of the whole ; the scien- 

 tific worker must first have the details. 

 Miss Fletcher presented her " collection of 

 Omaha Indian songs feeling confident that 

 therein is truthfully set forth in a manner 

 intelligible to members of my own race the 

 Indian's mode of expressing emotion in mu- 

 sical forms" (p. 7) : so her aim was artistic; 

 she deliberately disregarded the material 

 she had collected along the lines of physical 

 or scientific presentation. She does not 

 pretend to give the Indian music accurately 

 as to pitch or quality, but in a translation, 

 as it were, or perhaps rather a paraphrase. 

 Many persons can deny that she gives In- 

 dian music ; probably she is the most com- 

 petent witness on the question whether her 



melodies with Mr. Fillmore's harmonies ex- 

 press to white musicians the emotions of 

 the Omahas. Ko one doubts that for Miss 

 Fletcher's purpose the modern musician's 

 standpoint is the necessary one : is there 

 any more doubt that for Mr. Fillmore's 

 philosophical and scientific purpose it is ab- 

 solutely unfit, and that views from it are 

 obscure and misleading ? 



V. 



"While all such faithful, sympathetic at- 

 tempts to paraphrase foreign music are 

 cordially welcomed, we must not forget 

 that an even harder work remains to be 

 done : — to find out the elements of every 

 strange musical language, and the rules by 

 which they have been combined, and so to 

 come to some real understanding of the 

 thoughts and moods that lie back of the 

 musical expression. In spite of the bril- 

 liant successes of the present generation in 

 making vivid before us the life and thoughts 

 of past generations, the story of the world's 

 music has not yet been told ; and the thous- 

 ands of unsatisfying pages that attempt to 

 do it still leave the subject in the condition 

 of Egyptian history before the hieroglyphs 

 were deciphered. The strong light thrown 

 by the books under review on the position 

 of modern European musicians shows that 

 they are even farther removed from musi- 

 cians of all other lands and times, than any 

 one realized a few years ago. So before an 

 author can write an adequate universal 

 history of music, he must find, and occupy 

 at least for a time, some other standpoint 

 than that occupied by the writers of these 



Charles K. Wead. 



THE EFFECT OF TEE MEXICAN EABIS- 

 QUAKE OF JANUARY 19, AT MOUNT 

 HAMILTON, CALIFORNIA. 

 The detection of the occurrence of a dis- 

 tant earthquake shock, by means of a 

 Meridian Circle, appears to be sufiQciently 



