Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/218

 2o8 Reviews.

investigations of the late Professor Fillmore and Miss Fletcher into the harmonic structure of the music of the North American tribes were probably published too recently to enable the author to take advantage of them, or he would, I think, have modified his observations on savage music. Speaking generally, indeed, the progress of research on customs, institutions, beliefs, and other subjects of folklore has been so rapid of late years, that it is no marvel the author is not posted up in the latest presentations of fact and argument. All this part of the book would be improved by careful revision. And I protest against the assertion : "Legends, traditional tales, proverbs, &c., are simplified myths, with the poetic element predominating. The study of them forms a special branch of ethnology called folklore." Such language might have been used in 1877 : it is out of date in 1900.

The value of the book, however, Ues on the physical side. The careful account of somatic and physiological characters, the dis- cussion of the classification of races and peoples, the description, general though it be, of the various races, the tables containing the materials on which the author's conclusions on different points are based, will all be thoroughly appreciated by inquirers. The illustrations have been selected with great judgement, and most of them have come out well. The maps and some of the groups are on too small a scale.

E. Sidney Hartland.