REVIEWS.
The Mystery of Easter Island, by Mrs. Scoresby Routledge. London, 1919. Pp. xxi, 404.
This book gives a popular account of the results of the expedition of Mr. and Mrs. Routledge to Easter Island, of which a more detailed record is to follow. Much of the book deals with the voyage of the Mana to the island whose mystery it was the object of the expedition to discover. This part of the book is full of entertaining matter with occasional items of anthropological interest, especially in the account of Pitcairn Island, but it is the part dealing with Easter Island itself in which the readers of Folk-Lore will be especially interested.
It may be stated at once that while the work of the expedition has gone far to dispel the cloud of mystery which has hung around the island, it has at the same time brought to light new mysteries as great as that presented by the monuments of stone. This result has come from the work which fell especially to the lot of Mrs. Routledge, who has succeeded in opening up new ground in a field where the prospects seemed far from bright when the expedition started.
The book contributes greatly to our knowledge of the statues of Easter Island. We now know where the stone was quarried and how it was sculptured, though the mode of transport of the statues to their final sites still remains obscure. The excavation of images which had been almost completely buried has given us much new knowledge concerning their nature and their relation to other features of culture. It is of especial importance to learn that the monuments are of two distinct kinds. Those covered by the mass of tufa representing a hat were erected on
