Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 131.djvu/68

 the seacoast who live by fishing, afford a reason for diverging from the plan in force in the older provinces of Canada, and for adopting a more elastic rule in dealing with their several claims. It is to be hoped that a liberal policy will be agreed upon, and that the scandal of Indian wars which has so long afflicted the frontiers of the United States, and which have even within the last few months been productive of so great disasters, may be averted from the Pacific, as it has hitherto been avoided in the Atlantic and central provinces of the Dominion.

Meanwhile, the presence of the Earl of Dufferin in British Columbia, and his well-known interest in all that concerns the well-being of the Indian tribes, will exercise no unimportant influence over the local government, and will encourage those who regard this great question in a broader view than that presented by the merely temporary interest of a small community. It is in dealing with these and similar matters of more than local importance that the value of the influence of an English statesman, such as Lord Dufferin has proved himself to be, is likely to be felt; and if the result of his visit to British Columbia tends to a satisfactory settlement of the Indian difficulty, as well as the removal of some of the causes of friction between that distant province and the central government, he will have done much to further the true welfare of the Dominion, whose rule embraces so many nationalities with varying and often conflicting interests.

 

 From Nature.

July there met in the city of Nancy a congress of a somewhat novel kind which, at the time, did not attract very much attention, but which, during its four days' sitting, did a considerable amount of work of varied value. This was the International Congress of Americanists, organized by a society recently formed in France under the designation "La Société Americaine de France." The society itself appears to be French, though the congresses are intended to be international in their character, and among those who were members of the last congress (though not necessarily present) were many eminent men belonging to all parts of the world. Among English names we notice those of Dr. Birch, Mr. Charles Darwin, Mr. Franks, Sir John Lubbock, Mr. R. H. Major, Prof. Max Müller, Sir Henry Rawlinson, Sir Charles Trevelyan, Mr. Trübner, and others. Delegates from various countries were present at the congress, and although most of the papers were by Frenchmen, still a fair proportion were by foreigners, chiefly Americans and Scandinavians. Two thick octavo volumes contain the proceedings of the congress.

The object of this French society in holding these congresses is to contribute to the progress of ethnographical, linguistic, and historical studies relative to the two Americas, especially for the times anterior to Christopher Columbus, and to bring into connection with each other persons who are interested in these studies. The subscription is only twelve francs, and the council is composed of a certain proportion of French and of foreign members. The president of the Nancy congress was the Baron de Dumast, but at each of the four stances for the reading of papers he very gracefully called to the chair a distinguished foreign member to preside over the day's proceedings. During the congress an interesting exhibition of objects relating to American ethnography and antiquities was held.

The subjects with which the congress dealt were divided into three sections — History, Ethnography, and Linguistics and Palæography, though, as might be surmised, many of the papers bore on all these subjects. Though the subjects were thus divided, the congress met as one body each day.

Such as international congress as this, it will be admitted, might do great service to science. The ethnography and prehistoric archaeology of America are of the highest importance; they are a prime factor in the great problem of the world's ethnography. If, then, an international American congress were based on well-defined principles, and if its work were conducted in accordance with the universally recognized rules of scientific method, it might give a powerful impulse to the progress of American ethnology in particular, and to ethnography in general. We shall briefly endeavor to give the reader an idea of the value of the contents of the two volumes before us.

Among the first papers is one of considerable length, by M. E. Beauvois, the purpose of which is to prove that the 