arthritides, but we have not found any chemotherapeutic action against trypanosomes or spirochaetes. A di-mercury compound of saligenin has been prepared by refluxing saligenin with 2 mols. of mercuric acetate in dilute alcohol on a water bath for several hours. The sodium salt of this is water soluble and is an excellent antiseptic, about as good as HgCl, but 1:1000 solutions are non-irritating to mucous membranes, and are being used successfully in the treatment of gonorrheal urethritis. An acetate of this substance has also been prepared.

The occurrence of diastase in the sweet potato in relation to the production of sweet potato sirup: H. C. GORE. In the production of sweet potato sirup the potatoes are cooked until soft, crushed finely and mixed with 2 parts of water. Three per cent. of ground barley malt is then added, and the mixture digested at 60°-65° C. for from 20 minutes to one hour. During the time nearly all of the starch is changed into maltose and dextrin. Separation of the soluble solids from the insoluble pulp is easily made by use of the rack and cloth type of press or by suction filtration; and the wort is then evaporated into sirup. The yield of sirup is at least 30 per cent. of the weight of potatoes taken. The pulp remaining amounts to 5 per cent. of the weight of potatoes, and may be dried and used for feed. The crude sirup can be used for all cooking purposes for which similar sirups are employed.

Polyneuritis as influenced by the amount of protein and carbohydrate present: A. D. EMMETT.

The acid-base balance in animal nutrition. IV. The tolerance of rabbits to acid rations over long periods of time: A. R. LAMB. Rations complete from the standpoint of nutrition and as nearly as possible of proper physical character for rabbits were so planned from combinations of oats, alfalfa meal, casein and normal sulfuric acid solution, as to furnish a slight excess of acid-forming mineral elements. This excess of acid in the ration was equivalent to about 3 to 5 cc. normal acid solution per rabbit per day. On this ration several rabbits have made normal growth, and one female which has received the ration for eleven months has reproduced successfully, and her progeny have made their entire growth to maturity on the same ration. Most of the acid is excreted normally as phosphates. The ammonia production in the second generation, however, is increased from an average of 0.5 per cent. of the total urinary nitrogen to an average of 2.0 per cent. on the same

ration, a possible adaptation to the abnormal acid character of the ration. This work is being continued.

Further studies on the effect of a deficiency of fat-soluble vitamine: V. E. NELSON and ALVIN R. LAMB. Rabbits fed upon a ration of casein, dextrin, salts, wheat embryo and extracted alfalfa, containing practically no fat-soluble vitamine but otherwise complete, invariably develop xerophthalmia. The time of the onset of this symptom varies directly with the age of the rabbit and occurs in young rabbits in four to eight weeks time. A ration consisting of oats, gelatin, salts and extracted alfalfa produced from three to eight weeks before the death of the rabbit. At tempts to induce the disease in the eyes of rats on the same ration by inoculating with the exudate from the eyes of affected rabbits did not succeed. It has not yet been possible to produce the disease in chickens or guinea pigs.

The hydrogen ion concentration of the contents of the small intestine: J. F. MCCLENDON. Deter minations were made on two healthy men about 25 years of age on a mixed diet and the following readings obtained: Subject No. 1, pH=5.1, 4.5, 4.9, 4.1, 4.2, 6.5, average 4.9; subject no. 2, pH= 4.5, 5.2, 4.4, 6.2, 6.4, 5.9, average 5.4. The determinations were made by passing a rubber tube, 1.5 mm. bore with 6 gram weight attached through the mouth until it extended 7 feet into the alimentary canal. The tube was allowed to remain in place 5 days and 4 nights while the subjects followed their accustomed occupations. The contents passed out of the tube into a hydrogen electrode vessel. The electrode was made of gold, plated with irridium and was totally immersed in the sample when the readings were taken. CHARLES L. PARSONS, Secretary (To be continued)

THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL PROBLEMS OF THE FAR EAST1

THE white man is quite liable to forget that the Far East is a very great part of the world; that it is, in fact, a more populous and greater world than his, and one which has perhaps quite as many and important problems of its own. But it is difficult to realize these things unless the student actually visits the Far East, and by Far East I mean the entire eastern half or rather two thirds of the Asiatic continent with the adjacent oceans. Once you enter these territories you are in a vast human beehive; you see on all sides of you peoples of interest; peoples who must have their history, their antiquity; peoples who must have many problems the solution of which is connected with and would be of value to the rest of the world. When, as an anthropologist, you have been in these regions for a length of time, you begin to see a light, very dim at first, which shows you these problems, so far as our own field is concerned, are divisible into two large classes: into the more comprehensive ones, which involve very large groups of humanity and the large questions, and into the more particular problems, which are proper to the different individual ethnic groups that occupy those territories.

