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Science among the nations of America took the precedence of literature, possibly on account of its greater utility. We have already seen that astronomy especially was the constant study of the Incas, the Caciques, and the priests of Peru, of Mexico, and of Guatemala. Montezuma I and Nezahautl were remarkably skilful and enlightened engineers, who immortalised their names by the construction of the famous dykes destined to repress the inundations of Lake Tezcuco. These princes, though bad tactitians and strategists, were by no means ignorant of the art of attacking and defending cities; in fact, traces of Mexican fortifications are still visible, which show considerable knowledge of these subjects.

wanting in those Men performed

Agriculture, very ancient among the Aztecs, was almost indispensable adjuncts oxen and ploughs. every labour of the field with their own arms, and their barns were rudely constructed with trunks of trees placed over each other, and then firmly bound together. They had, however, singular skill in the construction of those floating gardens, or chinampas, which had a vegetation so luxuriant as to call forth the admiration of the conquerors themselves. Agriculture among the Peruvians was very differently organised. It is true that the use of the plough was equally unknown to them; but they dug up canals for the irrigation and fertilisation of the lands; they constructed roads and ways of communication, bridges, and embankments; and reared numerous flocks of lamas and alpacas. They also exhibited considerable skill in the construction of their houses, distinguishing themselves especially by the erection of numerous aqueducts, preserved and used by the Spaniards for a long period after the conquest.

Arithmetic and medicine formed a part of the scientific knowledge of the Peruvian, but as to the latter, his remedies were very simple and very limited, and administered without method or discernment. Finally, the Aztecs and the Quichuas had their painters, sculptors, goldsmiths or jewellers, their architects, actors, dancers, and musicians. In all the great towns of Anahuac, vases of gold and silver were manufactured before the conquest, and Cortez, in a letter to the Emperor Charles the Fifth, praises the skill of the goldsmiths of Tenochtitlan. Among the Mexican monuments found by the conquerors, the most remarkable were the two great pyramids called "houses of the sun and of the moon," situated in the Plain of the Dead (Micoatl); the pyramids of Papantla and of Cholula (the latter

Among others, the high road from Cusco to Quito.

+ A gentleman who visited Mexico in the year 1851, informs me of an interesting discovery made by him in connection with these pyramids. Observing midway between them a large square block of granite lying on its edge, and partly imbedded in the sand, he, with the aid of several servants, succeeded in remov

one hundred and seventy feet high); the monument of Xochicalco, known by the name of the House of Flowers; and many palaces, temples, and altars destroyed in Mexico and other chief towns.

Sculpture and hieroglyphic painting were also in great esteem among the natives of Mexico. The sculptures generally represented the images of gods and other fabulous creatures, of kings and men of note, and even of animals of the most fantastic appearance. Respecting the hieroglyphic pictures, I could not do better than refer to the excellent work of M. Aubin, published in the first series of the Revue Américaine. It is at once a special and almost complete document on this subject.

Notwithstanding that Mexican architecture and sculpture seem now to be regarded with some degree of disfavour, I have heard M. l'Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg himself say that the Anahuac contains monuments of the ante-Spanish period, remarkable both for art and for execution.

That Peruvian architecture is much finer, is proved by the vestiges of the temple of Pachacamac, of the palace of the Inca, and of the fortress of Cusco, as well as by the imposing ruins of Atun Cannor, mentioned by La Condamine. Several statues may also be mentioned, which have been preserved in spite of the deformity of the legs and arms. There are also many vases, discovered in tombs, which, in the opinion of M. d'Orbigny, exhibit a knowledge of drawing, truth, and finish, in the figures represented.

Dancing was a favourite amusement with the natives of Peru, each province having its particular and characteristic dance. It must be admitted that their music was wanting in variety, and had little to recommend it. They knew nothing of any instrument except a flute with five pipes, which was indifferently used for songs of love, mourning, or triumph. Songs of triumph were generally confined to their solemn and periodical festivals. On these occasions choirs of men and women added their voices to the flute, and celebrated the high deeds of arms of their relatives or fellow-citizens. It may be added, that dancing and music were equally known to the other nations of Southern America.

Such are the principal studies and researches you will have to

ing a sufficient quantity of the soil to admit of its being turned over to a slight extent. After some scraping, my friend found a distinct image of the sun cut on what appeared to have been originally the top of the block. There is no doubt that this piece of granite, weighing some tons, formed at one period the apex of the pyramid or "house" of the sun. (W. H. G.)

*Vide Revue Orientale et Américaine, vol. iii, p. 224; vol. iv, pp. 33 and 270; vol. v, p. 361. The continuation of this important work will be published in the new series.

VOL. II.-NO. VI.

P

make in connection with America anterior to its discovery. There are others which, although posterior to it, are not less interesting and important.

The history of the conquest is extensive and satisfactory; but that of the two centuries which followed it is quite unknown. Under the Spanish, Portuguese, and French domination, there is an immense blank, which it is important to fill up as soon as possible. The history of the moral, physical, and intellectual state of the vanquished under the yoke of these conquerors, still remains to be composed and written. The great question of slavery, which occupies, and must continue to occupy, the minds of men, will doubtless find important elucidation in the filling up of that huge gap just indicated. It is of vital importance to follow the native peoples in their continual and consecutive relations with those nations which have subdued them.

There still remain many capital questions to be treated of in detail. We will call particular attention to the original and striking manners of ancient and of contemporary America.

