658 Herbarium, who has made an especial study of this genus. The two together have produced a book in every way creditable to themselves and the publisher. All persons who take an intelligent interest in the open air cultivation of herbaceous plants will find it quite indispensable in studying the garden kinds of Narcissus. It is to be hoped that similar volumes may be devoted to Crocus and Iris. These, if treated in an attractive and popular manner, controlled by technical scientific knowledge, will be most useful, although without it they will be worse than useless. The Golden Guide to London (Sampson Low, Marston, Low & Searle) is just the book to give to one who wishes for a 66 'picture in little" of what Cowper calls "the fairest capital of all the world." It will also please the old Londoner, to whom a feeling of pride in the outward appearance of his home is quite a new sensation. So many improvements have been carried out of late years, that London is fast becoming a handsome city, which it was not in Cowper's day, and this little book does justice to these changes. The engravings, with the exception of a few which formerly appeared in Weale's Handbook to London, are fresh, and taken from good points, as the Thames Embankment, and the view of the Foreign Office from St. James's Park; Charing Cross is not so successful as the others. The wants of the visitor seem to be thoroughly understood by the author, and the matter supplied is practically useful, with just such a dash of historical information as "he he who runs may read." The Guide is not a mere compilation, for the various places have evidently been visited in order that the descriptions may be accurate. The mention of the Regent's Park explosion, and the appearance of the Mirror in the list of theatres, proves that the information is well posted up. It is next to impossible to treat a large subject in a small space without falling into some mistakes: and we have noticed a few, but they are not of much importOne misprint, however, is amusing. writer is describing St. Bride's Church, and says The that the east window is "a copy by Moss of Mr. Rubens' Descent from the Cross." EDITOR. ance. NOTES AND NEWS. Jonas Fisher: A Poem in brown and white, is the title of a work now in the press, which we are informed on good authority will carry great weight, not only on account of its subject and the treatment thereof, but also on account of the high rank of the author. SURGEON-MAJOR H. W. BELLEW, of the Bengal Staff Corps, is engaged on a narrative of the Journey of the Embassy to Kashghar in 18731874, of which he was a member. The work will appear under the title of Kashmir and Kashghar. PROFESSOR ROBERT K. DOUGLAS is preparing for early publication his two lectures on the Chinese Language and Literature delivered before the Royal Institution. CHINESE Scholars will be glad to be informed that Mr. Edkins is now printing his Introduction to the Study of the Chinese Characters. The work will appear in a royal octavo volume of about 200 pages before Mr. Edkins's impending departure to China. MR. EDWIN ARNOLD, M.A. Oxford, formerly Principal of the Poona College and Fellow of the University of Bombay, is preparing for early publication his translation of the Gita Govinda from the Sanskrit of Jayadeva into English verse. We believe that this is the first attempt made to introduce this beautiful pastoral to the English public. A PENDANT to the itineraries of European travellers to China in the thirteenth century, as Carpini, Marco Polo, &c., by Dr. Bretschneider, of Peking, has just appeared at Shanghai under the title of Notes on Chinese Mediaeval Travellers to the West. Dr. Bretschneider produces reports of Ir is well known that one of the oldest and THE Rev. K. M. Banerjea, of Calcutta, is engaged on a tentative edition of a small portion explanatory notes and a grammatical analysis. of the Rig-Veda (the first thirty-two hymns), with The work will appear in October next, and will be published by Trübner and Co. MR. BANERJEA is also engaged on a work which will be entitled The Aryan Witness, which will contain the testimony that may be collected from the Vedas and the Zend Avesta in correction of biblical sacred history, and on the fundamental principles of the Christian religion. Ar the meeting of the Council of Owens College, held on Friday last, Mr. Alfred Hopkinson, B.A. (Lond. and Oxon.) was elected to the professorship of Jurisprudence and Law, vacant who is an associate of Owens College, after a by the resignation of Dr. Bryce. Mr. Hopkinson, successful career in the College, proceeded to Oxford, where he gained a Second Class in the Classical School in 1872, and a First Class in the Law School in 1873. Mr. Hopkinson was elected Stowell (Law) Fellow of University College in 1873, and Vinerian Scholar in 1875. DR. PUSEY has been ordered absolute rest for a DR. VON SYBEL of Bonn has been appointed Berlin. M. PAUL MEYER writes to us that we were in error in announcing that he has been elected to a election does not take place till December next, professorship at the College de France, as the and he has "no reason to believe that he has a greater chance of being elected than many other sent de l'Eglise Catholique-Romaine en France, has [JUNE 26, 1875. published by Messrs. Michel Lévy Frères, is pre- MR. HENRY SWEET has printed all the prose ALEXANDRA COLLEGE, Dublin, which has done much good in women's education for the last nine years, is trying to raise 10,000l. to enlarge its buildings and grounds. Part of the money has already been given, and part raised by debentures, but more donations and more loans are needed to enable the Council to carry out their plans. Mrs. Jellicoe, to whose untiring exertions the success of the College is so largely due, will be glad to answer any applications addressed to her at the College. WE are glad to hear that Messrs. Chatto and Windus have resolved to publish another play of spere," which was so warmly commended by Mr. Mr. Richard Simpson's series, "The School of Shakcession of Shakspere's plays. The same publishers Swinburne in his Fortnightly article on the sucare also reproducing by photo-lithography a very handy-sized copy of the First Folio of Shakspere's Dramatic Works, 1623, to sell for about 78. 