PROGRESS AND POSITION OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL SCIENCES. 629 



claim our attention. Miss Eoalfe Cox lias collected, abstracted, and 

 tabulated not fewer then 345 variants of Cinderella, Catskin, and Gap o' 

 Bushes. These come from all four quarters of the globe, and some of 

 them are recorded as early as the middle of the sixteenth century. 

 These elaborate stories are still being handed down from generation to 

 generation of children, as they have been for countless generations in 

 the past. Full of detail as they are, they may be reduced to a few 

 primitive ideas. If we view them in their wealth of detail we shall 

 deem it impossible that they could have been disseminated over the 

 world as they are otherwise than by actual contact of the several 

 peoples with each other. If we view them in their simplicity of idea 

 we shall be more disposed to think that the mind of man naturally pro- 

 duces the same result in the like circumstances, and that it is not 

 necessary to postulate any communication between the peoples to 

 account for the identity. It does not surprise us that the same compli- 

 cated physical operations should be performed by far distant peoples 

 without any communication with each other. Why should it be more 

 surprising that mental operations not nearly so complex should be 

 produced in the same order by different peoples without any such com- 

 munication? Where communication is proved or probable it maybe 

 accepted as a sufficient explanation ; where it is not provable there is 

 no need that we should assume its existence. 



The simple ideas which are traceable in so many places and so far 

 back are largely in relation with that branch of mythology which per- 

 sonifies the operations of nature. Far be it from me to attempt to 

 define the particular phase of it which is embodied in the figure of 

 Cinderella as she sits among the ashes by the hearth or to join in the 

 chase after the solar myth in popular tradition. The form of legend 

 which represents some of the forces of nature under the image of a real 

 or fictitious hero capable of working wonders appears to be widely dis- 

 tributed. Of such, I take it, are the traditions relating to Glooscap, 

 which the late Dr. S. T. Eand collected in the course of his forty years' 

 labors as a missionary among the Micmac Indians of Nova Scotia, 

 where, Mr. Webster says, Glooscap formerly resided. The Indians sup- 

 pose that he is still in existence, although they do not know exactly 

 where. He looked and lived like other men ; ate, drank, smoked, slept, 

 and danced along with them, but never died, never was sick, never grew 

 old. Gape Blomidon was his home, the Basin of Minas his beaver 

 pond. He had everything on a large scale. At Cape Split he cut 

 open the beaver dam, as the Indian name of the cape implies, and to 

 this we owe it that ships can pass there. Spencers Island was his 

 kettle. His dogs, when he went away, were transformed into two 

 rocks close by„ When he returns he will restore them to life. He 

 could do anything and everything. The elements were entirely under 

 his control. You do not often meet with a mischievous exercise of his 

 power. It is a curious part of the tradition, possibly a late addition 



