626 REVIEWS AND BOOK NOTICES. 
A word more, and we have done. We have asserted that our 
author did not seek, out of America, for the origin of the Ameri- 
can races. Such would seem to be his opinion, when he asks the 
question (chap. x) ‘‘ Who were the mound-builders?” and also in 
discussing ‘“ manners and customs as the basis of ethnic rela- 
tions :” but in chapter xi, we find Dr. Foster asserting that he 
doubts not ‘that there will be found continuous and uninterrupted 
causes which shall explain all the diversities in the different 
branches of the human faniily, without the necessity of resorting 
to independent creations.” To this we cannot subscribe, and 
think we see in it ‘a contradiction to the whole tenor of the pre- 
ceding chapters. 
he antiquity of the redman in ka can scarcely be meas- 
ured ; it is probable that he “ witnessed the declining existence 
of the mastodon and megalonyx, in the later ages of the glacial 
period*” —that of the mound-builder can scarcely be greater, 
and efforts to trace his origin ‘‘ to a common fountain of life, as 
with other races now inhabiting the earth, soon involve the inves- 
tigator in the mazes of conjecture.” 
We learn from the preface of the volume before us, that Dr. 
Foster hoped at a later day “to draw more liberally from the ma- 
terials at his command.” It will ever be a source of regret that 
his untimely death has foreyer ended his valuable labors in 
American archeology. Valuable and interesting as is the work 
we have briefly reviewed, we doubt not but that a more compre- 
hensive monograph from the same gifted source would have over- 
come many of the difficulties that now beset the path of American 
archeologists.— ©. C. 
CLASSIFICATION or Norra Amerrcan BerrLes.t— Since his re- 
cent return froma stay of several years in Europe, Dr. LeConte 
has applied himself to the study of our beetles, and with what 
. success may be seen in the amount of work contained in the two 
pamphlets we notice in this number of the NATURALIST 
Though this second part is much smaller than the first, and 
treats of but two families, the Spondylida and Cerambycide, yet 
the work is done in the same thorough, comprehensive way tha 
Sse a cis pages Soi a a 
a Jos. sta in indigenous Races of the Earth, p.X 
of the Coleoptera of North America. ne for the Smithsonian 
Tastirurion by John L. LeConte, M. D. Part ii. Washington, May-June, ao 
