History of the New World Called America. By Edward John
Payne. (Clarendon Press. 14s.)—Mr. Payne's continuation of his work on America shows all the thoroughness and all the width of learning which characterised the first volume. In this necessarily hasty notice we can but briefly indicate the lines of his argument. He discusses the question, whence did the American aborigines come ? From Asia, he thinks, for he denies that they were autochthonous, on the ground that the animal genera out of which man is evolved are not to be found in the new or the fossil America. Then, at what time did they come ? At a very early date, for they seem to have been affected by the great cosmic changes of which science tells us. Then follows an elaborate discussion of the origin of language, the conclusions arrived at being applied to the special subject of American ethnology. From this Mr. Payne passes to the problems of the advancement in the arts, knowledge, &c., of the American races. Was this advancement original or imported P Arithmetic, reckoning of time, whether lunar or solar, are among the topics discussed. Then the spread of man over the New World is inquired into, and its chief races come under review, from the Esquireaux to the Aztecs and the people of Peru. Mr. Payne, in his passion for economising space, has dispensed with division into chapters. This is distinctly trying to a reader.
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