might with propriety be called in question by their successors, and the transfer of the War Office from the late representative of the City to the present representative of the University is not likely to be without weight in the councils of the Government. At any rate, should Mr. Hardy decide to maintain the policy of his predecessor, it is probable that even the opponents of the measure will accept his decision with submission; for it is reasonable to suppose that nothing short of military necessity will induce him to override the almost unanimous wishes of his resident constituents. T.

THE CHARLES KNIGHT MEMORIAL FUND.

IN your last week's issue I see mention is made of the "Charles Knight Memorial Fund," with an allusion to the closing of the list of subscribers. So far back as March, last year, the honorary secretary (the late Mr. Shirley Brooks) issued a circular, inviting the co-operation of personal friends for the promotion of the above object. In the following July an advertisement appeared in the Times, with a goodly list of names as a committee, seeking subscriptions. Since then till now, when in your columns of last week the closing of the list of subscribers is hinted at, nothing whatever, so far as I know, has been heard of the scheme; and until the general public have been appealed to by advertisements and paragraphs through the press, it is surely premature to think of closing the subscription list. If it were brought prominently before the public at large, I feel assured many would cheerfully contribute towards a memento to one who, in his lifetime, did so much for cheap and pure literature. Praiseworthy as the individual efforts of friends may be, I think the cause demands, and the proper end can only be attained by, such an appeal as I have suggested.

N.

THE SHAPIRA COLLECTION.
Jerusalem, March 30, 1874.

I THINK that I have amply shown, in my second letter on the pseudo-Moabite pottery (Athenæum, March 7, 1874), that we may consider the method of defence set up by the principal culprit as equivalent to a confession, and that to the bundle of proofs already published I might add the avowal, so to speak, of the accused. Selim, not calculating the force of the weapon he was wielding, has struck himself.

I only return to the subject to open the eyes of those persons who are not yet shaken in their sanguine convictions. These persons admit two things:

1. That Selim, the principal agent, has imprudently lied in accusing me of a stupid machination. 2. That, nevertheless, he has not fabricated the pottery picked up on his own indications.

We may ask, first, how to explain Selim's lie, perfectly useless to himself. As he did not hesitate before this invention, we must hold him morally capable of a material as well as a verbal imposture. But, it may be argued, "there is a great difference between moral possibility and material execution. We grant that Selim has given the measure of his sincerity by the absurd accusation which he raised against you. He is, further, a fellow whom we have ourselves always mistrusted. Still, it is absolutely impossible to conceive that an Arab should have invented these figures and vases covered with Moabite inscriptions."*

I have heard this objection made and repeated by many persons here, who attached great importance to it, and said that if Selim was really the author of these objects he ought to be the first professor in the world, and that the poor devil has neither the necessary talents nor the knowledge to devise and execute a whole collection of ceramic art and a corpus of inscriptions.

* My own opinion is, that Selim fashioned the objects and made the inscriptions, and that he only had recourse to the potters for the preparation and baking of the vases. I have

never been tempted, for my own part, to address the potters

to see if I could obtain anything similar to those said to have come from Moab. If any attempt has been made in this direction, I am a stranger to it, knowing beforehand that it would be useless.

First of all, I call attention to the rudeness of the things, from the artistic point of view. One does not require to be a great sculptor to fashion these infantine figures, in which their most ardent partisans, like Mr. Dunbar Heath, can only praise the "style and type of grotesque uncouthness all their own." Moreover, the inscriptions with which they are covered, in "Moabite characters," are untranslatable save by some savants more courageous than fortunate, to whom we owe versions, entirely contradictory, of a small number of these texts.

This premised, I go on to prove that Selim knows how to draw well enough, and that he has a sufficient knowledge of the Moabite character to be the author of the pottery. He is a painter by trade, and daubs canvas with religious subjects for Greek pilgrims.

