Scientific Serials

Abstract

Revue a'Anthropologie, troisième série, tome iv., cinquième fasc. (Paris, 1889).—A chart of the colour of the eyes and hair in France, by M. Topinard. The author explains at length the methods he has adopted in elaborating the great mass of materials supplied him by the 2000 collaborators, at home and abroad, who responded to his appeal when, in 1886, at the suggestion of Dr. Beddoe, he undertook to examine the relations between the colour of the hair and the eyes among different peoples. In this chart of the general distribution of the blonde and the brunette types in the several departments of France, the variations between the extremes of these elements are clearly indicated by various shades from white to black. We are thus able at a glance to observe that while France generally admits of being divided into two great zones, the one occupying the north-east and the other the south-west of the French territories, each includes one or more departments in which an opposite type crops up. In most instances this anomaly may be accounted for by the early history of the invasions and foreign settlements to which France was subjected before its various parts were welded together. Thus it appears that the blonde races entered both by land from he Low Countries on the east, and by sea from Belgium, the Franks and Burgundians having invaded the country on one side, while Franks, Saxons, Normans, and Britons advanced on the opposite side. Similarly, men of the brunette type entered France on one hand from the Ligurian coasts of the Mediterranean, and on the other from Iberia. A curious fact is mentioned by M. Topinard—that, while the blonde races followed the left bank of the Rhone valley, the dark races advanced along ths Bay of Biscay as far as the Vendée, where the two came into contact, the latter being soon repulsed, and forced to follow the course of the Loire as far as Blois. By a comparison of the various tables it appears that some departments show a predominance of one colour in relation to the eyes, and an opposite one in regard to the hair. There is, however, only one department which can be classed as being blonde in relation to the hair and brunette in regard to the eyes. This, and various other anomalies, presenting great interest from an ethnological point of view, have been considered by M. Topinard with his usual ability, and although he treats only of the relative distribution of colour in the eyes and hair among the French people, his paper is a model for similar investigations, and worthy the gratitude of all ethnological inquirers.—Kashgaria, and the passes of Tian-Shan, by Dr. N. Seeland. In this concluding number of his contributions to our scanty knowledge of this part of Turkestan, the writer describes his visit to the city of Aksou, lying on a plain 3500 feet above the level of the sea, and not far from the River Aksou-Daria.—The Stone Age in Italy, by M. P. Castelfranco. This is a concise, yet comprehensive, description of the human and other osseous remains, and of the various objects found in the Palæolithic stations of Italy in recent years, giving all necessary details concerning the times of discovery, and the character of the several caves and stations where they occurred. As yet there is no evidence of the existence of man in Italy in the Tertiary age; his appearance there being apparently not earlier than the close of the Quaternary, and contemporaneous with Ursus spelœus. The period of the Cave-dwellers must, however, have coexisted with certain phases of civilization, since, in Liguria more especially, jade arms are found blended with bone and stone weapons and other implements in the graves of these Italian Troglodytes, whose remains closely resemble those of the Cro Magnou men. Thus far, the finds in Italy, which the author describes at great length, do not admit of being referred with any exactitude to the successive periods of the Palæolithic Age recognized elsewhere. The value of M. Castelfranco's treatise is increased by an appen dix of bibliographic notices, which will be found of great use to the English reader.