6d. If only the acts, scenes, and lines could be marked in the margin, we should have in this reprint a really workable edition of the Folio. Without these helps all copies are troublesome to use. WE understand that a translation by Mrs. Arthur Arnold of Señor Castelar's Life of Byron will appear very shortly. Mrs. Arnold is already known as the successful translator of a work by the same author which was published two years ago by Tinsley under the title of Old Rome and New Italy. MR. ALFRED RIMMER, of Chester, has been preparing, in conjunction with Dean Howson, an interesting work on the Old Streets and Homesteads of England. It will be profusely illustrated by examples collected from all the counties, drawn on wood by Mr. Rimmer, and engraved by Mr. J. D. Cooper, and will be published in the autumn by Messrs. Macmillan and Co. MR. W. C. HAZLITT'S "Shakespeare's Library, a Collection of all the known Plays, Novels, Tales, and other Articles which the great Poet is supposed to have employed in the Composition of his Works," is expected to be out next week. It will be in six volumes foolscap octavo, and will contain lection, and the novels, tales, and poems in Rodd's, revised texts of all the plays in Nichols's old colto which Mr. J. P. Collier wrote introductions, besides several later additions, and notes. Among the more important additions are the lives from North's Plutarch used in Shakspere's classical Holinshed, Twine's Patterne of Painfull Advenplays, the histories of Lear and Macbeth from nearly complete book of the kind ever published, tures (for Pericles), &c. It will be the most and a great convenience to Shakspere students. AMONG the latest minor acquisitions of the Bodleian Library is a small pamphlet, quite forgotten in our days and mentioned neither in catalogues nor in biographical books, with the title, Sunday under three Heads:-as it is; as SabTimothy Sparks (London: Chapman & Hall, 186 bath Bills would make it; as it might be made, by Strand, 1886). pencil on the title-page " (Chas. Dickens)?" The VICTOR HUGO's new work, Avant l'Exil, has just been published. It forms the first volume of succeeded by two other volumes, Pendant l'Exil a series entitled "Actes et Paroles," and will be and Depuis l'Evil. Avant l'Evil contains all M. Hugo's speeches delivered between 1841 and 1851, with indications of his acts in connexion is to contain all his speeches from December 2, with them. The second volume, Pendant l'Exil, ber 4, 1870, which enabled him to return. Depuis shop at the corner of the street with the reeking 1851, which drove him from France, to Septem-working man who has just emerged from the baker's "Look at the group of children who surround that France to the present day; so that the three volumes l'Exil will give us his speeches from his return to dish, in which a diminutive joint of mutton simmers will furnish a complete summary of the whole of above a vast heap of half-browned potatoes. How Victor Hugo's public life. The first volume, just their father, for very joy at the prospect of the feast; the young rogues clap their hands and dance round JUNE 26, 1875.] and how anxiously the youngest and chubbiest of the lot lingers on tiptoe by his side, trying to get a peep into the interior of the dish. They turn up the street, and the chubby-faced boy trots on as fast as his little legs will carry him, to herald the approach of the dinner to mother,' who is standing with a baby in her arms on the door-step, and who seems almost as pleased with the whole scene as the children themselves; whereupon baby,' not precisely understanding the importance of the business in hand, but clearly perceiving that it is something unusually lively, kicks and crows most lustily, to the unspeakable delight of all the children and both the parents." Finally, on page 39: "I was travelling in the West of England a summer or two back, and was induced by the beauty of the scenery," &c. Dickens was indeed in 1835 in Bristol and Bath (see Forster's Life of Charles Dickens, 9th edit., vol. i., p. 8). If those coincidences induced the owner of the book to attribute it to Dickens, could we not oppose the strong evidence of Forster's silence on the subject? Perhaps some of our correspondents may know something about the name of the nom de plume, T. Sparks. IN a German work of travels, published in 1753 by Uffenbach, entitled Merkwurdige Reisen durch Niedersachsen, Holland und Engelland, it is stated in the account given of the Bremen Library that it contained the entire library of Charles I. Cromwell, so we read, wished to make a present of it to Herr Pauw, the States Ambassador in England; but he, forbidden by his oath to accept of any gift, directly or indirectly, when on a foreign mission, was content to purchase this Bibliotheca Regia for the Government of Holland, at a cost of six thousand gulden. Such an expenditure was, however, much grumbled at by Pauw's superiors, though the library was considered to be well worth three times the money even at that period; and brought upon him so many annoyances and vexations that he worried himself to death under the infliction. We give the story as it stands in the pages of this veracious traveller, and confess our inability to furnish any confirmation or refutation of it. AMONG the many prize essays at Oxford there is one which differs from the rest, in so far