Here, for instance, is a fac-simile drawing, made by his own hand, under my eyes, and in my house, five years ago, when he first

entered

with me about the Moabite into negotiations

stone. It is a sketch drawn from memory, and representing a statue of Lot's wife, which he pretended to have

seen three or four hours' distance from Dhiban, on the shores of the Dead Sea. A woman bears a child on her shoulder in Arab fashion; in the right hand she holds a jar. On this scrap of paper my portfolios are, besides, tremely simple, and the coma study of a camel, exmencement of my own portrait (!).

that I have exhumed from

Certainly, I do not say that Selim's chef-d'œuvre would have the same success as my friend Holman Hunt's 'Shadow of Death,' if exhibited in Bond Street; but it proves that he

understands drawing well enough to model those "Moabite" statues, which would not be out of their place among the gingerbread figures at a fair.

So much for the artistic side. Pass now to the inscriptions. In my first pamphlet on the Moabite stone (1870), I mentioned, among other things which aided me in restoring the mutilated text, a copy of several lines of the inscription executed by an Arab of the city, who had seen the original before its destruction. This Arab was Selim el Gari.

In fact, towards the end of 1869, I received from him, then in the land of Moab, through M. Bergheim, a copy containing three lines in Moabite character, with a sketch of the stone, its dimensions, and certain words in Arabic, of which the following is a translation :-"This is only one line of the lines, of which there are forty. It is among the ruins of.... (word effaced). It is five palms long, and three broad."

The name of Dhiban had been purposely obliterated; I do not know by whom, or why. But as my attention had been some time before called to this monument, it was not difficult for me to the name effaced. guess

Later on, Selim returned to Jerusalem, came to . me, and gave me a copy of a much larger part of the inscription (lines 13-20) of which, before, he had only sent me a part.

This copy, made from left to right, and with no indications of lines, was accurate enough to be of considerable use. I verified it by aid of my squeezes and fragments, and it served to correct many of my readings. It will be given among other materials in the definitive treatise which I propose to publish on the Moabite Stone when I have time and the means.

Meanwhile, here is the photographic reproduction of the first copy which M. Bergheim handed to me open, the identity of which he can, if necessary, certify.

The characters which represent lines 13, 14, and 15, are copied with exactness, sufficient to permit one to recognize the Moabite letters.

them is perfectly capable of drawing those which The practised and adroit hand which traced cover the trans-Jordanic pottery.

More than this, the document shows us remarkable similarities in the pseudo-Moabite pottery, similarities of a personal character, which reveal the same individuality.

For instance, all the mims (m) in the monument of Mesha are invariably drawn in the same style, five zigzag strokes, the fifth of which has a long tail. Now Selim's copies, made from the original, show us the mim, several times drawn in a variation of form essentially peculiar to Selim, and not existing at all in the original.

Very well, this arbitrary form is found again in the inscriptions of the Shapira Collection.

Unfortunately, I have not with me copies of the suspected inscriptions to multiply these instructive resemblances; but I am so convinced that others might be made, that I shall not hesitate to extract from Selim's two copies all the characters interpreted by him after his own fashion, and differing from the original. And I doubt not that we shall thus discover the origin of the characteristic variants, so extremely improbable, of the incriminated texts.

To sum up neglecting all the proofs which I have collected in any preceding reports, setting aside the decisive conclusions drawn from the critical character of the inscriptions, we may henceforth consider it established about the man,—

1. That he has no scruples of conscience. 2. That he is artistically capable of executing such rude pottery as that of the Shapira Collection.

3. That he is familiar with the Moabite letters,

having had occasion to copy a great number of them (250) from an original monument.

4. That on the pseudo-Moabite inscriptions is found one, and perhaps more than one, letter, in a curious form which does not exist on the monument of Mesha, but which does exist in Selim's own copies of this monument.

The idea of fabricating imitations of antiquity, and especially of important monuments, the discovery of which has produced a sensation in Europe, is an idea which naturally arises in the fertile brain of an Arab, always in search of some new method of turning to advantage Western curiosity.

