ii6 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. X. No. 239 



The Botocudos. — Dr. P. Ehrenreich has published the results 

 of his study of the Botocudos of the Rio Doce in the Zcitschrift fur 

 Ethnologie. He discusses the observations of former travellers, and 

 compares them with his own experience, thus giving the best sketch 

 of this interesting nation which can be obtained at the present time. 

 Dr. Ehrenreich has collected a considerable amount of anthropo- 

 logical, ethnological, and linguistic material. He gives a number 

 of craniological and anthropometrical measurements, sketches the 

 life of the tribes, who live in a remarkably low state of civilization, 

 and gives a vocabulary — which he has compared with the older 

 ones of Martins — and brief grammatical notes. His researches 

 lead him to the conclusion that the Botocudos formerly occupied a 

 more extensive territory than they do at the present time, inhabiting 

 a tract of land which extended from the coast far westward. They 

 are related to the Gas nations, who inhabit the central parts of 

 Brazil, and a member of whom was discovered by Von Steinen on 

 the upper Xingu. It is of importance to know that the Ges and the 

 Botocudos wear labrets and ear ornaments, that their ceramic art 

 and methods of navigation are very primitive, and that they do not 

 use the hammock. Ehrenreich is of the opinion that the Botocudos 

 remained in an earlier stage of development than the Ges nations, who 

 migrated west and came into contact with other peoples, while the 

 former remained isolated. He believes that the remains found in 

 the caves of the province of Minas Geraes belonged to the ancestors 

 of the Botocudos. 



Origin of the Eskimo.— In the AmericanNaturalist oi August, 

 1 887, Mr. Lucien M.Turner criticises Dr. H. Rink's theory. The latter 

 supposes that the Eskimo were originally an inland people, living 

 somewhere in the north-western part of North America, whence 

 they descended to the seacoast along the rivers. In several articles, 

 Dr. Rink tries to prove this theory by comparing the languages and 

 customs of the different tribes. Though convincing proofs cannot 

 be given, it seems very probable that the Eskimo have come from 

 the rivers and lakes in the interior of America. This theory is open 

 to criticism, but Turner's objections fail to convince us, and do not 

 meet Rink's arguments. The latter is right in laying stress upon 

 the fact that the Eskimo are not so exclusively a coast people as is 

 generally supposed. The most difficult problem of the study is the 

 difference of the tribes west and east of the Mackenzie. Rink 

 emphasizes the fact that the former have certain inventions which 

 the latter have not, while other implements are more developed the 

 farther east we come. From this fact he concludes that the Eskimo 

 first reached the sea and came into their present environment west 

 of the Mackenzie, near the mouth of the Alaskan rivers. This 

 theory, though not improbable, ought to be scrutinized by a study 

 of the anthropology of Alaskan and eastern Eskimo tribes. It seeijis 

 to us that much of the difference may be due to foreign influence. 

 An interesting paper on the anthropology of the Eskimo, more par- 

 ticularly of those of East Greenland, is contained in the Bulletin 

 de la Societe d'Anthropologie (ix. p. 608). While the population 

 of western Greenland is mixed with Danish elements to such a de- 

 gree that there is probably nobody of pure Eskimo descent in 

 South Greenland, this tribe has never mixed with Europeans. They 

 are less dolichocephalic and slightly taller than the West Green- 

 landers and other eastern tribes. Their noses are described as be- 

 ing aquiline, but this also occurs among other tribes. The researches 

 in East Greenland which were carried out by Lieutenant Holm 

 show definitely that the tribes of the east coast never came into 

 contact with the ancient Normans. 



BOOK -REVIEWS. 



The Treatment and Utilizatioti of Sewage. By W. H. CORFIELD 

 and Louis C. Parker. London, Macmillan. 8°. 



The fact that this work has reached a third edition is evidence of 

 its value and usefulness. Since the second edition was published, 

 sixteen years have elapsed, during which time great progress has 

 been made in the methods of treatment of sewage, so that it has 

 been necessary, in order to bring the book up to date, to incorpo- 

 rate much material which will not be found in the earlier editions. 

