526 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. VI., No. 149- 



RECENT CHALLENGER MONOGRAPHS. 



Four great books of final reports of the Challen- 

 ger expedition, together with two volumes of 

 'the narrative,' represent the outcome of the last 

 few months of work of the Challenger staff. Com- 

 mendation seems superfluous in describing a work 

 so monumental in its character ; but, on the other 

 hand, it is impracticable to speak of it, either as a 

 whole or in any one of its subdivisions, without 

 the most enthusiastic praise. 



Professor Turner of Edinburgh discusses the 

 human crania in a paper of 180 pages (part xxix. 

 vol. X.), which is one of the most important con- 

 tributions to somatology ever printed in EngUsh. 

 The last sixteen pages are devoted to general 

 conclusions, drawn, not only from the study of 

 the crania gathered by the Challenger in south- 

 ern Africa and America, xiustralia and the Pacific 

 Islands, but of those in the Edinburgh university 

 museum and several other collections. The paper 

 is, in fact, an essay upon the craniology of certain 

 races, — the Bushmen, Fuegians and Patagonians, 

 Australians, New Zealanders, and the Admu-alty, 

 Chatham, and Sandwich Islanders. A short paper, 

 on the other human bones is to follow. The body 

 of the memoir is densely packed with details of 

 craniometry, for the most part in tabular form, 

 and critical notices of past investigations. The 29 

 illustrations are exceedingly satisfactory, especially 

 the diagrams of sections of skulls drawn by the 

 author. 



One of the most noteworthy results of this in- 

 vestigation is that it has given Professor Tirrner 

 still stronger convictions upon the importance of 

 craniology as tlie foundation of a classification of 

 the races of mankind. Without undervaluing the 

 classific value of such features as the color of the 

 skin, the color and character of the hair and 

 eyes, the shape of the nose and lips, the stature 

 and the form of the pelvis, he mamtains, that, by 

 taking a combination of craniological characters, 

 there may be laid down certain propositions as 

 regards unmixed races of men, which, while 

 allowing for the occurrence of occasional individ- 

 ual variations, will be as distinctive as those 

 afforded by the study of any other series of physi- 

 cal characters. 



In unmixed races, where the skull is markedly 

 dolichocephalic, brachycephahc skuUs never occur ; 

 and similarly in immixed races, where the skull is 

 markedly brachycephahc, dolichocephahc skulls are 

 not met with. People resulting from mixtures, 

 especially of doUcho- with brachy-cephahc races, 

 are more difficult to deal with ; for some will have 

 heads which exhibit, with little variation, the 

 characters of one or other of the two parent types. 



while in others intermediate characters will arise 

 which incline toward those of one or other of the 

 ancestral types. It is, he thinks, through lack of 

 recognition of the true effects of mixture of races 

 that discredit has been tlirown on the value of the 

 skull in the determination of racial characters. 



The author, while inclining to the belief that, as 

 a rule, unmixed races are either long or short 

 headed, and that mesaticephalic peoples usually 

 proceed from mixtures, admits that certain of the 

 mesaticephali — for instance, the Tasmanians, and 

 the Bush race of South Africa (not improbably 

 the remains of the primitive people of Africa) — 

 may be classed with the unmixed races. 



The discussions of the extent and character of 

 individual variation within the limits of a race are 

 to be of a very scholarly and suggestive character. 



The author advances the idea that the races of 

 the extreme south, Bushmen, Fuegians, Austral- 

 ians, Tasmanians, and Negritos, with their feeble 

 frames, small heads, low statures, and low intel- 

 lectual development, may in the early unwritten 

 periods of history have had in their respective 

 continents a much wider range than at present, 

 and have been pushed southward into their 

 present restricted areas by the advance of the more 

 powerful races which now surround them. If in 

 their displacement they failed to mix with their 

 invaders, their physical characters would remain 

 pure, for isolation and long-continued interbreed- 

 ing would preserve and even intensify the struc 

 tural peculiarities of each race. 



The enigma concerning the builders of the 

 megalithic monuments on Ascension and Eas- 

 ter Islands, the Fijis, the Gilbert Islands, and 

 Tongatabu, is simply restated, — the natives can 

 neither account for them by tradition, or show 

 physical evidence that their forefathers could have 

 created such structures, nor are there any traces 

 of races, pre-existing in the Pacific region, capable 

 of such enterprises. 



The study of the Patagonian and Fuegian 

 skulls suggests interesting speculations as to the 

 origin of the peoples of South America. 



It is rather mortifying to find that our own 

 countrymen have accomplished so little in the 

 field of craniology, that in this exhaustive treatise 

 there occurs but a single incidental allusion to any 

 American authority. 



Dr. Rudolph Bergh of Copenhagen, in an essay 

 of 151 pages, with 311 figures of structural details 

 beautifully drawn by himself (part xxvi. vol. x.), 

 treats of the Nudibranchiata. The paper is purely 

 descriptive and critical, and deals chiefly with the 

 25 forms collected by the expedition, which in- 

 clude 11 new species and 3 new genera. He gives, 

 however, a list of all known forms in each, genus 



