the society, were discussed at some length by Drs Hrdlička, Michelson, and Hough, and by Mr Dieserud. At a meeting of the board of managers of the Anthropological Society, held March 23, 1911, the following resolutions submitted by the undersigned committee were adopted by the board and ordered published in Science and the American Anthropologist: "Acting on the information furnished by one of its members, Dr Aleš Hrdlička, in regard to the wholesale destruction of antiquities in all parts of Peru, as well as in other regions of South America, the Anthropological Society of Washington has, after due consideration, resolved that: "1. The remains of American aborigines, wherever met with and particularly in such countries as Peru, where native civilization reached high standards, are historical records of definite branches of the human family and, as such, are of great value to science, to the country in which they exist and to mankind in general. "2. In view of such value of the remains in question, which include all manifestations of human activity, and also the associated skeletal parts of man himself, the destruction of these records is deprecated and the hope is expressed that scientific men and societies, as well as the proper authorities, will counteract the same as far as possible.” The 453d regular meeting was held in the hall of the Public Library, March 28, 1911, with Mr George R. Stetson, vice-president of the society, in the chair. Professor R. B. DIXON, of Harvard University, read a paper on Polynesian Mythology. After a geographical survey of the islands of the Pacific, including Polynesia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Malaysia, the speaker gave a delineation of the pantheon and a concise exposition of the theology entertained, with greater or lesser variations, by the different tribes of these islands. The gods are broadly divided into greater and lesser. In addition to these there are ancestral and totemic deities. The four great gods are: Tane (dialectically, Kane), Tu (Ku), Tangaroa (Tanaloa), and Rongo (Lono, also Oro). The lesser gods are for the most part considered as their offspring. Of the four great gods Tane is the greatest. He is conceived as self-evolved, existing from AM, ANTH., N. S., 13-21 eternity, the father of men, and is connected with the sky. He is supreme in the Hawaiian Islands and New Zealand, although he had there no temples and scarcely received any worship, while in Samoa and central Polynesia at large he is almost unknown. The same is the case with Rongo, the god of agriculture, and Tu, the god of war. On the other hand, Tangaroa, who forms a group by himself, enjoyed great honor in Samoa and the central portion of Polynesia, but was associated with darkness and evil in Hawaii and seems to have been a late comer there imported from Tahiti or the Marquesas Islands. There are, as a rule, no images made of the great gods. The only representations made of them are stone pillars or wooden poles swathed in tappa or mats. The mythology of the other portions of the Pacific realm, such as Melanesia and Micronesia, agrees in some portions with that of Hawaii and New Zealand, in others with that of Samoa and central Polynesia. The paper was discussed and commented upon by many of those present. Meeting of April 18, 1911 The 454th regular meeting, which was also the annual meeting of the society, was held in the hall of the Public Library, April 18, 1911, with the president, Dr J. Walter Fewkes, in the chair. The following officers were elected for the ensuing year: President-Mr F. W. Hodge. Treasurer-Mr J. N. B. Hewitt. Additional Members of the Board of Managers-Messrs G. C. Maynard, G. R. Stetson, E. T. Williams, W. H. Babcock, and Dr E. L. Morgan. It was voted to hold bi-weekly meetings at 4.45 P.M. on Tuesdays in the new National Museum instead of once a month at 8 P.M. as formerly, evening meetings to be held as the board of managers of the society shall determine. Meeting of May 3, 1911 A special joint meeting of the Anthropological Society of Washington and the Medical Society of the District of Columbia was held at the New Masonic Temple on this date, with Dr Barton, president of the Medical Society, in the chair. Drs Hrdlička and Lamb each read a paper and exhibited specimens illustrating the diseases of pre-Columbian inhabitants of the western hemisphere. Dr Hrdlička's paper was based on his explorations in Peru. The speaker pointed out that among the skeletal material there was not a single instance of rachitis. There was one case which may have been tuberculosis of a vertebra, but the evidence was not absolutely conclusive and the age of the grave (at Chicama) was unknown. Two burials were encountered in which the bones were undeniably syphilitic, but both these graves were among the more recent and were probably post-Columbian. Thirty other long bones had more or less marked inflammatory alterations which might have been syphilitic, but the diagnosis could not be made with certainty. An examination of the many thousands of long bones showed that a very large majority of them had no lesions whatever. Only two of the 3,400 skulls brought away presented ulceration or a lesion that could be attributed with confidence to syphilis. In the Chicama cemeteries, and to a lesser extent in those of Pachacamac, there was marked rarity in the fractures of bones; and the setting in those that had been fractured was generally defective. Wounds of the skull, especially at Pachacamac, were very numerous. There was but one positive case of trephining, at Pachacamac; but there were several skulls in which it is impossible to say whether they are examples of partially healed wounds from clubs or scars from trephining. Dr Lamb's paper was based on the pathological collections of the Army Medical Museum. The specimens numbered nearly 250 and show anomalies, diseases, or injuries. They come from the United States, Alaska, and Peru. Conditions such as the olecranon perforation, pilasteric femur, platyknemic tibia, and deep channelling of some of the surfaces of the bones of the forearm and leg, were abundant, suggesting a primitive people or a people of low type. There are fractures, usually well healed but with deformity, among them two showing false joints. Many of the specimens present inflammation of the bone, hyperostosis, exostosis, osteomyelitis, osteitis deformans. Some showed bone syphilis, but none tuberculosis. Both papers were discussed at length. Among the speakers were Drs Kober, LaGarde, Morgan, Carr, and Williams. T. MICHELSON, Secretary BOOK REVIEWS The Jews: A Study of Race and Environment. By MAURICE FISHBERG. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1911. 12m0, pp. xix, 578. The interesting volume at hand is "an attempt to present the result of anthropological, demographic, pathological, and sociological investigations of the Jews." The inquiries are founded on the measurements of about three thousand Jews in New York City, as well as on a collation of the literature on the different Jewish groups. The work is divided into a number of chapters which deal with: The physical characteristics of the Jews; Their types in various countries and the origin of these types: Proselytism and intermarriage among Jews; Demographic characteristics; Pathological matters; Social and economic conditions, education, occupation, criminality, political conditions, social peculiarities and their effects; and finally of assimilation of the Jews as contrasted with Zionism. The book is quite a store-house of details on many of which it will be impossible to even touch in this review. It is remarkably free from bias. It is not as thorough and technical as might be desired by the professional scientist, particularly in history and in comparative anthropometric data, but is well adapted for the general intelligent reader. It contains much information which is not found presented together, or equally as well, in other sources, besides original data that are largely new. Some of the principal points which the author brings out are, first, the fact, already fairly well known in anthropology, but little or not at all outside of that science, that the uniformity of social conditions of the Jews is not equal to and not co-existent with a homogeneity of physical type in the various groups of that people. "Language, dress, deportment, manners, and customs, and even religion, are by no means sufficient to prove identity of origin, . . . and Renan's apt statement, 'Il n'y a pas un type juif, il y a des types juifs,' is confirmed by a careful study of the somatic traits of the Jews in various countries, and often by the study of the Jews in a single country." These physical differences are especially evident in the most important traits, such as the head form. "It is doubtful whether the most mixed of European nations, like the Italians or French, display any greater heterogeneity of cranial type than the Jews." These differences are due, in the main, to incorporation, by conversion and clandestine or open unions, of other racial elements. "The cranial type of the Jews in countries where they have lived for centuries coincides with the cranial types of the people around them. . . . Indeed, if the ancient Hebrews were long-headed as some are inclined to believe, then only those in countries where the non-Jewish population is of the same cranial type have remained unchanged in this regard; the bulk of the Jews in Europe have diverted from the original type, and are not at all of the race-type of the ancient Hebrews." The only plausible explanation of the physical differences existing today among the Jews is that "by intermixture with their non-Jewish neighbors they have slowly acquired the cranial types prevalent in the countries in which they have lived for a long time." The differences in stature, while in part possibly due to environment, are in the main also due to the same causes as the differences in the head form and in complexion, that is, to mixture with the racial elements among which the Jews live. The apparent uniformity of the cast of countenance among the Jews is explained by a prolonged action of uniform social environment. It is a social and not an anthropological facial type. Under different conditions and with the discarding of peculiarities in dress, etc., coupled with an assumption of personal habits of the people among whom they live, this facial type, as well seen in this country, changes rapidly, becoming less and less recognizable. On the whole, "there is no more justification for speaking of ethnic unity among the modern Jews, or of any Jewish Race, than there is justification to speak of ethnic unity of the Christians or Mohammedans, or of a Unitarian, Presbyterian, or Methodist race." Among other of the more important admixtures among the Jews, the author recognizes the Negroid one, which, in the reviewer's opinion, is a fact that has hitherto not received due attention. There are numerous interesting data on the increasing inter-marriages. of Jews with people of other faith, on the increase and decrease of Jews in different countries, on their vitality, low mortality, especially from tuberculosis, and on other conditions of medical and sociological interest, for which the reader must be referred to the original. The so-called "tenacity of life," of the Jew is shown to be the result of his habits and "can equally be achieved by people of any race by adopting their mode of life." Their small liability to consumption is remarkable, but evidence, particularly in the United States, shows that it is not a racial trait. As to the future of the Jews as such, the author expresses no great hope. Wherever state laws restricting their liberties and particularly |