I shall speak first of all of some of the more individual problems, but it may as well be stated at once that with these or the larger problems I shall not be able to do more than to present mere outlines for your contemplation; more thorough definitions and the answers to the problems are matters for the future.

It will be handiest to take up the particular questions geographically, and begin with the north or rather the northeast. And here we

1 Lecture delivered before the 548th meeting of the Anthropological Society of Washington, October 19, 1920.

encounter first a fairly large group of people who present physical and other features that in many respects ally them closely with the American Eskimo. They are the Chukchee and related tribes. Those who have seen living representatives of these people, or only their portraits, and who at the same time know our Eskimo, could not but have been struck forcibly with not merely the close resemblance, but the physiognomic and general physical identity of the two groups. But what is the real connection between them we do not know. It would of course be easy to jump over the bridge and say that both people sprang from the same stock, but that would be an opinion, not a demonstration. We know that in early historic times the Asiatic "Eskimo" traveled over the Behring Straits on to the St. Lawrence Island and probably to the American side of the straits; and we also know that some Eskimo from this side traveled in the opposite direction, but that does not yet establish their identity. A good deal of creditable work has been done on the Chukchee by Russian scientists, but the actual determination of the main facts is still in abeyance and the whole constitutes one of the attractive problems of anthropology for the future.

Another interesting ethnic group in the Far East about which we know but little, even less than about the Siberian "Eskimo," are the natives of Kamchatka. They are not so much like the Eskimo, although we find amongst them individuals who approach Eskimo physiognomy more or less; but one may perceive among them again and again the physiognomy or an approach to the physiognomy of the American Indian. Recently a Swedish expedition with, as reported, ample means and intending to stay in the field for at least two years, has proceeded to the peninsula with the object of studying the people as thoroughly as possible; but the group should be and will probably have to be studied as well by Americans who are well acquainted with the Indian.

As we proceed farther south we come to another interesting group of people now

almost extinct, which however to this day presents its problem to anthropology, and these are the Aino. It is often supposed that the Aino are native to little more than the island of Yezo in Japan, but that is an incorrect localization. They occupy to this day parts of the Kuriles Islands and Saghalien, and they occupied in early historic and prehistoric times the entire Japanese archipelago, excepting perhaps the southernmost portions. Here are people who differ considerably in their physique from both the Chukchee and the more Indian-like people of the Kamchatka peninsula. They evidently have in them a considerable mixture of white blood; in addition to which they unquestionably have also a proportion of yellow-brown, the stock which now prevails over all these regions. It is known that they occupied the Japanese archipelago before the Japanese reached that country, though they may not have been there very long: and there are some indications that their inflow into Japan may have been from the north. But all this is still problematical, together with their influence on the actual Japanese, and calls for further investigation.

Another interesting group or rather conglomerate of people in the north of the Far East, are the Tunghuz. These can no more be regarded as a single tribe. They embrace, from the physical standpoint at least, people of decided differences. The Tunghuz of the south are unlike the Tunghuz of the north. The southern Tunghuz, or at least certain groups of them, resemble the American Indian so much that the student can not but be struck most forcibly by the fact. It is such a resemblance, in color, physiognomy and all features of the body, that we can not but feel there must be here an identity of stock, and a unity in perhaps not a very far distant past. These tribes are now in their decline, and they are crying for a thorough investigation from every anthropological standpoint. True, there are some Russian accounts of them, but they are only partial, insufficient. It would seem self-evident that in a case of such important disappearing people we should have casts as well as plenty of photographs and

measurements in order to preserve the characteristics of the group to science and history, for in another generation or two they will be completely mixed up and extinct. They are going rapidly like many of our American tribes and unless promptly studied we shall before many years long in vain for satisfactory records. Here is a problem which calls for immediate attention, a problem of much more than a local or even only Asiatic interest, something indispensable to American anthropology; and one remembers with pity the recent resolutions relating to the problems of the Pacific made at the Congress of Hawaii, among which questions like this were wholly forgotten.

A little farther south, we come to still another interesting and important group, in the process too of becoming anthropologically spoiled by amalgamation-the Mongolians. The term "Mongol" applied to many of the Asiatic peoples is of course a misnomer, much as when we call all white people Caucasian or "Aryan." The Mongolian people who extend over a large region to the south of Lake Baikal, and admixture with whom is very evident in some parts of China, are, like the Koriaks and the Tunghuz, remarkable for the frequent occurrences among them of types that resemble, and at times resemble to the point of identity, the American Indian. Besides this, you will find among the Mongolians not a few indications of admixture with white people. You will find, especially in the western part of the territory, individuals with blue eyes and brown hair and white skin. And in southern Mongolia the people have become mixed with other branches of the yellow-browns that do not so much resemble the American Indian. Here surely is a stock that calls for investigation, not merely physically but also linguistically and in other directions. They speak five chief dialects or languages; they sing songs that are purely Indian in sound and character, and they do many things like the Indian. One night, being absorbed in my work, and hearing a Mongolian pass, singing as he went, I just simply became confused; it seemed I must be some

