of right and left motive power are bilateral and symmetrical and functionally parallel. Embryologically, they are equal, and pathological cases prove that when one becomes diseased the other can readily take up its functions.'

If all this is so, why the decided and general preference for the right hand and side, a preference which we have seen has existed in the majority of mankind from earliest times, though not always in the same degree?

The real reason has been suggested, but, so far as I know, not fully expressed, nor traced to its final source. This source I take to be the erect posture of the human species. The anthropoids and other primates closest to man are ambidextrous, displaying no preference for either hand. But the erect posture introduces a new distribution of force in the economy; it opposes the powerful retardation of gravity to the distribution of the arterial blood above the level of the heart. The great arteries arising from the aorta carry the blood by an appreciably shorter course and in less time to the left brain than to the right. Its nutrition, therefore, is the more abundant and its vitality the more active of the two hemispheres. Hence the right side of the body, which it controls, is more ready to respond to a stimulus on account of its higher innervation."

The difference of the two hemispheres while thus computable is not sufficient in the majority of cases to induce right-handedness without educational influence; but even in savage conditions this would be moderately exerted. In such conditions we should expect and we appear to find that the specialization of the hands is less than in civilized culture-stages. As to the obstinate left-handedness still present in two or three per cent of our population, it is in part undoubtedly hereditary and in part is probably due to some anomaly of the arterial distribution.

1 W. Preyer: Zur Psychologie des Schreibens, pp. 38-45, Hamburg, 1895.

2 I am aware that Dr Buchanan has referred to the erect posture in this connection, but not in the bearing which I assign it (see Sir Daniel Wilson, op cit., p. 198), and also that Virchow has laid considerable stress on the arterial supply to the left brain, but not attributing the difference to the erect posture (see his remarks in the Verhandlungen of the Berlin Anthropological Society, Bd. V, s. 34).

BOOK REVIEWS

The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought. By Alexander Francis Chamberlain, M. A., Ph. D. New York, Macmillan & Co., 1896. 8°, x, 464 pp. This well printed volume is, as the author states, an elaboration and amplification of a series of lectures delivered by him at Clark University on "The Child in Folk-Thought," and in its twenty-three chapters is traced "the child and what he has done, or is said to have done, in all ages and among all races of men."

The student of child life, as well as the student of folk-lore, cannot fail to find suggestive material in this extensive collection, for there is no quarter of the globe that the painstaking author has not drawn on for the doings and sayings of the little ones, and from the remote past the child has been evoked, with all the freshness of infancy still upon him.

In the opening chapter the author sets forth his task: "to treat of the child from a point of view hitherto entirely neglected; to exhibit what the world owes to childhood and the motherhood and the fatherhood which it occasions; to indicate the position of the child in the march of civilization among the various races of men, and to estimate the influence which the child-idea and its accompaniments have had upon sociology, mythology, religion, language; for the touch of the child is upon them all, and the debt of humanity to the little children has not yet been told." To follow in detail every branch of his subject as laid down by the author would not be possible within the limits of his volume, so we are told that "the history of the child in human society and of the human ideas and institutions which have sprung from its consideration can have here only a beginning."

Many phases of the subject are, however, presented, and, as these are heralded by apt quotations from poet and sage of every age and nationality, one recognizes that the theme is not a new one; nevertheless, the study of the child as a factor in the development of the family and of human society is recent and is the outcome of the theory of evolution.

The author opens the subject of his book with the lore of motherhood, under the title of "The child's tribute to the

mother." He takes the name mother and traces it through various lands and tongues, showing the general similarity in its etymology. The wide influence of the Mother is then shown, as indicated by customs and verbal expressions, under the headings of "Mother-right," "Alma Mater," "Mother's son," "Mother wit," Mother tongue," "Mother earth," "Mother night," dawn, days, sun, moon, fire, water, etc., and "Mother God."

Father-lore is treated in the same manner, and is followed by a chapter on "The name child." In the pages that follow, the author brings together many curious bits of folk-lore, grouping them under the headings of "The child in the primitive laboratory," "Children's food, souls, their relations to plants, to animals," etc.

Beneath many of the quaint tales and customs related by the auther one can discern a memory of past usages and see the ideas that dominate the undeveloped mind. In the chapter "The child as a judge," we note that the child reflects in his games "the severity of ancient criminal law;" and, again, how his plays may be instrumental in bringing about important results in mature life, as related on page 289: "Maximus of Tyre tells us that the children had their laws and tribunals; condemnation. extended to the forfeiture of toys. Cato the younger, according to Plutarch, had his detestation of tyranny first awakened by the punishment inflicted on a playmate by such a tribunal. One of the younger boys had been sentenced to imprisonment; the doom was duly carried into effect; but Cato, moved by his cries, rescued him."

