SCIENCE. 



FRIDAY, MAY 20, 1887. 



COMMENT AND CRITICIS3L 

 We meet almost daily with evidence of the 

 increasing interest in folk-lore. There is, how- 

 ever, in some quarters a lack of specific knowl- 

 edge as to the exact aims and methods of folk-lore 

 studies, which must be removed before that gen- 

 eral co-operation can be secured on which the 

 success of these investigations is so largely de- 

 pendent. Mr. Gomme, director of the English 

 folk-lore society, is about to publish a book in 

 order to present in simple and accessible form the 

 needed information. This book will both supply 

 collectors with suggestions as to what is required 

 of them, and also form a scientific guide to the 

 work of classification and comparison. Mr. 

 Gomme points out the conditions of human life 

 which would naturally give rise to religious be- 

 liefs, customs, and traditions, and then shows 

 how the existence of such a thing as folk-lore is 

 recognized when it is observed that there either 

 exists or has existed, among the least cultured of 

 the inhabitants of all the countries of modern 

 Europe, a vast body of curious beliefs, customs, 

 and narratives which are by tradition handed 

 from generation to generation. 'I'hese are essen- 

 tially the property of the least-advanced portion 

 of the community. They are neither supported 

 nor recognized by the prevailing religion, by the 

 established law, nor by the recorded history of 

 the various countries. To this body of customs 

 and beliefs there is constant addition made, aris- 

 ing from the explanation of newly observed phe- 

 nomena by the uncultured portion of the com- 

 munity. The writer differentiates carefully savage 

 custom and folk-lore, and says that the study of 

 the former is necessary for the explanation of the 

 latter. In not a few cases folk-lore is almost our 

 only means of approaching the prehistoric period 

 in the life of nations. Mr. Gomme offers as a 

 definition of the science of folk-lore the follow- 

 ing : it is " the comparison and identification of 

 the survivals of archaic beliefs, customs, and 

 traditions in modern ages." In this connection, 

 it may be well to call attention to the letter, on 

 another page, pleading for an American dialect 

 society. 



No. 224 — 1887. 



THE AMERICAN ORIENTAL ASSOCIATION. 



The American oriental association met in an- 

 nual session in the Athenaeum building, Boston, 

 on Wednesday morning, May 11. In the absence 

 of the president. Prof. W. D. Whitney, who, 

 though considerably improved, has not yet, we 

 are sorry to say, recovered his usual health, Vice- 

 President Dr. A. Peabody presided. Considering 

 the season fixed for the meeting, which is a par- 

 ticularly unfoj'tunate one for those heavily en- 

 gaged in university-work, the attendance was fair. 

 Professor Lanman, in his report as secretary of 

 the association, referred to the loss the society had 

 incurred in the death of four of its members, — 

 Professor Stenzler of Breslau (Germany) ; Dr. Alex- 

 ander Wylie of London ; Mr. H. C. Kingsley, 

 treasurer of Yale college ; and Prof. Charles Short 

 of Columbia college. After speaking briefly of the 

 services rendered by these gentlemen to the cause 

 of learning, further remarks eulogizing the mem- 

 ory of the last named were made by Professors 

 Thayer of Harvard, and Hall of the Metropolitan 

 museum. New York. 



The number of papers presented at the meeting 

 was unusually large, a most welcome indication 

 of the growth of oriental scholarship in this coun- 

 try. The reading of them, some merely in ex- 

 tract, consumed the greater part of the session, 

 which lasted till late in the afternoon, with a 

 short intermission at noon. Perhaps the most in- 

 teresting of all was the first, by Dr. W. Hayes 

 Ward, editor of the Independent, who offered a 

 new and most happy interpretation of a scene de- 

 picted on a number of Babylonian seals which 

 had hitherto bafiied the ingenuity of scholars. On 

 these seals we find a mythical figure in the act of 

 ascending or resting his hands on what the late 

 George Smith, the eminent Assyriologist, had taken 

 to be a tower, but which Dr. Ward showed was a 

 mountain. Behind the figure there is a portal out 

 of which the personage ascending the mountain, 

 or resting his hands upon the mountain-peaks, had 

 evidently come. This scene. Dr. Ward proved, 

 by a chain of arguments which left no doubt as to 

 the correctness of his interpretation, is a symboli- 

 cal representation of the rising of the sun, who at 

 daybreak proceeds from the ' gate' behind which 

 he was shut in during the night, and now climbs 

 to the mountain-heights in order to illumine the 

 world. 



In the course of a discussion on this very sug- 

 gestive paper, participated in by Professors Lyon 