The monument of Mesha has called forth a

whole generation of Moabite pottery, which increases and multiplies in astonishing proportions. In the same way, a "find" that I had the good fortune to make, the stone from the Temple of Jerusalem, has suggested an analogous combination to persons engaged in this special industry. I join to this report the photograph of a false "Stone from the Temple," engraved on stone with a care and patience worthy of a better fate. I have the happiness of possessing this precious specimen of Jerusalem cunning. There is no

Here is a piece of work a good deal harder than the kneading of a little clay. It is a tour de force which, although it failed, seems at first more improbable than the exploits of Selim. It was, like Selim's work, executed by the same man whom I had employed about the original. This genius tried to sell the false stone to several amateurs in the city, and would perhaps have succeeded, if I had not, being warned by a squeeze sent to me at Constantinople, given the alarm at Jerusalem. It was a pity; for the potter, Selim, would have had in the stone-cutters, Messrs. **** & Co., a redoubtable rival; and the mason's chisel would, perhaps, in the end, have triumphed over the potter's tool in a contest where European credulity was the stake.

The failure of this attempt depended on the forger's desire to make an inscription capable of translation, a point where all archæological forgeries fail. That is the reason why the Moabite pots, offspring of a prudent sire, are mute. They are

entrenched in their character as incapable of translation for fear of crying their imposture aloud in opening their mouths.

The forger of the "Stone from the Temple" understood that, but too late. It is, perhaps, due to this change of sentiment that a great block, reputed to be from Siloam, has appeared. It is covered with Greek characters like that of the pretended “atone,” but having no signification at all. The ruse succeeded, and the enigmatic inscription, having piqued the curiosity of a worthy and learned man, was bought by him. I could quote many examples of this kind, which throw a new light on the manufacture of "antiques," &c., for exportation which goes on at Jerusalem. Many a time since my first arrival here have I been offered copies of inscriptions notoriously false. Sometimes simplicity went so far as to ask specimens of the character which I should expect to find: a little more and I should be able to command my inscriptions.

puted on all occasions that I had some bad motive for misrepresentation. I only want to be right, and when (as here) it is shown that I am wrong, I will admit it at once, and thank my corrector.

How I came to state that Nash's letter was addressed to Sir Robert Cotton, instead of to Mr. William Cotton, I cannot, at this distance of time, attempt to explain; but it is just possible that, looking for the address, I turned over two leaves instead of one, and at the back of it saw Sir Robert Cotton's name. This is mere matter of conjecture, because, from the day I discovered Nash's letter to the present hour, I have never seen it. The words "fever lurden" are interlined, and, as Mr. B. Nicholson points out, I made an error in reading furder, instead of "lurden." In my note, written and printed in 1831, I state that it was "difficult to be decyphered," and I had not, as Mr. B. Nicholson had, the advantage of Borde's 'Breviarie' to assist me.

I pointed out to Sir Henry Ellis, in 1831, the cruel manner in which the volume of letters was suffering, owing to the shortness of the binding, and since that date it seems that the top of the letter N in the signature, then just visible, has been entirely worn away. J. PAYNE COLLIER.

"ZADKIEL."

A MONTH ago, on the 5th ultimo, Commander Richard James Morrison, of the Royal Navy, known in his day, among his intimates, as a Hebrew scholar as well as a mathematician and an astronomer, died quite unexpectedly. At the time of his death he could have been very little short of eighty years of age. With all his unquestionable ability (and he was a man who had collected together, during the course of his long life, a curious store of old-world learning), he was chiefly remarkable for his devotion, during fifty years and upwards, to the study of the pseudoscience of astrology. Every year since 1830that is, for a period of forty-four years consecutively he had, under the tolerably notorious signature of Zadkiel Tao-Sze, brought out his little sixpenny pamphlet, known far and wide among the credulous as Zadkiel's Almanac. It sold annually by tens of thousands, running up sometimes to an imprint of 100,000 and 200,000 copies, and it whole generation a moderate competence. Apart from Zadkiel's Almanac, Capt. Morrison was known among modern believers in astrology-for it is idle to blink the fact that there are such

secured to him for more than the lifetime of a

people as the author of the 'Handbook of Astrology,' of the 'Grammar of Astrology,' of Lilly's Introduction to Astrology,' and of "The Horoscope.' He wrote, besides these, for several years, in succession, the Astronomical Ephemeris,' a remarkable little book, entitled 'Astronomy in a

WE shall next week publish a most interesting letter of Keats, by the kind permission of the possessor, Mr. Addington.

