November i8, 1887.] 



SCIENCE. 



245 



boys reads aloud, some of them often give, instead of a word, its 

 synonyme, thougli tlie latter be quite different in sound from the 

 former. " The boys who were most apt to do this were the boys 

 whose power of hearing was already under suspicion ; and I inferred 

 that they associated the printed letters, not with their sound, but 

 with the concrete thing which they represented, much as if they 

 had been a picture." 



Apcther interesting observation is that of a boy of eleven years 

 of age, who is a bad speller, and, when writing from dictation, 

 makes mistakes in words which have an r or an / in them. He 

 cannot pronounce those letters ; but his failure is believed to be the 

 result of a defect of ear, though he is by no means deaf, quite as 

 much as the result of a defect of tongue or palate. Some of his 

 misspellings are ' sunderelents ' for ' sundry rents,' ' compreated ' 

 for ' complicated,' ' laserlacions ' for ' lacerations.' 



The writer points out that a want of power to distinguish vowel- 

 sounds is quite as likely to be the cause of bad spelling in common 

 words as carelessness amounting to malice prepense, or a weak- 

 ness in the machinery which connects the movements of the hand 

 with the orders of the ear. He continues, " We might have expected, 

 that, on the analogy of color-blindness, vowel-sounds would be 

 more likely to be confused than consonant-sounds. So far as my 

 present experiments have gone, I infer that the inability to distin- 

 guish consonants is as common as a want of discrimination be- 

 tween vowels. 



" The confusion caused by explosive consonants is, however, 

 more remarkable than that from vowels ; the inexperienced ear 

 which is dull at catching consonants is capable of any distortion of 

 sounds. To illustrate this, an experiment was tried with a class of 

 eleven boys, averaging ten and a half years of age, and all able to 

 read fluently, one or two of them being somewhat extensive read- 

 ers. Some short ordinary words were selected, which nearly all 

 got right, and then words specially to test the power of hearing, 

 some of which, it was hoped, the subjects of the experiment had 

 never heard before. Here are the variations of five words (the 

 Italicized vowels show interchange in the*hard-vowel scale) : — 



different capable ultramarine spectroscope Epaminondas 



1. dirfreaat capbul ultr^mean spaccrow apnonas 



2. different ultramarine specorourscope aparmondas 



3. diferent capeperbul altrermerine speckshow aponedondas 



4. diferrent capperble altrermerein speckros-cop achappynomeen 



5. diferant cami?ble oltr^mer spkerrope «ppanandex 



5. drifrent capable uiitummerrein specteroskop eupameondeous 



7. diffrent capabybely ultriean spesptrocope emeandass 



8. drifent capebibel ultrenn spectuscope epermondes 



9. different capebale ultermeriem specktrocope apporymondas 

 10. different ackable ulttfmirieii spreting apanenondes 

 It. differint caperble ultrumeree spatroscope appongamanges 



" The room was a small one, and the words slowly pronounced 

 twice, each word being written immediately after it had been read 

 out. The majority of these boys are unusually intelligent.. The 

 worst speller but one recited, soon after his eighth birthday, ' The 

 Battle of the Lake Regillus.' 



" Twenty words in all were read out. Among them were ' yellow,' 

 which all got right ; ' instance,' five right, one of the best readers 

 giving ' insentsess ; ' ' aniline,' of which there appeared these varia- 

 tions, ' haniyne,' ' anileling,' ' anelile,' ' animiene,' ' aleline,' the 

 rest being at any rate phonetically correct. 



" In the majority of these misspellings we at once detect want of 

 experience in the use of the arbitrary connection between signs and 

 sounds, and feel confident of improvement in course of time ; but 

 when we find a particular phonetic mistake frequently recurring, 

 such as the substitution of / for n in 'aniline,' we suspect some 

 defect either in the writer or dictator ; and if the possibility of mis- 

 pronunciation in the reader is eliminated, then we have to look for 

 defect of ear or hand, or both, in the writer. Supposing that in 

 correcting the misspellings we find that one or two subjects can- 

 not recognize a word after the correct spelling has been shown 

 them, while others have no difficulty, we must conclude that the 

 ear is at fault, in the one or two ; and if we find that the same in- 

 dividuals can recognize some sounds and not others, then the phe- 

 nomenon of sound-blindness is established, and we have a satis- 

 factory reason for the fact that some persons seem to spell natu- 



rally, while others never learn ; as, indeed, how should a man learn 

 to spell even phonetically to whom not only the printed sign, but 

 also the distinction of sounds, is arbitrary and conventional ? and 

 how should he not learn whose ear is a torturing conscience? 

