July 4, 1884.] 



SCIENCE 



21 



The new almanac bears in every part the 

 marks of preparation with a considerate regard 

 for the wants of that class of men likely to use 

 it ; and the make-up of its contents has evi- 

 dently been in large part suggested by, or 

 under the direction of, some officer fully ac- 

 quainted with the routine and necessities of 

 practical navigation ; and subsequent issues 

 may be expected to contain many additional 

 improvements. The ' Coaster's almanac ' is not 

 intended to replace the ' American nautical 

 almanac,' or navigator's edition of the large 

 w Ephemeris,' which has been issued by this 

 office for each year since 1855, and will be con- 

 tinued as heretofore. 



METALLURGY OF PRIMITIVE NATIONS. 



Die metalle bei den naturvolkern, mit beriicksichtigung 

 prahistorischer verhaltnisse. Von R. Andree. 

 Leipzig, Veil Sf Co., 1884. 10+166 p., 57 

 illustr. 8°. 



In our epoch the primitive status of savage 

 nations rapidly disappears, and the manufac- 

 ture of the last tools recalling the stone age 

 will soon be abandoned. The factories of 

 New England alread} T furnish cast-steel toma- 

 hawks to our western Indians, and the Cen- 

 tral-African negro shoots the hippopotamus 

 and elephant with a breech-loader of the most 

 recent pattern. Facts like these are a suffi- 

 cient warning to the ethnologist for collecting 

 now whatever can be brought to posterity from 

 the implements and rude machinery of the 

 lower races of mankind. To aid this purpose, 

 Andree has undertaken to illustrate one branch 

 of ethnologic research, metallurgy, and to show 

 the extent of our present knowledge concern- 

 ing its practice among the above races. 



His learned treatise excludes the European 

 and Semitic nations, of which the metallurg}^ 

 is sufficiently known, and had, except within 

 the most recent times, but little direct influ- 

 ence upon that of primitive nations. The 

 most important metals to be considered were 

 iron, copper, tin, and bronze. The Egyptians 

 of the earliest period were acquainted with 

 bronze and iron ; but the manufacture of iron 

 tools by the Central- Africans was an invention 

 of their own, and not borrowed from Egypt. 

 It first developed in north-eastern or in Cen- 

 tral Africa, and from there must have reached 

 southern Africa, as Andree believes. Iron 

 tools followed immediately upon stone tools, 

 since copper is limited to a few portions of 

 that continent only. The East Indies had 

 a stone period for themselves ; and metals, 



except tin, do not seem to have been im- 

 ported there. Copper is obtained by very 

 archaic methods. It cannot be decided which 

 metal, copper or iron, is of older use in that 

 country. 



The Mala}-an nations form another inde- 

 pendent area or domain of metallurgy, their 

 peculiar practical methods reaching from Mad- 

 agascar to New Guinea. Iron was their oldest 

 metal, and it probabl}' was so among the 

 Indo-Chinese as well. In its cultural devel- 

 opment, China stands wholly for itself, and 

 thirty-five hundred }-ears ago it produced the 

 finest bronzes ; but Chinese prehistorics have 

 not as yet been sufficiently studied to decide 

 which metal was the first to be wrought in 

 that distant realm. When Russia invaded 

 Siberia, some of its tribes were reducing and 

 working iron ores, having been probably taught 

 by Turkish nomads. Meteoric iron was put 

 to use b} 7 several American tribes, especially 

 bj 7 the Eskimo. The reduction of ores by 

 charcoal, and their smelting by fire, were dis- 

 covered at three different spots in this western 

 hemisphere, wholly independent of each other, 

 — in Mexico, in Cundinamarca, and in Peru. 

 The chief metal of Mexico was copper ; of 

 Peru, bronze ; though both were used simulta- 

 neously with stone implements. Analyses 

 made of American bronzes have proved them 

 to be alloys of metals joined in very different 

 proportions. 



The ' Scandinavian ' theory, that in every 

 part of the world the metals should appear in 

 the same historic order — copper, tin, bronze, 

 iron — among all, even the most heterogene- 

 ous nations, has held supreme sway T in science 

 for almost half a century, but is now en- 

 tirely upset by the investigations of R. Andree 

 and others. A fact which alone would suffice 

 to disprove it is this, that the production of 

 bronze is a more difficult process than the 

 production of iron. Many nations have bor- 

 rowed metallurgic processes and methods from 

 other nations, as proved in many instances : 

 but these methods and practices have also 

 been the result of inventions independent of 

 each other; and, to explain the similarity of 

 processes in countries widely separated from 

 each other, the assumption of separate inven- 

 tion is the most probable and natural of all. 



Although the above results gleaned from 

 Andree 's publication give only a superficial 

 idea of its contents, we deem them sufficient 

 for attracting the notice of ethnologists and 

 archeologists, and add the statement that even- 

 page of it teems with important or unexpected 

 disclosures. 



