ANTHROPOLOGY. 
115 
times called Cyclopean walls, a kind of building which seems to have 
preceded the use of squared blocks, fastened together with clamps or with 
mortar. Vaulting or roofing by means of courses of stones projecting 
inwards one course above the other (much as children build with their 
wooden bricks), so as to form what architects call a “ false arch,” is an 
ancient mode of construction found in various parts of the world where 
the “true arch” with its keystone has not superseded it. It often 
appears that rude nations have copied the more artistic buildings of 
higher neighbours, or inherited ancient architectural traditions. Thus 
traces of Indian architecture have found their way into the islands of 
the Eastern Archipelago, and hollow squares of mud-built houses round 
a courtyard in northern Africa have their plan from the Asiatic caravan¬ 
serai. In boat-building some primitive forms, as the “ dug-out,” hollowed 
by the aid of fire from a tree-trunk, and the bark-canoe, are found in 
such distant regions that we cannot guess where they had their origin. 
When, however, it comes to the outrigger-canoe, this belongs to a district 
which, though very large, is still limited, so that we may at least guess 
whereabouts it first came into use, and it is important to note every 
island to which it has since travelled. So there is much in the peculiar 
build and rig of Malay prahus, Chinese junks, &c., which is worth noting 
as part of the history of ship-building. This may suffice to give a general 
idea of the kind of information as to the local arts which it is worth 
while to collect, and to illustrate by drawings and photographs of objects 
too large to bring away. 
Naturally, nations below the upper levels of culture have little or no 
science to teach us, but many of their ideas are interesting as marking 
stages in the history of the human mind. Thus, in the art of counting, 
which is one of the foundations of science, it is common to find the 
primitive method of counting by fingers and toes still in practical use, 
while in many languages the numeral words have evidently grown up out 
of such a state of things. Thus lima, the well-known Polynesian word 
for five, meant “ hand,” before it passed into a numeral. All devices for 
counting are worth notice, from the African little sticks for units and 
larger sticks for tens, up to the ball-frames with which the Chinese and 
Russian traders reckon so rapidly and correctly. It is a sign of lowness 
in a tribe not to use measures and weights, and where these appear in a 
trough way, it is interesting to discover whether vague lengths, such as 
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