1897.] Anthropology. 1063 
intellect increases with nearer acquaintance. Throughout the volume, 
attention, justly due but seldom paid, is given to that important factor 
of culture growth, geographical environment. The author describes 
the advantages offered by the flora and climate of temperate and trop- 
ical America, and briefly comments upon the disadvantage to the 
nascent civilizations of the absence of the larger domestic animals. 
Very little space is given to speculations regarding the origin of the 
American race. We are told that “there can be no doubt America 
possessed human inhabitants as early as the Age of the Drift, though 
the conflict as to Tertiary man is as far from being settled there as it 
is in Europe.” The date of the workshop for the manufacture of chert- 
flakes, which was discovered in Minnesota, is accepted without question 
as “interglacial.” The Trenton Ghost is not raised. The belief in 
the unity of the American race is based upon the ground of long isola- 
tion and consequent assimilation rather than upon community of de- 
scent. Virchow’s statement is quoted with approval “ that from the 
point of view of anthropological [somatological] classification there is 
no real unity among the aboriginal population of America,” a typical 
American skull does not exist, “in every large burying-ground all 
lengths and shapes are represented.” 
The Eskimos are connected with the Indians, “ as it seems too hazard- 
ous to rank them with the true Monogoloids. But northeast Asia is 
unquestionably a region of transition which finds its continuation in 
northern America.” We may hope that the results obtained by the 
Jesup expedition will have an important bearing upon this question. 
Notwithstanding the excellent authorities quoted we can scarcely ad- 
mit that the stature of the Eskimo is “low,” but are more inclined, 
after a journey through the entire region occupied by the “ Western 
Eskimo” west of the Mackenzie, to agree with a recent paper by Mr- 
Murdoch, in which he states that they are of “medium height, while 
much taller men are far from uncommon.” The Eskimo has been 
cleared of the charge of stuffing himself with raw meat and drinking 
quantities of train oil, but not so the reindeer—Chukchi, by whom 
“ frozen fish is eaten raw; the head ot a freshly-killed reindeer has also 
to be devored raw, and his liver, ears, and kidney-fat are regarded as 
tid-bits only when raw. Melted fat or butter is a favorite drink, and ` 
is consumed in quantities of several pounds.” Among the Hyperbor- 
eans as among so many races in more favored climes, the withering in- 
fluences of civilization are at work. “ The pastoral and hunting races 
of northern Asia have begun to die out extensively ” (p. 217). 
Weare given the benefit in Books II and III of compilations from 
the recent extensive additions to our knowledge of Africa and its 
