788 Recent Literature. [September, 
RECENT LITERATURE. 
JAPANESE HOMES AND THEIR SURROUNDINGS.—It has long been 
strenuously maintained by the NATURALIST that human arts can 
and should be subjected to the same methods as genera and spe- 
cies in natural history. The questions of structure and function, 
evolution, ontogeny, distribution in time and space, relations as 
affected by and affecting contiguous phenomena may all be put 
to the products, appliances and methods of human activity. 
Whenever a student of any department of man’s works has 
caught the spirit of this plan of investigation, we have hailed his 
work as a lasting contribution to the noblest of sciences. - 
Professor Morse went to Japan as a trained naturalist ; his work 
on the shell-heaps of New England prepared him for his greater 
work on the shell-heaps of Japan. This accomplished, the most 
natural sequel was a close study of the modern successors of the 
primeval race whose sole record remains in their refuse piles. 
Omitting food, clothing, all other industrial pursuits, the professor 
gives us in his charming volume an insight into Japanese homes. 
It were mildly putting the matter to say that the author is in love 
with his subject, indeed it here and there takes the bit and runs 
clean away with him. Most people like to read that kind of a work, 
however, forgiving all eccentricities born of genuine enthusiasm. 
If you would study the homes of any people scientifically r 
must acquaint yourself with their climate, natural materials "o 
progress in other matters; Japan, for instance, has the climate 0 
our Middle States, abounds in bamboo, suffers from earthquakes, 
is just emerging from barbarism, etc. | f 
A bird’s-eye view of a Japanese city reveals a vast sea ia 
roofs—the gray of the shingles and dark slate color of E 
tiles, with dull reflections from their surfaces, giving a som 
effect to the whole. The even expanse is broken here and nen 
by fire-proof buildings (“ go-downs ”) and the temples with gre: 7 
black roofs tower far above the pigmy dwellings. There are ‘at 
chimneys, no steeples, no sun-obscuring canopy of smoke, 
reen masses of foliage add life to the gray sea of domiciles, 
$ age, is 
The Japanese house is unsubstantial in appearance and A ; 
There 
are, consequently, no doors or windows. For. other abe 
their place being supplied by sliding screens which run in grooves 
in the floor and 
. or of 
Surroundings. By EDWARD S. MORSE, direch 
nce. 
Boston, Tickaor & Co., 1886, pp- 3779 307 figs. 
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