where in America amongst the Indian tribes. Whether the words were alike I do not know, but the sounds were identical. They are like the Indians in many habits-for instance, you will find piles of rocks in the mountain passes accumulated through ages by the traveling Mongols, precisely as you may see in parts of our Sierras where they have been piled up by the Indians; and they do exactly as the Indian does when he reaches the summit of the pass-they take up a pebble, offer a short prayer, spit on the stone, pass it over their legs, return thanks that they have reached the summit, and pray that they may reach the end of their journey in good strength and safety. This is exactly what the Pueblo Indian does in our southwest, or the Peruvian Indian in the Andes. And this is but one instance out of many such resemblances between the Mongolian and the American Indian. They extend to personal and even religious observances, notwithstanding the fact that the Mongols have long been converted to Lamaism, one of the most exacting and intolerant of religions. So here again there is a series of problems which urgently calls for investigation, and they are problems connecting directly with the American, and hence calling for the student well acquainted with the American Indian.

We come now to the more cultured and better known groups of the Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, Indo-Chinese, Burmese, Hindu, etc., and every one of these groups teems with problems that need investigation.

Take Japan for instance. To this day the origin of the Japanese people is in considerable haze. It is supposed that their main line of ancestors, in all probability of mixed Tunghuz derivation, came about 1,000 years B.C. or a little over, from somewhere in eastern or northeastern Manchuria, and very likely also southeastern Siberia. But it is also perceptible in Japan, especially among the female children, that there has been some infusion of an Eskimo-like type. In all probability the "Tunghuz" carried with them some elements of the Asiatic Eskimo. You may find little girls in the streets of Tokyo

to-day who have perfect Eskimo features, and you will find this feature occasionally in the adults as well. The Japanese know it, but whether they are not willing to admit it, or simply have not pronounced themselves upon this point, they have never offered any explanation. It seems that the invading stream was derived from a large part of the northeastern region, that after passing around or through Korea they reached the main island of Japan, settled then by the Aino, and that possessing better military art and weapons, they prevailed over the Aino partly by uniting with them and absorbing them, and partly by destruction. The Aino have survived only in the north, and to-day not only are they few in number but it is practically impossible to find a full-blood among them. But this was by no means all of the origin of the Japanese. Before even the Aino came, there apparently was in the southern portion of the islands a neolithic population. The Japanese collections contain now some skeletal remains of these people, and these show that even then there was already a diversity, though the general type is that of a yellow-brown people, who must have penetrated into southern Japan at that time from Korea or the continent. And there is another element, not traceable so far historically, that apparently came from the south. Whether it came from Formosa, or from the Chinese coast or even from the Philippine Islands is not known, but some facts would point to the Philippines rather than to Formosa. This southern element is responsible for bringing into Japan certain cultural features, and physically a few traces of the Negrito. To this day you will find Japanese rarely yet occasionally-who bear physical traces of negrito admixture. They are it seems ashamed of it. The Japanese anthropologists are aware of the fact, but it has received no further attention. In addition there was a more important influx of Chinese and Koreans, and also since early in historical times there was a slight influence of whites. Just what part these different elements played in the building up of the Japanese people remains to be determined. Also,

there are still many old mounds and sites in Japan that demand careful exploration. The Japanese anthropologists are slowly working in these directions, but they must necessarily lack the perspective that could be brought to the field by the American student. For this and other reasons it would be better if scientists from this continent as well as from other parts of the world would participate in the work.

The Koreans too, present a field for much further research. Though yellow-browns, they are a distinct people from both the Japanese and Chinese. They resemble greatly some of the more western Russian Tartars. The Japanese in general, for political reasons, are rather anxious to convince the Koreans as well as others, that the Koreans are the same as themselves, but the scientific observer sees readily substantial differences, at least as large as are those between the Koreans and Chinese.

In China itself there are still many problems for anthropological investigation. In the first place is the origin of the great Chinese people, counting to-day between three and four hundred million individuals. We know that their ancestors came from somewhere in the northwest; that they mixed with people already in the country, the so-called wild tribes and others; that later they impinged upon and perhaps mixed slightly with the Negritos of the south. But none of this is as yet fully cleared or established, and there are many other questions. There are in southwestern China groups some of whom are not yellow-brown but rather Indonesian or of Hindu derivation, much nearer to white people than the Chinese. We find also considerable physical and other differences be tween the Chinese of the north and the Chinese of the south. These remain to be investigated. There are large districts where there are remains in the nature of mounds, or burial caves, or sites, which have hardly yet been touched. Also there are unknown tribes in the western mountains. Some of these tribes have been mentioned by explorers, but none have been investigated anthropo