as it is meant, not for undergraduates or junior members of the University, but for men who must have completed three years, but not exceeded fifteen years, from their matriculation. It is nunciation, are more or less the result of such The dissertation is to embrace a careful collec- The question of dialects is at the present moment the burning question in the Science of Language, and nowhere is there more ample material for treating it than in Greek. The very name of dialect is on its trial, and the solution of the problem whether dialects presuppose a κown, or whether a koun is the outcome of original dialects, must determine in a great measure the direction of linguistic studies in the future. THE Oxford University Gazette of the 8th inst. contains the Report of a Committee of Council appointed to consider the requirements of the University as amended and adopted by Council. The document is of too great a length to permit of more than an imperfect summary in these columns, but it suggests several questions of primary importance with reference to academical reorganisation. The "Requirements of the University" are divided into provision for buildings and institutions, and provision for professors and teachers. The former of these two divisions includes an estimate of 50,000l. for the building of the proposed new Schools, and a considerable sum for the consequent rearrangement of the structure and fittings of the Bodleian Library-expenses which may be fairly called extraordinary, and for which it is known that a capital sum has already been set apart to accumulate. All the remaining leading institutions of the University also call for considerable expenditure, either for their enlargement and renovation, or for the accommodation of new offices which recent reforms have rendered necessary. It is somewhat startling, however, to learn that the three great scientific departments (Chemistry, Biology, and Physics) make a demand for no less than 30,0001. connexion with the University Museum. Also, for additional lecture-rooms and laboratories in the lease of the Botanic Garden has almost expired, and whatever course may be adopted, an outlay of at least 4,000l. will immediately be required. It is pleasing to notice that, notwithstanding the mention of these enormous sums, the committee are of opinion that the University Chest can well take upon itself the entire expenditure, and perhaps have something to spare for the foundation of new professorships. the "Conington Prize," founded by friends of With reference to the second head of the divithe late Professor Conington, and intended to sion mentioned above, the report of committee is be on a level with the prize essays proposed not equally exhaustive or satisfactory. No attempt annually by the French Institute or the Berlin has been made to frame a comprehensive scheme The subjects of these essays Academy. of the deficiencies of the teaching power of the generally connected with questions with questions of the University according to the subjects to be taught, highest importance in different branches or the proportionate pressure of their want. A science. They are intended to attract the attention project is indeed brought forward for the estabof students to points of real interest which re- lishment of temporary chairs and readerships, quire elucidation, and they frequently lead to the which, so far as it goes, is novel and suggestive; composition of valuable treatises or books marking and careful regulations are proposed for the a solid advance in the history of different sciences. nomination and salaries of the holders of such apRenan's Histoire des Langues Sémitiques, Lenor-pointments. The occupants of the University mant's Essai sur la Propagation de l'Alphabet Phénicien, Corssen's great work on Latin Pro are of Museum have in this matter again obtained at be recollected, at least within Oxford, that scientific subjects have during the past twenty years caused a most exhausting drain upon the surplus income of the University, and that while physical science is being abundantly studied elsewhere, there are other subjects of scientific research, such as Philology in its countless branches, and History, which bid fair to be entirely neglected in this country, if not encouraged by the prestige and material support of academical endowment. It is further to be noticed with regret, that no reference is here made to the memorial of the Royal Asiatic Society for the promotion of the study of Oriental languages at Oxford. A suggestion is made in a subordinate paragraph for "the making of occasional grants to individuals for the purpose of carrying on special work in connexion with the studies or institutions of the University;" but beyond this ambiguous and meagre statement there is no recognition throughout this Report of Oxford's great deficiencywhich is not want of funds, as the members of the Committee rather seem to imagine, but the absence of the spirit of original work and study, which is beyond the vision alike of the ordinary undergraduate, and of the ordinary tutor. MR. STOKES's letter in the Revue Celtique some time ago, calling attention to the inaccuracies in the facsimiles of the Irish MSS. published by the Royal Irish Academy, has created some commotion in that learned body. It appears that some of the members believe the alleged errors to be no errors, and consequently the matter was referred to the Committee of Polite Literature. This last body came to the conclusion that a number of men should be appointed to collate the facsimile of the Lebor na Huidre with the MS., and it now appears that the latter have done their work and reported in favour of the copyists. Who these experts are we have not learnt, but we should be rather surprised to find that Mr. Stokes is so far mistaken as they