278 Recent Literature. [ March, 
under Dr. Selwyn, they will in time get all the practical ends they 
are after; but they must let their able chief develop the subject in 
the only practicable way known to science, and which he is 
abundantly able to accomplish. 
Tat 
RECENT LITERATURE. 
De NADAILLAC’S PREHISTORIC AMERICA. —In the present state 
of American archæology a general work on prehistoric America 
would be perhaps regarded as premature, or at least as a tempo- 
rary makeshift. The French author, however, has had the cour- 
age to venture on the attempt to depict the pre-Columbian his- 
tory of both Americas, covering the whole field of American 
anthropology. His work appeared in 1882. The present work 
is based on a translation of De Nadaillac’s work. The original 
contained a good many unreliable conclusions, mixed with valu- 
able or well ascertained facts, there being on the whole little dis- 
crimination whatever in the material used. In its present shape, 
however, having passed through the editorial hands of Mr. W. 
H. Dall, who has added some new material, we do not see but 
that it forms an excellent and, in the main, reliable account of 
American primitive times. There is a popular demand for such 
a work ; its style is light and clear, perhaps not always so sober 
and circumstantial as we could wish, but on the whole the book 
in its American dress is timely. The chapter on the origin of 
man in America is almost wholly Mr. Dall’s, who has only re- 
tained some references to Central American and Peruvian myths 
from the original. As it stands, therefore, the book may be con- 
sidered as a fairly good résumé of the better known facts of 
American archeology from a more or less European standpoint. 
The chapters are headed as follows: man and the mastodon; the 
kitchen-middens and the caves; the mound-builders; pottery, 
weapons and ornaments of the mound-builders; the cliff-dwellers 
and the inhabitants of the pueblos; the people of Central Amer- 
ica; Peru; the men of America, and the origin of man in 
erica. 
The views concerning the Toltecs and their successors, the 
Aztecs, and their monuments are moderate. . Montezuma’s so- 
called “ empire” was apparently little more than a confederation 
of tribes. Their buildings are but a few centuries old; their civ- 
ilization of spontaneous growth, and very recent compared wi 
those of the old world. As to the connection between the Cen- 
tral American nations and the mound-builders, this book is con- 
servative, not conceding any such intimate relation. So far good, 
1 Prehistoric America. By the Marguis pe NADAILLAC. Translated by N. 
D’Anvers. Edited - H. Dat, With 21g illustrations. New York and 
London, S, P. Putnam’s Sons, 1884. 8vo, pp. 566. $4. ) 
= 
