The legend of Atlantis, an island-continent lying in the Atlantic Ocean over against the Pillars of Hercules, which, after being long the seat of a powerful empire, was engulfed in the sea, has been made the basis of many extravagant speculations; and anew awakens keenest interest with the revolving centuries. The 12th of October 1892 has been proclaimed a World’s holiday, to celebrate its accomplished cycle of four centuries since Columbus set foot on the shores of the West. The voyage has been

The idea that the western hemisphere was known to the Old World, prior to the ever-memorable voyage of Columbus four centuries ago, has reproduced itself in varying phases, not only in the venerable Greek legend of the lost Atlantis; and the still vaguer myth of the Garden of the Hesperides on the far ocean horizon, the region of the setting sun; but in mediæval fancies and mythical epics. The Breton, in The Earthly Paradise of William Morris—       Spoke of gardens ever blossoming Across the we

The term “Stone Period” or “Stone Age” was suggested in the early years of the present century by the antiquaries of Denmark as the fitting designation of that primitive era in western Europe—with its corresponding stage among diverse peoples in widely severed regions and ages,—when the use of metals was unknown. That there was a period in the history of the human race, before its Tubal-cains, Vulcans, Vœlands, or other Smith-gods appeared, when man depended on stone, bone, ivory, shells, and wo

The department of American ethnology, notwithstanding its many indefatigable workers, is still to a large extent a virgin soil. The western hemisphere is rich in materials for ethnical study, but there is urgent demand for diligent labourers to rescue them for future use. On all hands we see ancient nations passing away. The prairie tribes are vanishing with the buffalo; the Flathead Indians of diverse types and stranger tongues; and, more interesting than either, the ingenious Haidahs of the Qu

The ingenious arts of the palæolithic cave-dwellers of the Vézère abundantly prove that it needed no wanderers from the cradlelands of Old World civilisation to that strange Atlantis lying in the engirdling ocean beyond the Pillars of Hercules, to engraft their artistic capacities on the “Achoriens” by whom it was peopled. The innate faculty for art has manifested itself in individuals and in nations, among widely diverse Assyrian, Egyptian, Hellenic, Arabian, and mediæval races, as in later Fra

  are seen in the universality of one series of names throughout the whole ancient and modern Aryan languages of Asia and Europe. But the Basque numerals bear little or no resemblance to either, unless such can be traced in the bi , “two,” and the sei , “six,” as in the assem , “ten” ( decem ), of the old Hochelaga, the ahsen of the later Wyandots. The ehun of the Basque has also its remote, and probably accidental resemblance; but the milla , “one thousand,” is certainly borrowed, and serves to

Four centuries have now completed their course since the discovery of America revealed to Europe an indigenous people, distinct in many respects from all the races of the Old World. There, as in the older historic areas, man is indeed seen in various stages: from the rudest condition of savage life, without any knowledge of metallurgy, and subsisting solely by the chase, to the comparatively civilised nations of Mexico, Central America, and Peru, familiar with some of the most important arts, sk

NEGRO BRAIN-WEIGHT   The influence of race on the volume, weight, disposition, and relative proportions of the different subdivisions of the human brain, and so of brain on the character of races, has thus far been very partially tested. But the diversities of race head-forms—brachycephalic, dolichocephalic, platycephalic, acrocephalic, etc.—are now well-recognised, though their relation to cerebral development still requires much research for its elucidation. The ancient Roman forehead, as illu

RATIO OF CUBICAL CAPACITY OF SKULLS OF DIFFERENT RACES   The tables of Dr. Morton and Dr. Davis furnish materials for drawing comparisons between diverse nations of the great European family; but though they are of value as contributions to the required means for ethnical comparison, they fall far short of determining the average cranial capacity of the different nationalities. Whilst, for example, the tabular data in the Thesaurus Craniorum show a mean internal capacity of 94 cubic inches for t

CRANIAL CAPACITY OF DISTINGUISHED MEN   Some of the examples adduced in the above table appear to exhibit instances of mental endowment of high character, without the corresponding degree of cranial, and consequently cerebral development. The following table exhibits recorded examples of a series of actual brain-weights of distinguished men. It seems to lend confirmation to the idea that great manifestation of mental endowment is correlated, in the majority of observed cases, to a brain above th

BRAIN-WEIGHTS OF DISTINGUISHED MEN   Dr. Thurnam, in producing fifteen of the above examples, remarks: “Altogether, they decidedly confirm the generally received view of the connection between size of brain and mental power and intelligence”; and he adds his conviction that if the examination of the brain in the upper ranks of society, and in men whose mental endowments are well known, were more generally available, further confirmation would be given to this conclusion. The converse, at least,

MAXIMUM BRAIN-WEIGHTS—ST. MARYLEBONE   The stature, or relative size of body, has already been referred to as an element in testing the comparative male and female weight of brain; and it is one which ought not to be overlooked in estimating the comparative size and weight of the brains of distinguished men. From my own recollections of Dr. Chalmers, who was of moderate stature, his head appeared proportionally large. The same was noticeable in the cases of Lord Jeffrey, Lord Macaulay, Sir James

AVERAGE WEIGHT OF THE BRAIN AT DIFFERENT AGES   In the female examples, amounting to thirty-one between seventy and eighty years of age, and six between eighty and ninety, the continuous diminution of brain-weight corresponds with the increasing age; but in the male examples, sixty-five cases between sixty and seventy years of age yield an average brain-weight of 46.1 oz., while twenty-seven cases between seventy and eighty years of age give 47.9 as the average; falling in the next decade to 43.

  The highest average of any nationality, as determined by Drs. Reid and Peacock from the weighing of 157 brains of male patients, chiefly Scottish Lowlanders, in the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, is little more than 50 oz., or 1417 grammes; whereas the estimated average brain-weight in the ancient British skulls is 54 oz. for the Dolichocephali of the Long Barrows, which equals that of Sir James Simpson, and exceeds all but six of the most distinguished men adduced in Table IV. For the Brachyce

CRANIA OF PACIFIC COAST TRIBES Santa Catalina Island, California. San Clementé Island, California. Santa Cruz Island, California. Santa Barbara Islands and Mainland.   Among exceptional features claimed as more or less a racial characteristic of American crania, the os Incæ , or epactal bone in the occiput, has been noted as present in various stages of manifestation in 3.81 per cent; and among ancient Peruvian crania in 6.08 per cent; while it does not apparently exceed 2.65 per cent in the Neg

LUCAE   In the following table the examples are derived from Dr. J. B. Davis’s tables, with the exception of the Peruvians. For these I have availed myself of Dr. Jeffreys Wyman’s careful observations on the large collection in the Peabody Museum, the results of which confirm Dr. Morton’s earlier data. One further fact, however, may be noted as a result of my own study of Peruvian crania, amply confirmed by the published observations of others, namely, that while the Peruvian head unquestionably

COMPARATIVE CEREBRAL CAPACITY OF RACES Looking for some definite results from the various data here produced, the deductions which they seem to suggest may be thus stated. While Professor Wyman justly remarks that the relative capacity of the skull, and consequently of the encephalon, is to be considered as an anatomical and not as a physiological characteristic, relative largeness of the brain is nevertheless one of the most distinguishing attributes of man. Ample cerebral development is the ge