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Abstract

BY “the American race,” Dr. Brinton means the aboriginal race of America, and in the present work he makes what he believes to be the first attempt to classify it systematically on the basis of language. Whether language is, as he contends, “the only basis on which the subdivision of the race should proceed,” is a question which needs rather fuller discussion than Dr. Brinton has devoted to it. It may, however, be admitted that in the study of the American aborigines, at the present stage of ethnographical science, no other test works so well upon the whole as the linguistic; and that the results attained by the use of it are interesting and instructive, whether they exactly correspond to racial distinctions, in the strict sense of the expression, or not. Dr. Brinton divides the American race into five great groups—the North Atlantic group, the North Pacific group, the Central group, the South Pacific group, and the South Atlantic group. Taking each of these in turn, he describes the various stocks included in them, paying attention especially to those portions of the continent about which ethnographers are least united. The facts are sometimes presented in a style unnecessarily dry; but the author has taken immense pains to arrange them clearly, and the work will be of genuine value to all who wish to know the substance of what has been found out about the indigenous Americans. We may note that Dr. Brinton does not agree with those who hold that the Red Men originated in America. On the other hand, he sees no reason to suppose that they came from Asia. His theory is, that they were an offshoot from the race which in the earliest times occupied Western Europe, and that they crossed from the one region to the other on a land-bridge. The former existence of this land-bridge he accepts chiefly on the evidence collected by various English geologists.

The American Race.

By Daniel G. Brinton. (New York: N. D. C. Hodges, 1891.)