Forward, then, courageous explorers; forward, bold missionaries of the Rocky Mountains; forward, travellers, daring pioneers and colonisers of the prairies of North America; forward, thinkers and philosophers, savants, writers, artists, and poets ;-onward all of you to delve in that immense mine, which must be worked up into its innermost recesses, into its most imperceptible furrows, into its most impenetrable crevices!

Christopher Columbus and his worthy imitators discovered the material and physical America-the America of flesh and bone, of earth and marble. It remains for us to discover another America -a moral and intellectual America; America of soul and of heart, of mind and of genius.

ANTHROPOTOMY.*

IT has been our duty to watch this work through the three successive editions which have been published of an undertaking which has been justly characterised by Professor Owent as "a deservedly esteemed

Anatomy; Descriptive and Surgical. By Henry Gray, F.R.S., F.R.C.S., Lecturer on Anatomy at St. George's Hospital Medical School. The drawings by H. V. Carter, M.D. The dissections jointly by the Author and by Dr. Carter. Third Edition. By T. Holmes, M.D.Cantab., Assistant-Surgeon and Lecturer on Anatomy at St. George's Hospital. 8vo. London: Longmans. 1864. Pp. 788.

On the Cerebral Characters of Man and the Ape, Annals and Magazine of Natural History, 1861, vol. vii.

compendium of descriptive anthropotomy". Its celebrity as the most convenient general text-book, suitable for constant use, has been long an accepted fact; and we shall not in this place dilate on the advantages which a modern anatomical tyro possesses by the study of so handy a manual. But the relations which teaching on this, as on other anatomical topics, bear to modern anthropology, demand a few words on our part; criticising the state of the science in England, ornamented by such names as Humphry, Holden, Ellis, and Holmes Coote, each of whom, as well as many others, have contributed to the advancement of integral branches of English anthropology. The editor of the present work states that his excuse for not inserting a chapter on the rudiments of scientific, as distinguished from descriptive anatomy, must be owing to the fact that the examining bodies do not exact a knowledge of this branch of science as a necessary part of medical education. We scarcely coincide with him in this being a justifiable defence, but are so pleased to have the third edition of this elegant text-book placed before us in a convenient form, that we are not inclined to criticise too severely that which we must, however, consider an important omission. Every anthropologist, whose duty it must be to compare the structure of the different races of men with the characters of the ordinary European anatomical subject, should possess this work: even the professed human anatomist will find it easy of reference, when the consultation of the many other higher and more profound works on the subject would be impracticable or inconvenient. The two first editions have, however, been so popular, that it becomes an easy task to call the attention of our readers to a few of the excellencies of the third. We shall merely indicate a few of the bearings of the present work on modern anthropological discussion. Without entering into the details of a controversy which has elsewhere been carried on respecting the true "typical" or "normal" number of cusps in the lower molars of various races of mankind, we fear that the present work will scarcely be satisfactory to either party in the controversy. The statement (p. 619) that the crown, in the dens sapientia is "furnished with three tubercles", is one which, although in one sense justifiable, yet if placed simpliciter before an unwary student, may lead to considerable misapprehension.

Contrasting such a plate as that which appears on p. 69 of this work with those ordinarily promulgated in anatomical text-books, and giving due credit to the beauty of the engraving and accuracy of detail which are here manifest, we must suggest that a vertical bisection of the skull should be drawn in any future edition of the work, on the same plan as those of the Papuan, gorilla, and oran-útan, which

illustrate Owen's paper in the Zoological Transactions. The English anatomical student is scarcely yet as familiar with the mode of investigation by vertical bisection and internal measurement as the Dutch students were fifty-four years ago, in the days of Crull. The use of such works as Gray's Anatomy will in time, however, produce the desired effect.

Several omissions may be signalised, in some of which "Gray" does not reflect the tone of modern anthropotomical study so much as "Holden". Thus, on p. 137, the reader who carefully peruses the otherwise excellent account of the fibula, is not duly made aware of the signification of the "styloid process". It is all very well to tell us that" it gives attachment to the short external lateral ligament". Such a definition would have been satisfactory in the days of South on the Bones, or of some other far less useful compendium; but the student in 1864 imperatively demands other and more complete information. The fact of the serial homology of this process with the "olecranon" of the ulna, and of the important part which it plays in such animals as the Phascolomys, in which it is developed as a separate osseous element, are at least worth teaching to the modern anthropotomist, if we wish to avoid the miserable repetitions of unintelligible mediæval Latin terms which distinguished the majority of the old osteological writers. Every student of man, who considers any part of his physical structure, will put the following question: What relation does this part bear to the homologous part, if there is one, in the lower mammals? and ultimately the anatomical treatises which neglect to afford the desiderated information will be relegated to the top shelves, beside Vesalius and the alchymists.

The 64th page of this edition gives us a most interesting and correct diagram, which originally appeared in the second edition, of the forms of the lower jaw in the young, at puberty, in the adult, and in the aged individual. In this series the method by which the angle of the mandible is developed is exhibited, showing the open angle of the adolescent and of the aged subject to be alike obtuse, forming a striking contrast with the acute right angle at which the ascending joins the horizontal ramus in the adult. Comparison of such drawings as these with a large series of lower jaws, will lead the observer to some remarkable conclusions, the most striking of which is, the general resemblance which prevails between the lower jaws of many Negroes and Australians, and the homologous part in young Europeans. Before, however, this can be laid down as a generalisation, an enormous series of specimens must be diligently collected together, and the many striking exceptions to the rule pointed out; and we believe that some interesting researches on the subject will be laid before the Anthropological Society during the next session.

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