Under the head of “Children's ideas of right," the author gives the results obtained from an investigation of three thousand boys and girls from six to sixteen years of age, results which indicate that the judgments formed by these children are similar to those which are known to obtain in primitive society, namely: "When they [the children] appear cruel and resentful, we know that they are exercising what they honestly consider the right of Young children judge of actions by their results; older ones look at the motives which prompt them. If a young child disobeys a command and no bad result follows, he doesn't see that he has done wrong."

revenge.

The collocations under the captions of "The child as hero, as fetich, as shaman, as deity," as well as the 432 proverbs and sayings, furnish rich and varied material for the student.

The value of this work is greatly enhanced by the admirable system of indexing adopted by the author. There are three indices the first gives the authorities cited; the second, the peoples, tribes, languages, etc.; the third, the subjects treated. The proverbs also are indexed as to origin, authority, etc. Twentyeight pages are devoted to a well arranged bibliography of 549 authorities, grouped under three divisions, each with a subindex. The type, paper, and excellent workmanship make it a pleasure to use this interesting and suggestive book.

ALICE C. FLETCHER.

Names and their Histories Alphabetically Arranged as a Handbook of Historical Geography and Topographical Nomenclature. By Isaac Taylor. London, Rivington, Percival & Co., 1896, vii, 392 pp., 12°.

For the analytical study of geographic names there is no better manual than Isaac Taylor's "Names and their Histories," 1895. The investigation of local names has always been a specialty of the author, who lives in northern England, where so many different races and tribes have left their historical impress on the nomenclature of the country. The manual forms the "appendices" to the volume above mentioned, and of this the main part is a dictionary of a large number of geographic names of rivers, towns, cities, and mountains in all parts of the world. The topics treated in the "appendices," pages 303 to 390, cover seven chapters, embracing Turkish nomenclature, Magyar names, Slavonic nomenclature, French village names, German nomenclature, and English village names.

The historic and linguistic lore contained in the first part of the book, pages 1 to 302, forms a treasure of information on the nomenclature of all parts of the globe, Asia and Europe being best represented. Even the western hemisphere is frequently mentioned, especially the names derived from Algonquian and Tupi or Guarani radices; and of Oceanica there is also a good sprinkling. Wherever names could be traced to other forms of orthography, these forms are added, for they explain the mystery of the origin of the queerest and oddest appellations in a wonderful manner. Thus Kirby is "church village," traceable through Kirke-by; Exhall, "church slope," through the Saxon Eccles-hale; Eversholt, the "boars' wood," through Evers' hot; Woolley, the "wolf field," through the ancient form, Wolfe-lay. A. S. GATSCHET.

NOTES AND NEWS

DR KEANE'S REPLY TO DR BRINTON'S REVIEW.-In his notice of my Ethnology in the Anthropologist for March, Dr Brinton states that this work "is scarcely more than an expansion of " his Races and Peoples, " pursuing the same plan, treating the same subjects in nearly the same order, and in various portions advancing as his own the opinions set forth by "his book. "Mr Keane borrows the term Eurafrican' from that work without acknowledgment, and claims as his own the theory of the origin of the race in northwest Africa, which is expressed by the word." This is a heavy indictment, involving a direct charge of wholesale plagiarism of the very worst type. Let me assure your readers that the charge is absolutely baseless, and put forward, I know not why, in incredibly reckless language. I have never seen Dr Brinton's book since its appearance, over five years ago. I give a flat denial to the statement about "the same plan," "treatment," "order," etc., and I declare positively that I have not borrowed, directly or indirectly, a single passage, line, or word from that book. Least of all have I borrowed the term "Eurafrican," which I have myself used for years, but never in Dr Brinton's sense, which I regard as highly objectionable. For him Eurafrican represents the highest type, which I still call by the old-fashioned name of "Caucasic," faute de mieux; for me an Eurafrican is a mulatto; but in the Ethnology I nowhere use the word in an ethnical, but only in a geological sense, the "later (Miocene) Eurafrican continent" (page 230); nor do I claim as my own or at all Dr Brinton's "theory," which "is expressed by the word." I locate my Homo Caucasicus, not in "northwest Africa," but in "the whole area from the Mediterranean to Sudan," and in the place where this passage occurs (page 392) I reject Dr Brinton's in favor of Professor Jastrow's view on one aspect of this very question. Really I must ask Dr Brinton promptly to withdraw this

charge

A. H. KEANE.

79 Broadhurst Gardens, S. Hampstead, N. W., London, March 17, 1896.

AMONG THE NEW COURSES to be offered at the University of Wisconsin are those on anthropology and ethnology and on social philosophy, by Professor Raymond.