(5) Zuñi, and (6) various pueblos of the Hopi. In each of the Keres villages Snake ceremonies have been performed, as above noted. So far as is known, no such performance is conducted at Zuñi; but among the Hopi, particularly at Walpi, the snakedance is renowned.

At Laguna the Snake-folk is known by the name Sqówiháno; at Acoma, Shqúwï-hánoqch; at Sia, Sqú-háno; at Cochití, Shrúhwi-hánuch; at Zuñi, Chítola-kwe, and among the Hopi, Chúa-wuñwi.

HAUSA LANGUAGE OF AFRICA.-In west Africa there is a written language-Hausa, with the Arabic alphabet-and the rudiments of a literature. This is taught in the Mohammedan schools, and letters pass from district to district, written by the merchants or the scribes of the kings and emirs. An association, called the Hausa Association, has been formed to promote the study of this language, which may be said to be the lingua franca from the shores of the Mediterranean to the gulf of Guinea. The Hausa student, Mr Robinson, who was sent by the association to study the language on the spot, has recently returned from the great Clapham junction of west Africa, the city of Kano and he has done most admirable work in compiling a dictionary and grammar of the language in spite of very great difficulties, which it took no ordinary amount of courage, resolution, and perseverance to overcome. I hope that before long he will give a public account of his work and its results. I have here a small pamphlet part of the Gospel of St Matthew-transcribed into Hausa.-F. D. Lugard in Scottish Geographical Magazine, December, 1895.

CLIFF DWELLER REMAINS.-The mummified remains of an Indian were recently discovered by Mr John McCarty, of Prescott, Arizona, in a walled-up cist in one of the cliff dwellings on Verde river, a dozen miles north of the mouth of the East Verde. The mummy was found in a sitting posture. Several broken earthenware vessels, a stone axe, and a dozen obsidian and flint arrowpoints accompanied the remains.

BOOK REVIEWS

Archeological Studies among the Ancient Cities of Mexico. By William H. Holmes, Curator, Department of Anthropology. Part I, Monuments of Yucatan. (Field Columbian Museum, publication 8, Anthropological series, Vol. i, No. 1. Chicago, 1895.) 8°, 137 pp., 18 pls., with 14 descriptive pages.

A new intellectual center has formed. For something over a generation the energy of Chicago was spent in accumulating wealth, the foundation for leisure and culture; two decades past the budding culture manifested itself in appreciation of the drama and then of music, the first and second mile-stones in intellectual progress among peoples; awakening to the beauties of painting and sculpture quickly followed in normal sequence, and the reading and accumulation of standard literature came after, so that a dozen years ago those who note psychic signs perceived that an intellectual sun was rising on the city by the saltless sea. At that time it would have been rash to predict a date for the dawn of a scientific culture, though the culture itself was presaged as the end of the series of stages passing up through the drama, music, painting, sculpture, literature; but soon after a great library came, then a noble university, and next, under the stimulus of an international exposition, a grand museum. and these institutions interact with spreading intelligence and make strongly for still better things. The scientific culture of Chicago is young but vigorous; already several important periodicals are issued, chiefly under the patronage of the university, and several noteworthy publications have emanated from the museum; and no better illustration of the excellence of the scientific work in this new center has appeared than is found in the recent monograph on the Monuments of Yucatan. The rapidly growing intellectual activity of Chicago must be a source of gratification to all thoughtful people, and the recent activity in research is a matter for congratulation in all scientific circles. When the Spaniards came to the new world few things impressed them more profoundly than the extent and splendor of the structures found in certain provinces; and the early descriptions of America were enriched with accounts, sometimes distorted and overdrawn but always attractive, of the temples and

roads of the Incas, the ancient cities of Yucatan, and the halls of the Montezumas. None of these accounts excited greater or more persistent interest than those of the ruins of Yucatan, and a long line of archeologists and explorers followed in the footsteps of the Spanish pioneers and have gradually corrected the early distortion and eliminated the early extravagance, and diffused definite knowledge concerning the ancient cities of Palenque and Chichen-Itza, Uxmal and Izamal, Tikul and Tuloom. The latest in this line of archeologists was Professor Holmes, who, under the auspices of the Field Columbian Museum and through the courtesy of Mr A. V. Armour, a patron of the Museum, examined several of the cities early in 1895. Many of the results of this examination are set forth in the elaborately illustrated monograph forming the first of the anthropological series of the Museum publications. The detailed descriptions are of special value by reason of the author's familiarity with aboriginal art and architecture and his training in perception and delineation, and the conclusions of special weight by reason of his experience in cognate researches and his clear recognition of genetic development among things artificial as among things natural.

