oy their number words that they appear to prefer finger
pantomime instead, thus giving rise to the impression which at one time
became current, that they had no numerals at all for ordinary counting.

Aside from the specific examples already given, a considerable number of
sweeping generalizations may be made, tending to show how rudimentary the
number sense may be in aboriginal life. Scores of the native dialects of
Australia and South America have been found containing number systems but
little more extensive than those alluded to above. The negro tribes of
Africa give the same testimony, as do many of the native races of Central
America, Mexico, and the Pacific coast of the United States and Canada, the
northern part of Siberia, Greenland, Labrador, and the arctic archipelago.
In speaking of the Eskimos of Point Barrow, Murdoch[46] says: "It was not
easy to obtain any accurate information about the numeral system of these
people, since in ordinary conversation they are not in the habit of
specifying any numbers above five." Counting is often carried higher than
this among certain of these northern tribes, but, save for occasional
examples, it is limited at best. Dr. Franz Boas, who has travelled
extensively among the Eskimos, and whose observations are always of the
most accurate nature, once told the author that he never met an Eskimo who
could count above 15. Their numerals actually do extend much higher; and a
stray numeral of Danish origin is now and then met with, showing that the
more intelligent among them are able to comprehend numbers of much greater
magnitude than this. But as Dr. Boas was engaged in active work among them
for three years, we may conclude that the Eskimo has an arithmetic but
little more extended than that which sufficed for the Australians and the
forest tribes of Brazil. Early Russian explorers among the northern tribes
of Siberia noticed the same difficulty in ordinary, every-day reckoning
among the natives. At first thought we might, then, state it as a general
law that those races which are lowest in the scale of civilization, have
the feeblest number sense also; or in other words, the least possible power
of grasping the abstract idea of number.

But to this law there are many and important exceptions. The concurrent
testimony of explorers seems to be that savage races possess, in the great
majority of cases, the ability to count at least as high as 10. This limit
is often extended to