seem to believe. Besides, on this question of details Mr. Stokes differs from them as to the best The Acamethod of procuring the facsimiles. demy at present, it appears, employs a man who has just enough knowledge of Irish to lead him astray to make the tracing, and another of the same description to revise his work; but Mr. Stokes would rather have a good tracer who is altogether ignorant of Irish, and submit his work to the careful revision of the best Irish scholar to be got. The question is one of immediate importance, as money has lately been voted for this purpose by the Board of Trinity College, Dublin, with a view to defray the expense of publishing a lithographed facsimile of the Book of Leinster. What course the Academy and the Board will ultimately adopt is not yet evident: the angry feelings taking. already aroused do not augur well for the under THERE has just appeared at Andernach, in Rhenish Prussia, in the form of a programme of the progymnasium of that town, a most scholarly dissertation on some Gaulish names in -ácum in Rhenish Prussia (Ueber einige gallische Ortsnamen auf -acum in der Rheinprovinz, von Dr. Quirin Esser). The detailed commentary which accompanies the names examined shows the author to possess a profound knowledge of Gaulish onomatology. It is well known that the Gaulish suffix -âco, corresponding to the Latin suffix -ano, denotes property or origin. This suffix has survived the disappearance of the Gaulish language, and is to be met with in a considerable number of names of places in countries originally Gaulish. Quarto and Folio were largely altered by different correctors, from Shakspere's own manuscript, the Quarto being the more cut down for stage purposes, while the Folio underwent the greatest changes in single words and phrases. Thus the long Folio "insertions," as they are generally called, are part of the original text-as their contexts in the Quarto prove-while the many Quarto strong and poetic words, afterwards weakened by the Folio corrector, are Shakspere's own. Mr. Pickersgill contends that his new view best explains the great and universally acknowledged difficulties of the question. THE Allgemeine Zeitung announces that the sale of the valuable library of the late Dr. Lötich will begin at Marburg on July 19, on the premises of the university booksellers, Messrs. Elvert and Co. The first part of the catalogue has been published, from which it appears that the collection includes numerous Aldines and other rare editions of scarce and valuable works. WE learn through the same journal that Berthold Auerbach has given his admirers a new collection of tales, which for poetic fancy, originality and hearty geniality exceed any of his earlier compositions. ON June 14, H. L. d'Arrest, Professor of Astronomy at the University of Copenhagen, died in that city in his fifty-third year. He was a German by birth, and studied under the famous Encke. In 1848 he became Observer in the Astronomical Observatory in Leipzig, and was called to Copenhagen to occupy a similar post at Professor Olufsen's death in 1857. He has re tained it until now. D'Arrest had a European reputation; he was the discoverer of four comets and of the asteroid Freia, but his great work was the examination of the nebulae by means of spectrum analysis. It is not long since he received the large gold medal of our own Royal Society as a mark of recognition of his scientific services. NORWAY has lost an eminently useful man in Eilert Lund Sundt, who died at his parsonage in Eidsvold on June 13. His whole life has been occupied in writing and working for the poor, and since 1850 he has been recognised by the government as the official authority on all matters concerning the amelioration of the condition of the working classes. His statistical writings are numerous and important, and he was also the author of a biography of Hans Egede, the missionary bishop of Greenland. Sundt was born at Farsund in 1817. MR. ELIHU RICH, who died at Margate, June 11, 1875, was born October 8, 1818. The child of Swedenborgian parents, and all his life a disciple of that master, he was engaged in the first half of his literary life on important works for the Swedenborgian Society, of which he was for many years secretary. He compiled for them the Index Arcanis, which the late Professor Bush calls a "grand work," " an enduring monument of judgment and diligence, a noble benefaction to the Church." He also wrote for the same society the Life of Swedenborg. He was for twenty years the writer of Messrs. Smith and Elder's Monthly Indian Circular, a summary of passing events, and review of books and new inventions. He History of the Franco-German War of 1870-71, 2 vols., imperial 8vo., 1,158 pp., James Hagger. He was a contributor to many magazines and newspapers. It is expected that a very interesting paper of his on "Robert Browning's Sordello may shortly be published. He was a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and also of the Statistical Society. His knowledge of Indian affairs was great. MISS ANNA BLACKWELL'S translation of the late astonishing number of 120,000 copies has been Allen Kardec's Livre des Esprits, of which the circulated, will, we are informed, appear in a very few days. NOTES OF TRAVEL. THOSE readers of the ACADEMY who were in terested in the account of the Giants' Cauldrons in the neighbourhood of Christiania may be glad to know that excellent examples of these most extraordinary formations exist in the more accessible locality of Lucerne. In a garden adjoining the "Lion" monument, there are sixteen in all in various stages of development, varying from the small "6 marmite 1 feet in depth, to the largest, which is sixteen feet in depth; the rounded stones, in some instances nearly spherical, the instruments of excavation, lie at the bottom