thick, which had small cup-shaped excavations on the under side. This bore no marks of fire.

In the same mound (which was twenty-five feet high), some distance above the sitting skeletons, were two skeletons lying horizontally one immediately over and resting on the other, the upper and larger one with the face down and the lower and smaller one with the face up. Precisely the same thing occurred in two graves in a North Carolina mound, but in the latter case heavy flat stones were on the legs and arms. It may be well to state that both these mounds are attributed to the Cherokees.

In a large mound in East Tennessee, which contained the remains of nearly a hundred individuals of all ages, one adult was found buried perpendicularly, with the head downwards. In a North Carolina mound the principal personage was buried in the center of the mound in a standing posture, a stone vault being built up around the body to hold it in position.

In a stone grave in Southern Ohio, a circle of large flat stones, with one end set firmly in the ground, enclosed an ellipse of similar stones with the upper ends leaning inward; within this was a similar ellipse, the upper ends of these rocks leaning outward against the last. The inner one contained several skeletons, and was covered with very large flat stones. The circle was nineteen feet in diameter.

A NEW MANUAL OF ANTHROPOLOGY.-As one of the numerous branches of anthropologic studies, somatology has been probably the last one to arrive at full recognition. Craniology once was supposed to be indispensable for distinguishing races, but at present is regarded simply as an important part of somatology, for the progress of natural science, and especially of the evolutionary theory, has revolutionized this part of science also. To know something about the physical and mental side of man and his races, his body has to be studied and be considered as a whole. But nowadays it requires many scientific and artificial means to make all the observations necessary and a score of preparations to preserve the objects conveying the knowledge acquired. Among the manuals giving full instructions on the best methods of observing is the recent book of Dr. Emil Schmidt, "Anthropologische Methoden; Anleitung zum Beobachten und Sammeln, für Laboratorium und Reise,"

Leipzig, 1888, 12mo., pp. 336; richly illustrated. This useful publication gives all the recent methods of measuring human bodies; that of the Novara Expedition, that of Topinard, Virchow, the French, English, and American methods and the instruments used by them. There follows a description of all that has to be observed concerning the skin, teeth, head, hair, extremities, breasts, power, temperature, mixture of races-and a chapter upon the method of obtaining general results and proportional figures (indices). Another section of the manual chiefly deals with the examination of dead subjects, craniometry, pelvimetry, etc., and the instruments to be used. The brain is with these a very important object to weigh, analyze, and preserve. The completeness of Schmidt's book will no doubt prompt several foreign publishers to have it translated for their respective countries.

A. S. G.

STOLL'S POKOM-CHÍ.-The old methods of composing grammars and dry vocabularies is falling into disuse, and with almost every year the number of critical grammars, phonetic texts, and useful dictionaries is increased concerning the languages of rude or half-civilized tribes in all parts of the globe. The specialist in the Maya dialects of Guatemala, Dr. Otto Stoll, of Zürich, this year comes to the front with an octavo volume of 203 pages upon the language of the Pokomchi Indians, which is intended as the first part of a series dealing with all the Maya languages of the Pokom group (Pokomchí, Pokomam, K'e'kchi). Stoll visited the tribe which inhabits five villages in the high plateaux of the southern part of Alta Verapaz, Guatemala (about 17,500 natives), during his stay in that distant region (1878-'83), and studied enough of their dialect to give us the handy compendium now before us. It comprehends the history and ethnography of these people; the elements of grammar, with copious paradigms; a few texts, and a dictionary of 53 pages set up in two columns. Like the other Maya dialects, this language has a marked tendency toward monosyllabism. Nevertheless, the formative suffixes often occur in a synthetic or compound form, and reduplication is often met with as a means of derivation. The number of compound nouns is rather large, as is also that of terms borrowed from Mexican and Spanish.

A. S. G.

"SPELLING," the organ of the Spelling Reform Association, is being published as a quarterly by the Boston "Library Bureau," at $1.00 a year, each number consisting of forty to sixty pages. Our well-known linguists, Professors W. D. Whitney and Fr. A. March, are among the officers of the Association, the laudable aim of which is to replace the present cumbrous, preposterous, and absurd English orthoepy by a purely phonetic spelling. The text of the periodical is of course printed in the proposed new alphabet. There is no reason why this useful reform, which would also result in a great economy of type-setting, consequently of time and expenditure, should not be carried out, unless the all-powerful vis inertiæ of habit be such a reason. The ten rules to be observed are given on page 132 and might be reduced to one: "Drop all unnecessary and silent letters;" and on page 121 we read: "Every sound should have its own unvarying sign and every sign its own unvarying sound." Write, therefore, as is shown in a long list of "Amended Spellings" (pp. 133-153): ahed, abuv, annoyd, atrofy, bluf, captiv, cum (for "come"), coud (for "could"-why not kud?), culd (for "culled"), doft (for "doffed"), eg (for "egg"), edgd, heeld, heven, hicht (for "hitched"), huney, huf (for "huff"), hyfend (for "hyphened"), il (for "ill"), in (for "inn"), jibd (for “jibbed'), jugl (for "juggle"), ment (for "meant ") and so on. Linguists do not regard it necessary to preserve the etymology of a word in its spelling; for this purpose dictionaries may be used. It is true that in this way we obtain a sort of Josh Billings orthography, but if such one can be based upon scientific principles the advantage of it will soon be obvious to every one.

