Genre:

Regular Feature, Review

Publications reviewed:

Van Gelder 1885 Jefferies 1885

Subjects:

Archaeology, Prehistory, Ethnology, Heterodoxy, Futurism, Anthropology, Science Fiction

    Praises ironically the so-called 'discovery' made by Jane Van Gelder that the pyramids of Egypt were built by the Patriarch Joseph as granaries, and that 'Moses landed on the western coast of North America, where he founded the Mexican Empire' [cf. HM1/9/3/2]. The 'mere human science' practised by the respected Egyptologists George Perrot, Charles Chipiez and Auguste E Mariette cannot compete with the sensation induced by these 'wondrous discoveries' (803), although in the end the 'sensation is painful'. Finds little to praise in the dystopian vision of the future presented in Richard Jefferies's new book, and suggests instead that 'a more plausible vision of future semi-savagery might be revealed, we think, to Mr. E. B. Tylor if he cared to sport with ethnological romance'. (804)