of the cauldron, and consist of erratic blocks from the St. Gothard, and the Axenberg chain, and from other formations more or less distant. The form of excavation is spiral; the rock in which the "Marmites de Géants" are found affords also a good example of the action of a glacier in its forms polished surfaces and furrows, and its rounded or "roches moutonnées." Professor Feierabend, of Lucerne, directed public attention has published a brochure on the subject at to this discovery in the Illustrirte Zeitung, and he Lucerne, from which we learn that the spot was laid bare but two years since in digging the foundations for a house. DR. GEORG SCHWEINFURTH, the eminent African traveller, who has been residing for some time at Riga, his birthplace, has since his return been busily engaged in arranging the extensive collections of plants and insects which he brought back to Europe. Dr. G. Schweinfurth has announced his intention of remaining for some days at Berlin on his way to Paris to attend the Geographical Congress, and sanguine hopes are entertained by many of the leading Prussian savants that he may be induced to accept a chair at the Berlin University, which, it is understood, the Imperial Government desire to offer him. In the meanwhile, the elder Dr. Schweinfurth, who has taken up his residence in Cairo, has been busily engaged in organising the newly-created Geographical Society of Egypt, to the presidency of which he has been nominated by the Khedive, to whose suggestion and support the association owes its existence. was formally opened on June 3, when, in the presence of the chief local notabilities and of a large number of foreign savants and travellers, Dr. Schweinfurth delivered the inaugural address, in the course of which he drew attention to the peculiar local advantages of Cairo for becoming the focus of geographical discovery, from its position at the point of junction between the three old continents. The further meetings of the Society are postponed to October, but in the meantime Dr. Schweinfurth, whose indefatigable ardour, and whose training in the African climate make him disregard the heat, has determined to remain at Cairo through the hot season, in order that he may complete the arrangements necessary for the efficient establishment of the Society, and at the same time superintend the publication of the first number of the Monthly Proceedings, which he hopes to have ready by the beginning of No The Society edited for the same firm several books of travels and other works. For Messrs. Griffin he was joint editor of the Encyclopaedia of Universal Biography. Mr. Rich translated numerous works, among them Marcoy's Travels in South America, 2 vols., 4to, Blackie and Son. The Manchester Examiner, in reviewing it, spoke highly of his faithful work as translator. For Messrs. Sampson Low he did The Bottom of the Sea. He for a time edited the People's Magazine, S.P.C.K. He edited and wrote a good deal for Vanity Fair, during the editor's absence in France in 1870-71. He was joint editor and leader-vember. writer for the Broad Arrow from its third number A HANDBOOK for travellers, Palestine and Syria, until his last illness. He also wrote a Popular is just published by Karl Bädeker, of Leipzig. This volume forms the first part of a travellers' guide to the East, on the same plan as the other well-known works of this publisher. The author is Dr. Albert Socin, who has resided many years in Syria, and whose last journey thither was undertaken with a view to the compilation of this book. The continuation of the work will treat, in two volumes, of Egypt and the Nile up to the second cataract, then of Greece, and finally of Constantinople, the coast of Asia Minor, and the Danube from Pesth to the Black Sea. ON June 8 Professor Nordenskjöld's Arctic Expedition left Tromsö for Novaya Zemlya. It was conducted by Captain J. N. Isaksen, who has visited Spitzbergen for many successive years, and lately reached Novaya Zemlya itself. The expedition was to proceed straight to the souther coast of Novaya Zemlya, where it was hoped that Samoyeds would be found, and thence in an easterly direction to the mouths of the rivers Obi and Jenisei, where Professor Nordenskjöld would leave the ship and continue his voyage in boats. AN official account of the Turkish colony of Aradis, or Road Island, recently printed, presents some features of interest. The community re sembles rather a small republic than a portion of the Imperial dominions, though nominally governed by an officer of the rank of Mudir with the munificent monthly salary of 61. 108. There are 2,000 inhabitants, all of whom, with the exception of three families, are Moslems. They are mostly well to do, and a great air of comfort pervades their houses. Their occupation is derived entirely from the sea, the island itself being a mere rock, void of soil, three-quarters of a mile round, and incapable of production. They still preserve the skill in seafaring pursuits which made them so distinguished in past ages, and are in much request on the Syrian coast as navigators and sailors. Sponge and other fisheries are extensively practised. The comparative wealth among the islanders enables them to lay in large stores of provisions in time of plenty. Food is, therefore, always in abundance at a moderate price, while the presence of many articles of comfort and luxury in the houses shows the intercourse kept up with foreign lands. BOEHMER, J. F. History. Regesta imperii. VIII. Die Regesten d. Kaiserreichs unter Kaiser Karl IV. 1346-1378. Hrsg. v. A. Huber. 2. Lfg. Innsbruck: Wagner. 6 M. CARANDINI, F. L'Assedio di Gaeta nel 1860-61: studio storicomilitare. Torino: Bocca. L. 7. CHARLOTTE V. RUSSLAND, die Kronprinzessin, Schwiegertochter Peters d. Grossen nach ihren noch ungedruckten Briefen 1707-1715. Bonn: Cohen. 