Americans have got accustomed rather fast to Josh Billings' and Petroleum Nasby's "orthoepy"; why should they not take up just as fast something less odd and more useful? If the Czechs, or Bohemians, have about the year 1815 changed the spelling of their entire lexicon, which was then misspelt much worse than English is now, why could we not do the same? Our epoch is successfully, though gradually, abolishing so much of the medieval nonsense in art, science, schools, religion, industry, and the other departments of human activity, that a reform in spelling should not be despaired of. People will do almost anything to save money; why don't they make hurry to save their millions of dollars in type-setting and paper by enacting this reform?

There are, however, many things in the periodical before us that

we do not agree with. It uses twenty-five letters only, while there are forty-four sounds in English. How does this agree with the principle of the Association, that every sound should be expressed by one and the same sign? So we need a larger number of signs, and Roman letters should be used for this purpose, provided with diacritical marks. Then the vocalic system of the Association should be changed entirely and the old-fashioned ee, oo replaced at once by i, u, or better by i, ū. Words like cum for “come,” and luvly for "lovely," reproduce only the New England pronunciation and not that of the American people as a whole. The linguists of the Association seem to have a horror of letters with diacritical marks as č, š, ā, ō, the reason being simply this, that the English and American public is not accustomed to these marks, and that the use of them might render the reform unpopular. But, if we want a reform, have a thorough one or nothing at all. Germans feel no inconvenience in writing their ä, ö, ü, nor do the Polanders in writing, %, s, etc, the French and Spanish in accenting and circumflexing their vowels-and why should we feel any repugnance in adopting these by applying the principles of the Lepsius' standard alphabet, the best alphabet of this sort ever put forward. Contrary to its own principles, the periodical now writes: made, change, confined, when the silent e should have been dropped as elsewhere, and the words scientifically spelt: med, chenj, konfaind. Why k and are used for the same sound in "Spelling," is just as hard to comprehend as the use of the vocalic y at the end of syllables and words. English speaking people have to introduce the continental value of vowels in their writings.

The amended alphabet proposed by Prof. Haldeman differed considerably from that of "Spelling." But with its combinations of two letters into one it tended only to perpetuate the preposterous usages of which we endeavor to rid ourselves, and hence could never aspire to general acceptance by the press, the teachers, or the literary public. A. S. G.

ANTIQUITIES OF COSTA RICA.-A German pamphlet of very neat appearance has been published upon the above subject by Dr. H. Polakowsky, an author who has enriched literature by many articles upon Central America The pamphlet forms part of the "Jubilee publication of the Dresden Geographical Society," to celebrate the twenty-fifth year of its existence (pp. 12). Dr. Polakowsky,

who has visited (1875-'76) Costa Rica chiefly for the pursuit of botanical studies, gives a description of the archæological collections now existing in Costa Rica-that of D. Juan R. Troyo, of Bishop B. A. Thiel, and of the Museo Nacional at San José, the capital of the republic. The museum is now the sole proprietor of the Troyo collection, and D. Anast. Alfaro, the director, has published an official description of the 3,500 objects of native art now on exhibition there, and transmitted photographs of the more interesting specimens to archæologists all over the world. The objects are of gold, clay, and of a very hard volcanic stone, and how these people worked that stone without metallic tools is a problem difficult to solve. Some of the stone objects are figured in the frontispiece-photograph. The collection embodies about 140 objects of gold, representing men, lions, eagles, dragons, frogs, plates, and some objects of extraordinary shape.

A. S. G.

THE SEPULTURes of Solutré.-New light has been thrown upon the date of these sepultures by the recent investigations of M. G. de Mortillet, which he describes in the Bulletin de la Société d'Anthropologie de Lyon for June, 1888. This spot has long been the source from which investigators and museums have derived a large part of their archæological collections, and it has even given a name to an epoch of the palaeolithic age. Here are graves in great numbers, showing the habit of making interments at some remote period, and in all are found bones of extinct animals and fragments of wrought flint, both of which point to the palaeolithic age for their origin. The date of these graves has long been a puzzle to the palæoethnologist and anthropologist, and many have ascribed to them an actual quaternary origin. Among these was M. Mortillet himself.

These graves have two distinct characters; one group consists of regular graves, generally at a normal depth except where affected by denudations, and contains well preserved skeletons, extended at length in the ordinary modern position for burial. Small limestone slabs mark the head and foot of each grave, and in some cases completely surround the remains, forming a rude cist. The second group, less extensive, consists of interments at various depths in a stratum abounding in cinders and charred bones of animals, with well marked hearths. The human skeletons are in irregular positions and mingled with limestone slabs in complete disorder.