322 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. VI., No. 140. 



habitants. The system of nomenclature is, there- 

 fore, complete and symmetrical. 



It is due to the people living among these streams 

 to say that they aU understand perfectly, and f uUy 

 appreciate this system of naming, and, indeed, 

 seem proud of it and anxious to explain it to 

 strangers. So extremely simple is it that even the 

 negro hands use it with perfect accuracy. 



It occurred to me that this case might furnish 

 a valuable suggestion to geographical explorers 

 who are constantly called upon to give names to 

 unknown water courses. If, instead of assigning 

 polysyllabic names to all streams, which must be 

 learned by the public as so many independent 

 facts, they would use monosyllabic names for the 

 ultimate tributaries, capable of easy composition 

 with one another, and then designate the succes- 

 sive trunks formed by these tributaries by the 

 compound word formed by their names, a rational 

 system of nomenclature would result which would 

 unite any river system practically under a single 

 name, and still leave not only every tributary but 

 every part of the maui stream with a distinctive 

 appellation. I merely throw out the suggestion 

 without attemj^ting here to specify such practical 

 limitations to the general principle as will naturally 

 occur to geographers who might contemplate its 

 actual adoption. Lester F. Ward. 



RACIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF JEWS. 



The Journal of the Anthropological institute of 

 Great Britain for August brings a discussion on 

 Jewish race characteristics of somewhat unusual 

 interest. The question itself is not a new one, but 

 the mode of presenting it is. The fundamental 

 question involved is : "Is the race of modern Jews 

 a pure one or not ?" Hitherto the historical aspect 

 of the problem has almost exclusively been con- 

 sidered in the present discussion. Mr. Joseph 

 Jacobs, B. A., shows that anthropology and anthro- 

 pometry have a distinct voice in the matter. His 

 paper is equally valuable for the information he 

 sets before us, as for its bearing on the ultimate 

 question. 



Mr. Jacobs argues thus : Apart from the histor- 

 ical record of intermixture with foreign people, an 

 indication of the pure or wild origin of the race 

 ought to be attainable from the study of the physi- 

 ological and psychological traits of the Jews of to- 

 day. These traits would be included in their (1) 

 vital statistics and in their (2) anthropometry, or 

 bodily measurement. Having determined in what 

 ways they differ from their neighbors in the above 

 respects, we are met by the important but intri- 

 cate problem with which Mr. Galton has familiar- 



ized the public, — Do these peculiarities point to a 

 racial or a social cause ? are they due to differences 

 of ' nature ' or of ' nurture ?' 



There are now living about 7,000,000 Jews ; {ay 

 98.9^ of these are Jews both by birth and by re- 

 hgion ; (6) 1.1^ are Jews by religion only, and (c) 

 2^ by birth only. The last two classes are im- 

 portant anthropologically, but reliable information 

 about them is wanting. In the Jew whom we 

 know, racial and social influences have been work- 

 ing hand in hand, and the problem of separating 

 them is unusually difficult. 



From his former studies, Mr. Jacobs takes the 

 following statements : 1. Jews have a less marriage 

 rate, less birth rate (both due largely to the less 

 mortaUty of Jewish children) and less death 

 rate than their neighbors. 2. They marry 

 earlier. Cousins intermarry more frequently, per- 

 haps three times as often. 3. Jews have larger 

 families, though fewer plural births. Mixed mar- 

 riages with foreign races are comparatively unfer- 

 tile. 4. Among Jews male births are more frequent, 

 still births and illegitimate births less frequent 

 than in the average population. (Amongst the 

 illegitimate births the proportion of stiU-births is 

 not less.) 5. Jews have a smaller mortality of 

 children under five. (Not true of Jewish illegiti- 

 mate children.) Deaths over 60 are more frequent ; 

 suicides are less frequent than normally. 6. Their 

 claim to immunity from certain diseases (phthisis, 

 cholera) is doubtful. They are apparently more 

 liable to diabetes and haemorrhoids, and have 

 proportionately more insane, deaf mutes, blind and 

 color-blind. 7. A vast majority live in cities. They 

 have a larger ratio of poor. 



Many of theSe divergences are evidently of 

 social origin, such as the frequency of consanguine- 

 ous marriages, the smaller proportion of suicides 

 and of illegitimate births. Moreover, the fact that 

 the illegitimate do not share the advantages speaks 

 for the importance of social influences. There re- 

 main as probably racial only four biostatical points. 

 These are 1. the less number of twins and triplets; 

 2. the infertility of mixed marriages ; 3. the greater 

 longevity of Jews ; 4. their alleged special liability 

 to disease. Of the causes of (1) we know nothing ; 

 (2) is of sufficient importance to merit a review of 

 the evidence on which it rests. In Prussia between 

 1875 and 1881, 1,676 such mixed marriages result- 

 ed in 2,765 children, an average of 1.65 per mar- 

 riage ; while the average for pure Jewish mar- 

 riages was 4.41, — nearly three times as great. In 

 Bavaria (1876-80) 67 such marriages showed an 

 average of 1.1 against 4.7 for pure Jewish mar- 



iThis class is formed of {\) Ashkenazim or German- Polish 

 Jews, forming 92.8^ of the whole, and (2) Sephardim or Span- 

 ish-Portuguese Jews 6.1j^. 