3 M. MORRIS, J. The Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers, related by themselves. Second Series. Burns & Oates. 14s. SOREL, A. Histoire diplomatique de la guerre franco-allemande. Paris: Plon. 16 fr. DURING the discussion of Captain Lawson's Paper at the meeting of the Anthropological Institute last Tuesday, Professor Rolleston, after expressing in the strongest terms his conviction of the fictitious nature of Captain Lawson's narrative, read the following letter from a member of the London Missionary Society, at present resident in New Guinea, and at the time of writing the letter entirely ignorant of Captain Lawson's book: "Port Moresby, New Guinea: March 18, 1875. "We arrived here on December 1, and have been living among the people ever since. No other white residents are here, and we seem to be quite isolated from civilisation, for no vessels call or pass within sight of us. It is carly yet for me to say much about the place or people, but I have not forgotten my promise to give you information. "I hope before long to send you a box of such things as are most likely to interest you, but I have not much of a collection yet. In the meantime if you are in London and near our Mission House in Blomfield Street, Finsbury, you could see there a small collection from here, comprising pottery, bows and arrows, drums, hatchets, &c., sent by the Rev. Mr. Murray from Cape York. "We were somewhat disappointed with both place and people after reading Captain Moresby's glowing description of them. "The place is barren and unfruitful. Everything seems burnt up by the sun. The fauna, too, seems to be poor. There are no birds of paradise at all in this part of New Guinea. There are but few birds at all. I have skinned a few, which I will send you some day. The only quadrupeds are kangaroos, dogs, and pigs. The kangaroos are the same as Australian. Tree kangaroos are unknown here. The dogs are said to be indigenous, and I believe they are. They are domesticated and used by the natives for kangaroo hunting. They do not know how to bark, but they howl in chorus most hideously. Pigs look like some of the English kinds, are wild in the bush, but some are tamed and domesticated. There is also a native rat, the same as the Savage Island rat, smaller than the European. There are several varieties of snakes, one (a black) only of which is fatally poisonous; lizards of various kinds, and an iguana. "I can give you a little authentic information about the people. The inhabitants of this part of New Guinea are of small physique, smaller in every way than the average South Sea Islander. The men are naked, with the exception of a piece of string with which the penis is tied up. The women wear girdles reaching to the knees. Both are tatooed, the women profusely. "The men and boys all wear a polished stone through the septum of the nose. The women's noses are pierced, but they rarely wear anything through it. The ears of all are pierced in two, and sometimes three places, one at top and another at bottom. The men wear their hair long, the women (when married) short. Neither polygamy nor polyandry is practised, except in a few exceptional cases where a man has two wives. In colour, this people are a shade darker, perhaps, than our South Sea Islanders, but their greater exposure to the sun and no clothes will account, I think, for that. From their countenances and some of their customs I should think they belong to the same race, and that both are of Malayan origin. There are, however, several distinct races inhabiting this part of New Guinea. The race to which the Port Moresbyites belong is called Motu; there is another race, speaking a different language and differing in their customs, called Koitapu. These are a little darker in colour than the Motu, and have been driven out from the coast villages by them, so this people say, and we have other reasons for think The "To the west of this about thirty miles is another tribe or race similar in appearance to these, but speaking a different language. These are called Maiva. Beyond this are those called Elema, these are darker in colour and their language is more like Papuan than Malayan. To the east are other races, speaking different languages, but of which I can't speak positively though I have seen them. I hope to know more about the above races by-and-by, but now I must confine myself to the people of this place. Their houses are all built on the beach, below high water mark, on piles nine or twelve feet high. weapons of war are bows and arrows (not poisoned); spears, all in one piece and rudely carved; clubs of heavy wood, flat shaped, and also stone clubs-the latter are just like some that I saw in the Museum at Oxford, and said to be hatchets, with a handle about four feet long. They use stones, but not ground or polished ones. Their hatchets are stone like those I gave you from Savage Island, and handled in the same way, only more roughly. The men make good nets, and very large ones both for catching fish and kangaroos. Their canoes are large but very roughly made-no carving at all about them. They do not know the use of fish-hooks at all. "The women make pottery consisting of large basins, urns and such like. The knowledge of this art seems confined to Motu, the other tribes or races bartering yams, cocoa-nuts, &c., for them. The women are the workers; they carry all the burdens, carry them as the Australian natives at Cape York do, suspended behind by a band across the top of the head. I have seen some of the women's heads quite indented where the band goes. Our knowledge of the language is as yet necessarily imperfect. There are many words in common with the dialects of Eastern Polynesia, but the construction of the language is different. I have no Malayan Dictionary, but in the list