Beginning with a summary of the expedition, Professor Holmes points out that a thousand years ago or more Yucatan was peopled by a peaceful and priest-led race, who built temples and palaces, rich in unique though barbarous sculptures, about the great cenotes or natural wells, but that the strength and unity of the people waned, so that many of their cities were ruined before the Spaniards appeared. Amid the ruins the conquerors found the Maya Indians, some 2,000,000 strong; they were of advanced culture, leading the North American tribes in language as in architecture, and having a fairly well developed system of hieroglyphics-indeed an age of literature was actually though slowly dawning when the shock of conquest came" (page 20); they possessed an elaborate calendar system of surprising accuracy, one of the notable products of their priestcraft; they were agricultural, and had mastered the textile and ceramic arts; and they engaged in commerce, navigating the seas as far at least as Cuba. Their most striking accomplishments were in the direction of architecture, and the author's summary of the architectural features of the ancient cities

carries the weight of generalization by a skilled observer. The ancient structures remain in surprising number and are often of colossal size, and the buildings are the more conspicuous because commonly erected on pyramids or terraced platforms. Most of those remaining were probably temples, some perhaps gymnasiums or ball-courts; they were not defensive, and seldom if ever mortuary. The relation of parts indicates a real architecture in accordance with predetermined plan, and argues the use of instruments of precision, though the structures of Yucatan are not so well oriented or grouped as those of other portions of Mexico. The material of the structures is chiefly the massive Tertiary limestone of which the peninsula is composed, with mortar and grout, and backings or heartings of earth; the stones used in facing are large, but not enormous as those used by the Incas and Montezumas, no single block weighing more than six or eight tons; and blocks and beams of wood were sometimes used in combination with stone. The structure is extravagantly massive, the cubic content of walls and partitions often exceeding the aggregate content of the rooms; and, in a typical case, if the substructure is taken into account, the mass of masonry is to the chamber space approximately as 40 to 1. The distinctive features of the Yucatec buildings are (1) massive hearting of earth, grout, or rubble, and (2) facing or veneering, usually with elaborately carved blocks, albeit of crude design, each block forming part of a figure or group, while in each wall the blocks are united in a mosaic of form. Words fail to give a clear notion of the work, for what definite conception is conveyed when it is stated that in a single continuous façade upward of twenty thousand stones were used, not only hewn of varied special shapes, but each sculptured to represent some individual part of a face, figure, or geometric design, and all fitted together with such skill as to give the effect of an unbroken whole?" (page 26). Stucco work and painting were combined with carving in the representation of subjects, chiefly sacerdotal, in glyphs and reliefs, with some statuary.

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The details of structure and ornamentation are illustrated in excellent photographs, admirably reproduced, as well as by the facile pencil of the artist-author. A feature of the work is the representation of cities in plan and juxtaposed birdseye panorama, from which the vegetation is omitted, so that relations may

be seen more clearly than on the ground save after continuous study; and those who know the skill of America's foremost delineator of geologic and archeologic landscape will appreciate, but not overestimate, his modest dismissal of them as the merest sketches." Although the work professes to be no more than an outline, it is done strong and clear.

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W J MCGEE.

Wand-Malereien von Mitla. Eine Mexikanische Bilderschrift in Fresko. Nach eigenen an Ort und Stelle aufgenommenen Zeichnungen herausgegebenen und erläutert. Von Dr E. Seler. A. Asher und Co. Berlin, 1895, 58 pp., 13 pls., fol.

The wonderful ruins of Mitla, in Central America, have been well described, with fair illustrations, by Charnay, Bandelier, and others, so that their general appearance is well known to archeologists. A detailed study, accompanied by careful excavations of the pyramids and "palaces," remains yet to be made. The mural paintings which once decorated the rooms have been lately figured by Professor Starr, of Chicago University, and are now reproduced in color in the beautifully printed memoir above mentioned.

One of the interesting novelties of Dr Seler's contribution is his attempt to identify the figures represented in these paintings, and to do this he brings to the interpretation a broad knowledge of Mexican pictography, based on field explorations and documentary studies.

The largest number of these mutilated frescoes represent a mythical personage, Quetzalcoatl, whose legendary history played such a prominent part in the mythologies of Mexico and Central America.

As pointed out by Dr Seler, these pictures resemble those of the Codex Borgia, from which likenesses he is led to an important conclusion that this beautiful codex must have originated not far from the place where the artist of the Mitla work derived his mythological inspiration. It is possible that both show the influence of a Nahua-speaking stock, but not necessarily those Nahuas a modified branch of whom in the valley of Mexico obtained such great political power and are ordinarily called Aztecs. This latter energetic branch developed the cult of Hutzilopochli to such an extent that it overtowered that of Quetzalcoatl, but