Page:Science vol. 5.djvu/228

 dacadence has been offered except the diminUhed at' t«adaDce at certain meetings. But Is this a proof ol decadence, or merely of Wreasing special iiatt on? No one complains of the decadence of science In and about lAmdon, 1 take it; and yet nothing aur- priBes an American iu London more than the smalt numhera he meeta at scienltflc societies, whose names are famous throughout the world. If 1 remember r^htly, I heard one of the most eminent philologists In Eoeland, Mr. AJexaoder J. Ellis, read bis inaugu- ral address as president of tb« Philological society, in 1872. before about twenty persons, and I attended a meeting of the Anthropological society, with Sir John Lubbock In the chair, and not wore than twenty-five present. When we consider that the most eminent popular lecturers on science, such as Tyndall and Tylor, lecture, or lectured in 1872, to popular audiences of only two hundred or three hun- dred, It is evident that at the British capital the test of numbers can hardly apply. Across the channel it is still worse. At the College de Prance, in 1878, I heard eminent men lecture to audiences of a, dozen, Although Charles Blanc told me triumphantly that he always had auditors standing up when he lectured on the history of art in a ball holding perhaps lifty. My experience of German lectures is limited, hut I was struck with the same thing there. Were I a man of science. It seems to me that I should advance the thesis that it is In the cruder period of scientific knowledge that it attracts lai^ numbers, and that the tendency of specialization is to give 'fit audience, though few.'

Then there is another view which is in the nature of an argumenlum ad homiaetn. Docs not the very existence of Science refute the lamentations of def- ence f It scientific activity is greater elsewhere than in Boston and Cambridge, how came your valuable periodical to be established here?

T. W. HlOOINSON.

Cumbridge, F*b. M.

[Specialization of work is an increasing necessity of science, but wherever it l>egeta absorption of in- terest, and this specialization of interest infects the whole body scientific, there science in any true sense will begin to show signs of decadence. It was not the small, but the decreasing attendance at Boston scien- tific meetings ; not the attendance only, but the char- acter of the communications made, — to which we drew attention.

As to the argumentum ad AominFm, Cambridge was taken as the place of publication of this journal, merely from the accident that It was the residence of the editor chosen to conduct it, — Editor.]

Madaillao'a 'Prehistoric America,'

In the ceviewof the American edition of Nadaiilnc's 'Prehistoric America' (Science, No, 108), there are two allusionscalcutated to produce a false impression, which it seems advisable to notice, as many of your readers may learn all they are ever likely to know of the book from your notice of it

It is staled that ' quotations and references are in- correctly given.' In any book containing several thousand references, errors are almost certain to oc- cur. Uaving, In the capacity of editor, to examine many of these references (for none of which I was responsible, as is explained in the preface), I liave a much better knowledge of their average accuracy than the casual reader can possibly obtain, and can assure those interested that the person to whom the verification was Intrusted performed that task in a way to which no reasonable exception can be taken ;

���aud the result is a considerable advance upon the original work, which, like most French books, wu defective in this respect. Certain blunders appear in the index, of which no proofs were submitted to me ; hut they are, so far as I know, of a character to cause no difficulty (o an investigator.

The second is a more delicate matter. There are many good per»}nB to whom any compariran of reli- gions which includes theirown is painful. For these, anthropologists do not write. It is, I acknowledge, a painful surprise that my endeavor to indicate the kernel of spirituality in a husk of barbarous rites by a reference to a strictly parallel case within our own ci^nizance, should give offence to any scienliBc mind. Had I known, however, that this would occur, I should not, even then, have omitted an obser- vation which is undeniably true, and which is neces. sary to a right understanding of a fundamental feature In the religions of Central America. My language was as follows : " It must be borne in mlnj, however, that the practice of cannibalism, in many cases was not a mere devotion to a diet of human flesh, but a rite or observance of a superstitious or religious character, not so far removed from the an- thtouomorphism which, in the middle ages, eluued for the chief Ciiristian rite the ■ real presence of bodj and blood ' of the victim sacriiiced for the welfare of the race." The InFerpnce of the reviewer, that one individual civilized Christian of our day {not to speak of half Cbristendoni) partakes of the eiiehorist with a, belief of mediaeval iiteralness, Is, in my opin- ion, a libel upon humanity, and carries its own refuta- tion. Such an individual, did he exist, would be no better than an Aztec, and entitled to no more consid- eration. Wu. H. Dall.

[In answer to the above, It may be said, 1°, that the statement in the editor's preface that 'moiii quotations have been veriSed,' is an admission that all were not, and that, if proof of this fact tie needed. It can be fouud in mistakes like those on pp- 4U. 61, 71, and 90, in which the accounts of the Bgurea there given are incorrectly onoted; 2°, that trsn- BubsIantlatioD is an essential article of faith in i church which numbers rather mure than half the Christian world ; and to assert that the sacrament of the eucharist as received by them is 'not so far re- moved ' from the cannibalistic rites of the Axtecs, ii an offence which Is only equalled by the inlimatioD that those who profess this belief In the actual pres- ence, do not really mean It. In conclusion, the re- viewer wishes once a^ln to say, that. In spile of certain defects, "this is the best book on prehistoric America that has yet been published," and he takes pleasure in adding that much of this excellence is unquestionably due to the Improvements made by the editor. — Keviewkr.]

Tbe photograph of a Dakota tornado.

A photograph of the Dakota tornado, a woodcut of which ap|>eared in No, ln7, Sciencf, was siibmlllud to me last November, when the ([uestion of admllling it in the New-Orleans eiLposition free of charge fur space, was under discussiou. The sharpness of out- Une. and the fact that It was claimed that the photo- graph was taken at a distance of twenty-six mile). made me doubt Its genuineness so much, that I sub- mltted It to two of the best out-door photographers connected with the government surveys- ItoUi pro- nounced it a manufactured photograph, most prob- ably taken from a crayon-drawiug. ■). W. Goox.

Chapel Bin, K.Ci Feb. 2a.

��� �