 The historical portions have been retained in their entirety, as being 

 not only interesting in themselves, but also, on the one hand, descrip- 



tive of a state of things still to be found in many places, and, on 

 the other, important as a record of methods and processes which 

 have been adopted at various times, for methods and processes 

 which have been tried and abandoned as useless are liable to be 

 brought forward again as new at some future time unless such a 

 record is kept. Special attention has been given in this edition to 

 the important investigation of the British Association Sewage Com- 

 mittee, more especially as regards the determination of the percent- 

 age of the manurial ingredients of sewage actually utilized by 

 irrigation on land, and recovered in the form of crops, and the accu- 

 rate method devised by that committee for taking samples of 

 sewage and effluent-water for analysis. The practical inquiry 

 originated by the suggestion of the late Dr. Cobbold that entozoic 

 disease might be spread through the agency of sewage farming, and 

 the quantitative examination, with a view to its manurial value, of 

 the compost resulting from the use of earth-closets, are described 

 in detail. The table of contents is a very extensive one, occupying 

 twenty-two pages, and includes many subjects of great interest and 

 importance of which the title of the book gives no suggestion. 



In the opening chapter reference is made to the early systems 

 for the collection and removal of excreta, the midden heaps, the 

 stagnant ditches, and the open cesspools. In some of the English 

 towns, in 1845, the privies were in the cellars, and often overflowed. 

 This condition of things could not but be detrimental to health, and 

 must of necessity favor to an alarming extent the spread of many 

 epidemic diseases. Those who question the relation between 

 filth and disease will do well to read that chapter in Dr. Corfield's 

 book in which he treats of this subject. He succeeds in demonstrat- 

 ing that the opinion that the pollution of drinking-water by excreta, 

 and of the air by emanations from cesspools and so forth, on the one 

 hand, and on the other the amount of general sickness, and, in many 

 cases, of special epidemics, stand in the relation of cause and effect, 

 is a true one. Instances are given of fever, cholera, and other forms 

 of disease, breaking out in English towns, which are directly trace- 

 able to the filth which had been allowed to accumulate. 



In the reports of the Health of Towns Commissioners it is con- 

 tinually pointed out that sickness is the chief cause of the non-pay- 

 ment of rent. One witness says : " Three out of five of the losses 

 of rent that I now have are losses from the sickness of the tenants, 

 who are working men. Rent is the best got from healthy houses." 

 Another says : " Sickness at all forms an excuse for the poorer 

 part not paying their rent, and a reasonable excuse," so that filth 

 causes sickness, sickness inability to work, inability to work poverty 

 and non-payment of rent, to say nothing of starvation. We not 

 infrequently hear in this countrjf, the statement that the State has 

 no right to interfere, that a man's house is his castle, and that he can 

 do what he likes within it. It is this sentiment which for so many 

 years prevented legislation for the protection of tenants in our large 

 and dilapidated tenement-houses, a sentiment which is, we are glad 

 to say, being done away with, more, however, we fear, because the 

 laboring men are beginning to realize and exercise their power than 

 because of any general awakening of landlords to the duty which 

 they owe to their fellow-men. Writing on this subject in 1844, with 

 reference to the then state of Liverpool, Mr. Howe said : " The man 

 who, in a crowded street, is living in filth and breathing a putrid 

 atmosphere, or who makes that street a receptacle for the offal 

 which he casts from his dwelling, becomes the instrument of danger 

 to his neighbors by spreading infection, and he not only hazards his 

 own life, but endangers that of others. The man who erects a 

 flimsy edifice in a crowded thoroughfare, which by its falling may 

 destroy life, should be prevented doing so ; and he who constructs a 

 house to let for profit and pays no attention to those matters which 

 are essential to comfort, but, on the contrary', so constructs it as to 

 engender fever and endanger the lives of his tenants, — all these 

 are cases where, with propriety and in justice the legislature ought 

 to interfere, and to insist upon such a mode of construction as will 

 not endanger human life." The earth and ash closets are fully de- 

 scribed and their advantages and disadvantages discussed. In speak- 

 ing of this system. Dr. Corfield says that there can be no doubt that a 

 well-managed dry-earth conservancy system, or midden and ash-pit 

 system, is better than no system at all, but it by no means follows 

 that they are free from danger. They both go upon a wrong prin- 

 ciple : we do not want conservancy at all ; our first object must be 



