JtJNE 17, 1887.] 



SCIENCE. 



589 



stance, all kinds of cooking-pots and other arrange- 

 ments for cooking would belong to one class. The 

 mere fact that certain pots are made of clay -wrould 

 not justify the establishment of a pottery depart- 

 ment. This quality of being made of clay is inci- 

 dental, and does not agree with the psychological 

 basis. 



There is one point of view which justifies a classi- 

 fication according to inTentions in a psychological 

 museum. This is the extent to which each inven- 

 tion is used by a people : for instance, in what 

 branches of life pottery is made use of, which may be 

 limited in one tribe, very wide in another. But in 

 this case the purpose of the object will not be the 

 principle of division, but the principal invention ap- 

 plied in its manufacture ; and thus the specimens 

 would not be arranged according to Professor 

 Mason's system, objects serving widely differing 

 purposes belonging to one class. Therefore I can- 

 not consider it justifiable to make technology, in the 

 sense Professor Mason does, the basis of arranging 

 ethnological collections. 



One reason ought to make us very cautious in ap- 

 plying the argument from analogy in ethnology as 

 well as in other sciences of similar character ; biology, 

 for instance. Former events, as I have already 

 said, leave their stamp on the present character of a 

 people. I consider it one of the greatest achieve- 

 ments of Darwinism to have brought to light this 

 fact, and thus to have made a physical treat- 

 ment of biology and psychology possible. The 

 fact may be expressed by the words, "the physi- 

 ological and psychological state of an organ- 

 ism at a certain moment is a function of its 

 whole history;" that is, the character and future 

 development of a biological or ethnological phe- 

 nomenon is not expressed by its appearance, by the 

 state in which it is., but by its whole histoi-y. Phys- 

 icists will understand the important meaning of this 

 fact. The outward appearance of two phenomena 

 may be identical, yet their immanent qualities may 

 be altogether different : therefore arguments from 

 analogies of the outward appearance, such as shown 

 in Professor Ma"son's collections, are deceptive. These 

 remarks show how the same phenomena may origi- 

 nate from unlike causes, and that my opinion does 

 not at all strive against the axiom, ' Like effects spring 

 from like causes,' which belongs to that class of 

 axioms which cannot be converted. Though like 

 causes have like effects, like effects have not like 

 causes. 



From my statement it will be understood that I 

 cannot content myself with Mr. Dall's remark, in the 

 letter contained in to-daj^'s issue, that both stand- 

 points contain part of the truth. I have expressed 

 in another place {Verh.. Ges. fur Erdkunde, Berlin, 

 1886, No. 7) my opinion on Dall's ethnological meth- 

 od, and emphasized, as I have here also, the neces- 

 sity of studying each ethnological phenomenon in- 

 dividually. 



In conclusion I have to add a few words on the 

 practical side of the question upon which Professor 

 Mason and Mr. Dall touch. In regard to this ques- 

 tion, I concur with Mr. Dall, and believe that the 

 public will be much more benefited by the tribal ar- 

 rangement of ethnological collections. 



I cannot agree with Professor Mason's proposal of 

 arranging the cases like a checker-board. In eth- 

 nology all is individuality. We should be compelled 

 to leave long rows of cases empty, as certain j)he- 



nomena occur but in very few tribes. "It would be 

 almost isnpossible to show in this way all important 

 ethnological phenomena, the historical development 

 of tribes, the influence of neighbors and suiTound- 

 ings, etc. It is my oi^inion that the main object of 

 ethnological collections should be the dissemina- 

 tion of the fact that civilization is not something 

 absolute, but that it is relative, and that our ideas 

 and conceptions are true only so far as our civili- 

 zation goes. I believe that this object can be accom- 

 plished only by the tribal arrangement of collec- 

 tions. The second object, which is subordinate 

 to the other, is to show how far each and every 

 civilization is the outcome of its geographical and 

 historical surroundings. Here the line of tribal ar- 

 rangement may sometimes be broken, in order to 

 show an historical series of specimens : but I con- 

 sider this latter point of view subordinate to the 

 former, and should choose to arrange collections of 

 duplicates for illustrating those ideas, as it were, as 

 an explanation of the facts contained in the tribal 

 series. Of course, it is generally impossible to do 

 this, on account of the lack of specimens, or, more 

 frequently, on account of the lack of our knowledge ; 

 but it is my ideal of an ethnological museum. I wish 

 to state here again that I am not at all opposed to 

 Mantegazza's psychological museum, which will be 

 very suggestive and important for the development 

 of science, but I consider the ethnological museum 

 indispensable for controlling the ideas suggested by 

 the analogies shown in the psychological collection, 

 and as the only means of showing the state of culture 

 of man. De. Feakz Boas. 



Correlation of the geological structure of the 

 maritime province of Canada with that of 

 w^estern Europe. 



I take the liberty to send a corrected abstract of a 

 paper read by me before the Eoyal society of Canada, 

 and which may perhaps be of interest to some of 

 your readers : — 



As early as 1855, in the fii-st edition of 'Acadian 

 geology,' the author had indicated the close resem- 

 blance in structure and mineral productions of Nova 

 Scotia and New Brunswick with the British Islands, 

 and in subsequent editions of the same work further 

 illustrations were given of this fact. Eecent re- 

 searches by Bailey, Matthew, Fletcher, E^ls, and 

 others, had still more distinctively indicated this re- 

 semblance, as well as the distinctness of the mari- 

 time geology from that of the great interior plateau 

 of Canada and the United States. In short, as ar- 

 gued by the author in his recent address before 

 the British association, the geology of the Atlantic 

 margins of America and Europe is substantially the 

 same, and distinct from that found west of the 

 Appalachians in America and in central and eastern 

 Europe. In this fact has originated much of the 

 difficulty experienced in correlating the geological 

 formations of eastern Canada with those of Ontario, 

 of New York and Ohio, as well as similar difficulties 

 in Europe which have led to much controversy and 

 difference of classification and nomenclature. One 

 object of the present communication was to show 

 that the system of classification of paleozoic sediments 

 employed for the interior plateau of the American 

 continent requires very important modifications when 

 applied to the Atlantic coast, and that neglect of this 

 has led to serious misconceptions. 



