GEOGRAPHIC LITERATURE 321 



writings of each authority accessible, and none seem to have escaped a 

 tireless vigilance, have been scrupulously studied, their contents mas- 

 tered, and their opinions presented without bias or distortion. Collig- 

 non, Beddoe, Virchow, La Pouge, even Deniker, can complain of no 

 misrepresentation on these pages. 



But the author attempts not merely to condense and put together what- 

 ever the collaborators in his chosen field have observed and noted down ; 

 In- endeavors to present a digest of all that has been achieved in the 

 domain of anthropology and ethnology. From what he considers dem- 

 onstrated facts he seeks to deduce principles and construct a system. 

 For years anthropologists have enjoyed many advantages ; governments 

 have assisted in their researches ; tape-lines and calipers have been worn 

 out in experiments ; thousands of measurements have been taken ; inter- 

 minable tables of figures have been built up. But how many definite 

 results have been gained by all the toil? How much can be discerned 

 distinct in the bewildering maze? If anything, what? These and sim- 

 ilar questions Professor Ripley endeavors to answer. 



His subject-matter he treats in twenty-one chapters. Chapter III is 

 strongly written and contains the main proposition, the text and test of 

 all, in the cephalic index. Chapter VI, on The Three European Races, 

 is the application of chapter III and is no less ably and forcibly con- 

 structed. The other chapters, except the twenty-first, on Acclimatiza- 

 tion, are subsidiary to or extension of chapter HI. Introduced at fre- 

 <[uent intervals are 85 maps with which the author fortifies or from 

 which he develops many of his deductions. These are generally approx- 

 imative rather than demonstrative, inasmuch as based on a limited num- 

 ber of data. For example, observations on 800 skulls in the Nether- 

 lands, where there are moi-e than 5,000,000 living persons and a vastly 

 greater host of dead, or on 1,200 heads in the British islands, where the 

 population exceeds 40,000,000, may point to probabilities but cannot be 

 accepted as proofs. The 235 "portrait types" are of interest and impor- 

 tance, yet often they seem selected by the, deductive rather than the 

 inductive method. Apparently the conception is first formed as to what 

 a national type should be, and then from the pictures of that nationality 

 one is picked out conformable. 



Like all the rest of us, Professor Ripley has his pet theories. These 

 theories are never mere preconceptions, but are always based on examina- 

 tion and reflection, and are therefore entitled to respect. A theory he 

 has mice adopted he regardsas a truth and clings to it firmly. Whatever 

 militates against .that truth must be argued away. If obstinately it re- 

 fuses to vanish, lie takes refuge in the comfortable adage, "the exception 

 proves the rule," and passes on. He almost carries us captive in the 

 Bweep i if his logic and learning. But what do his 050 close-packed pages 

 reveal? Instead of a consensus of authorities, we find constant absence 

 of agreement and contradiction of one another. Nor does this dissonance 

 limit itself to matters of detail ; the investigators press along on divergent 

 paths to different goals. The reason of this is not hard to seek. Anthro- 

 pology is a science of recent, almost contemporaneous, birth. It moves 

 with the uncertain feet of a child beginning to walk. Its disciples are 