given by Mr. Wallace of Malayan words there are but few, very few, of those spoken here. "The climate is very hot and a good deal of fever and ague is here, but Mrs. Lawes and I have been well hitherto. Mrs. Lawes was the first white lady to land on New Guinea, she and our little boy were great lions for a time. N. G. LAWES." BOSTON LETTER. Boston: June 4, 1875. I have just had the pleasure of looking over an advance copy of the third volume of Mr. Bancroft's Native Races of the Pacific States. It treats with great fulness of the mythology and languages of the people described in the previous volumes, whose ways and manners, diverse as they were, read like the record of the most monotonous man. myths set forth by Mr. Bancroft. Almost every civilisation, in comparison with the variety of tribe has its own way of accounting for the origin of man; many believe that they are descended from animals; the Ahts of Vancouver Island held that men existed at first as birds, animals, or fishes; the Koniagas boast of their descent from dogs; the Californians in most cases describe themselves as originating from the coyote. Further south are to be found more coherent myths relating to the creation of the world and of The Quiché account is the fullest, as given in the Popol Vuh. Traditions of the destruction of mankind by a flood are very common: they existed among the Mexicans, who have a myth about the building of a tower of Babel; the British Columbia, who explain the difference beNicaraguans, and also among the Thlinkeets in tween their language and that of the rest of the world by asserting that the large floating vessel which contained the survivors of the flood grounded on a rock, and was broken into two pieces, on one of which were left the ancestors of those who speak the Thlinkeet language, and on the other the ancestors of those who speak other tongues. With regard to physical myths, the worship of the sun, and of the other heavenly bodies to a greater or less extent, was widely spread throughout Mexico. Eclipses consequently caused much excitement, and men with white hair and faces were at once sacrificed to the sun; this was the habit of the Mexicans. The Tlascaltres, on the other hand, sacrificed the ruddiest victims that could be found when the sun was eclipsed, and the whitest only at eclipses of the moon. The usual device of averting evil by noise was also commonly employed, the reason being the belief that the moon was darkened by the dust of battle, and all the noise and shooting arrows up into the sky was for the purpose of distracting her adversary. Comets were considered messengers of evil, as they have been more recently and by more civilised peoples. 66 As to the gods or spirits worshipped there was great variety. The Tinneh, who inhabit the country north of the fifty-fifth parallel nearly to the Arctic and Pacific Oceans, seem to have no single expressed idea with regard to a supreme power; one branch, however, "recognise a certain personage, resident in the moon," to whom they pray for success in hunting. The Mexican religion is a "confused and clashing chaos of fragments." The most important of the Mexican gods Mr. Bancroft considers to have been Tezcatlipoca, and many of the prayers addressed to him are given, with a word of warning, however, as to their absolute authenticity. There is also to be found a full digest of the numerous myths, and their even more numerous explanations about known as Vitzliputzli, the god of war, and the Quetzalcoatl. Huitzilopochtli, more commonly especially national god of the Mexicans, is treated of at length, Mr. Bancroft giving the reader an abridged translation of Professor J. G. Müller's monograph about this god, for the sake, he says, "of the accurate and detailed handling, rehandling, and grouping them, by a master in this department of mythological learning, of almost all the data relating to the matter in hand." As to the various doctrines about a future state, metempsychosis, indeed some go so far as to believe they are of all kinds. Some races believe in that they return to the primeval condition of animals, plants, and inanimate objects. The Pluto of the Ahts is Chayher, a figure of flesh without bones. In his kingdom there are no salmon, and the blankets are so thin and narrow as to be almost useless for either warmth or decoration. A few of held that the wicked alone were annihilated. the tribes believed in annihilation; the Nicaraguans Bancroft mentions different classifications into The chapters on Language are interesting. Mr. seven, and into seven hundred families, and regards the dialects as countless. There are four great languages-the Eskimo, which, however, is not properly an American language; the Tinneh family at the northern end of the Rocky Mountain range; the Aztec, and the Maya. Traces of the Aztec appear in Texas, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Montana, and Oregon, far to the north, as well as in Mexico and Central America. In the author's opinion no Asiatic or European tongue, excepting, of course, the Eskimo, has yet been found in America. All the efforts to detect traces of them he considers idle speculation, and to show how easy it would list of words analogous both in meaning and sound, be to form useless hypotheses, he gives a brief from unrelated languages. "For the German ja we have the Shasta ya; for komm, the Comanche kim; . . . for weinen, the Cora vycine; for thun, the Tepehuana duni. . . . For the Latin hic, vas, the Tepehuana hic, vase; for lingua, the Moqui linga; . . . for toga, manus, the Kenai togaai, man. For the Sanskrit da, there is the Cora ta (give); for eké, the Miztec ec (one); for mâ, the Tepehuana mai (not) and the Maya ma (no); for masa (month), the Pima mahsa (moon); for tschandra (moon), the Kenai tschane (moon); for pada (foot), the Sekumne podo (leg); for kama (love), the Shoshone kamakh (to love); for på, the Kizh paa (to drink)." Every philologist ought to have this list in his mind to warn him from too ready explanation of linguistic problems. Mr. Bancroft has collected what he could about a great number of the dialects -to get even the names of between seven and eight hundred, as he has done, is no light task-with the declension of a noun, the conjugation of a verb, and the translation of the Lord's Prayer, when such could be found. The Miztec language, one of great antiquity, seems to be one of the most difficult. The following word, meaning to conciliate a person's good graces, must have puzzled backward boys and foreigners, yokuvuihuainindiyotuvuihuatusindisahata. I have given a very incomplete account of this volume, which shows all the excellence of its predecessors. It will be found a very complete compendium of all that is known about the subjects treated. Two volumes of poems have just appeared, one by Miss Phelps, the author of some well-known prose works, and the other, An Idyl of Work, by Miss Larcom, some of whose verses have a deserved reputation. In this volume Miss Larcom tries a more ambitious flight, but, it must be confessed, with less success. The story is a rather complicated one of three girls, who worked in mills at Lowell in the old days, before the invasion of the Irish had driven out the intellectual, pallid, New England girls who read metaphysics after work-hours. The poem labours under the disadvantage of being written in blank verse, although occasional rhymed interludes bring a pleasant change to the ear. The main trouble with the book is its super-refined tone of excessive culture, but it shows at times pretty veins of fancy, which seem almost out of place in this rather solemn discussion of serious problems. In her preface the author tells the reader that she herself once worked in the mills, and that in the Lowell Offering, and similar magazines, her first writings appeared, so that she has a right to be heard when she chooses this subject; but in the dusty volumes of English poetry of the last century there are to be found many very solemn warnings against religious discussion in blank verse. Miss Phelps's little volume, which bears the modest title of Poetic Studies, deserves attention. The first poem in the volume, "That never was on Sea or Land," is, perhaps, the most striking; it is full of imagination. I would gladly quote a few lines but for the risk of doing the poem injustice. Its merit does not lie in separate phrases which can be safely detached and handed about for admiration, but in the originality and execution of the author's plan. | bone implements, &c., from the state of Missouri, In vol. xvii. of the Proceedings of the Boston ARCHAEOLOGICAL NEWS FROM GREECE. As this place is not frequently visited by archaeo- Thus at Argos, which is as yet almost virgin soil to the excavator, there are four objects in the museum, but all of interest. There is an inscription which has been published in the Greek Athenaeum, I believe. There is an excellent female head, of the best period of Greek art, about half life-size, and strange to say, with one eye a little larger than the other. There is an admirable small female statue, exquisitely draped, of a woman with one foot on a small aquatic bird, which looks like a duck. The head and arms are gone, but the rest is well preserved and valuable. The bird under the foot ought to afford a clue to identify the figure, though I cannot remember any representation like it. The fourth object has been found very lately, and is a relief larger than life size, of the head of Medusa on a large square block of white marble. The face is expressionless and rather archaic in style, though of good and clear workmanship. But the coiffure, which has been finished only at the right side, is very peculiar, and consists of large scales starting from the forehead, and separating into two plaits, which The centennial celebrations of the beginning of become serpents' bodies, and after sinking as low the Revolutionary War are calling forth work as the chin, bend upwards and outwards again, from different writers. Mr. Lowell's Ode, read till at the height of the forehead they terminate in at Concord, April 19, appeared in the June well-formed serpents' heads. The width between Atlantic. Dr. Holmes has written a clever ballad, the serpents' heads at the end of the plaits is just published in a little pamphlet, about the about double the width of the head. Thus the battle of Bunker's Hill, of which the hundred th whole upper outline is something like a large UU anniversary is celebrated on the 17th of this (W) with rounded angles. The left serpent is month. The ballad is very amusing; a grand-carved out perfectly in the relief, but not covered mother tells to her grandchildren the story of the fight as she saw it from a church-tower in this city. If any young women read the ACADEMY, and care to know how their cousins in New England disport themselves, let them read a little novel, One Summer, which has just been published by Osgood and Co., of this city. They will find it a bright and entertaining little story, which throws more light on the ways of young people over here than do many volumes like Queechy, The Wide Wide World, The Lamplighter, &c. To be sure, one cannot help wishing that some discreet friend had pruned a little here and there. The Eighth Annual Report of the trustees of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology contains an interesting account of a collection of earthen dishes and vases, stone and with scales. This type of Medusa is, I think, a To describe the other curiosities near and excellent photographs of these splendid remains The Physics and Philosophy of the Senses; |