The International Geography. By Seventy Authors. Edited by Hugh Robert
Mill, D.Sc. (Macmillan and Co. 15s.)—Our notice of this book must be purely descriptive, for reasons which a short account of its construction and contents will make sufficiently evident. Part I., consisting of ten chapters, deals with "Prin- ciples of Geography." In the first the editor lays down his plan: his book, he says, "is neither a gazetteer nor an encyclo- paedia, but is intended to give a readable account of the character of all countries in language which is neither technical nor childish." Among the chapters are "Land Forms," by the editor; "The Ocean," by Sir John Murray and the editor ; and "The Distribution of Mankind," by Dr. A. H. Keane. Dr. Keane emphatically pronounces for the theory that mankind is "a distinct zoological genus," though he does not bind himself to the hypothesis of a single pair. The "Pliocene Precursor" he finds represented by human remains discovered in Java. The skull "holds a position about midway between those of the chimpanzee and the Neanderthal." This, anyhow, takes us back to a very remote past. Progress was slow ; Pleisto- cene man was not much beyond Pliocene. The "culture zones" are to be found in North temperate regions. The divisions as they now exist are: (1) Ethiopic (Western, or African ; Eastern, or Australasian) ; (2) Mongolic (yellow); (3) American (red) ; (4) Caueasic (white); the total population being estimated at 1,507 millions, divided according to the order given above thus : 175, 540, 22, and 770. Part II. contains "Continents and Countries," divided into seven books : Europe, Asia, Australasia, North America, Central and South America, Africa, Polar regions. This part contains, exclusive of the index, nine hundred and thirty pages, of which fifty-nine are assigned to the United Kingdom, thirty-nine to India, thirty-one to Canada, &c., and sixty-four to the United States.
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