 Sound-blindness will account for dialectic variations. The ear 

 being, as physiologists tell us, an even more delicate and complex 

 structure than the eye, we can understand that the physical con- 

 ditions of certain localities may produce insensibility to particular 

 variations of sound. Perhaps the interminable rattle of London 

 may account for the awful vowel-system of commercial men in the 

 metropolis." 



ETHNOLOGY. 

 American Languages. 



In the Proceedings of the Canadian Institute, Toronto, October, 

 1887, Mr. A. F. Chamberlain discusses the relation of American 

 and Asiatic languages in connection with the question of the origin 

 of the Indians. The concluding remarks of his article are so 

 judicious that we wish to repeat them here : " The case for the 

 eastern Asiatic origin of the American peoples rests too much upon 

 apparent phonetic resemblances. Before any (phonetic) law like 

 that of Grimm can be discovered and demonstrated between the 

 American and related linguistic families, a thorough understanding 

 of the relations which exist between the individual members of 

 each branch of the American stock is requisite and of paramount 

 importance." But we believe that an application of such principles 

 to Chamberiain's own remarks will show that they are not well 

 founded. 



The author first discusses the Eskimo dialects, and gives a brief 

 comparative vocabulary of different tribes in order to show their 

 similarity. The words contained in this table are not taken from 

 the best originals, and, besides, words of different meaning are 

 compared. What the author considers as differences of dialect 

 must in many cases be ascribed to a difference of the grammatical 

 forms, or to the nationality of the collector. As his material is of 

 so little value, the comparative Eskimo-Turanian vocabulary can- 

 not be considered a good proof for his opinion that the American 

 and Turanian languages have a common origin. We cannot con- 

 sider the similarities of sound between the two groups other than 

 fortuitous. There is another point of view in the paper which we 

 cannot accept. Chamberiain uses the migration legends as a proof 

 of eadiest migrations. To a certain extent this may be right, but 

 it is well known, that, if a tribe changes its seat, its legends are 

 attached to new localities, and for this reason no conclusion on 

 the migrations in a very remote period can be made from such 

 facts. The migration of legends among aboriginal tribes is a prob- 

 lem of great difficulty, and one in which rash conclusions ought not 

 to be made. The study of European folk-lore has shown that the 

 origin of legends and their migrations are often wonderful, and that 

 the most painstaking care must be taken in dealing with this sub- 

 ject. These considerations prevent us from accepting Chamber- 

 lain's theories as superior to those propounded by other authors. 

 Our knowledge of American and North Asiatic ethnology and phi- 

 lology has not yet arrived at that stage in which we can deal satis- 

 factorily with the question discussed by Chamberiain. 



Ethnographical Museums. — Dr. Kristian Bahnson pub- 

 lishes an interesting account of his thorough study of the principal 

 European ethnographical museums ( ■ Ethnografiske Museer i 

 Udlandet,' in Aarboger for nord. Oldk. og Historie). His conclud- 

 ing remarks are of particular interest, as they refer to the much- 

 discussed question of museum arrangement. He shows that the 

 arrangement according to objects has gradually been abandoned 

 by all museums, and that the ethnological method, i.e., the arrange- 

 ment according to tribes, has been adopted in its stead. He says 

 about the former, the sociological plan, " The plan as a whole is 

 absolutely wrong, in the first place, because those groups which 

 ought to be the principal divisions in an ethnological museum, are 

 made subdivisions. The ethnic individuality, which is a whole, is 

 decomposed into a great number of elements. By an arrangement 

 according to the character and purpose, the objects are taken out 

 of their natural place, and they want the environment, which alone 

 can explain their real meaning. In each stage of civilization there 

 is a deep connection between the several ethnological peculiarities 