A LIFE of David Friedrich Strauss, by Prof. Zeller, his friend from early youth to his death, is announced as nearly ready.

WE greatly regret to hear of the death of Mr. Mowbray Morris, in his fifty-fifth year. Mr. Morris, who was born in Jamaica, studied ́at Cambridge, and was subsequently called to the Bar. In 1847 he became connected with the Times as a contributor, and shortly afterwards he was appointed manager of that journal. For a few years past he had been in failing health, and some time ago he found himself compelled to retire from the post he had held for a quarter of a century. Mr. Morris possessed a singularly clear intellect, cultivated taste, and a kindly vein of humour, which served him in good stead in directing the complicated affairs of a great paper.

Mr. Gardner, of Paisley, announces the complete Poetical Works of Robert Tannahill, with topographical and biographical notes by Mr. D. Semple. It will be ready in June.

'A HISTORY of the Royal Company of Archers, the Queen's Body-Guard for Scotland,' is nearly ready for press. The collection of materials for the work has been going on for years, and from the many noble names associated with the Body, the work ought to be one of more than local interest. It is intended to form a complete history of the rise and progress of archery in Scotland, and is written by Mr. J. Balfour Paul, a member of the Royal Company of Archers. Messrs. Blackwood will publish the work.

THE Report of the Council of the Camden Society, read at the General Meeting on the 2nd of May, stated that the Society had to regret the deaths of Mr. J. G. Nichols, one of the original founders of the Society, and of Mr. A. Way, the editor of the Promptorium Parvulorum,' as well as of D. Benham, Esq., P. H. Fisher, Esq., F. Gwatkin, Esq., J. R. Scott

recently been offered, for ten francs, the very seal of "David, servant of Jehovah," engraved in hard stone in Hebrew-Phoenician letters, a little fantastic but quite legible. And some time ago I was offered a stone covered with characters newly cut, something between Hebrew and Himyaritic! I expect soon to have the tables of the Law and the yellow Phoenician book containing the correspondence of

Hiram and Solomon.

C. CLERMONT GANNEAU.

NASH'S LETTER TO COTTON.

Maidenhead, April 27, 1874.

I AM much obliged to Mr. B. Nicholson for pointing out, in so quiet a manner, my error, or errors, respecting Nash's supposed letter to Sir Robert Cotton, to which I first called attention in my' History of Our English Stage,' I. 303. It is forty-three years since that work was published, and during the interval I have written and printed so much in illustration of our old language and literature, that, although I have been generally very careful, I am sure I must have made many blunders. All I ask, is to be treated fairly when they are pointed out, as fairly as Mr. B. Nicholson is disposed to treat me; and not to have it im

ten large geometrical engravings-a treatise setting the whole Newtonian scheme of the heavens openly at defiance-a nine-shilling octavo, flagrantly entitled 'The Solar System as it Is and not as it is Represented.'

Capt. Morrison, otherwise "Zadkiel," passed through the world with the reputation, among the many, of a charlatan, but among a select few, of a clever and accomplished man, whose preference

for odd studies amounted to something very like a distinct hallucination. Eleven years ago "Zadkiel," then Lieut. Morrison, R.N., brought an action, in the Court of Queen's Bench, against Admiral Sir Edward Belcher, for having libelled him, by denouncing him as an impostor. The case was tried before the present Lord Chief Justice, Mr. Serjeant Ballantine being the counsel for the defendant, and the late Mr. Serjeant (afterwards Mr. Justice) Shee, the counsel for the plaintiff. According to the Times' report of the proceedings, "various persons of rank" appeared in the witnessbox and gave evidence, all of them on behalf of the plaintiff; among them the late Lord Lytton, the Earl of Wilton, Lady Harry Vane, and Lady Egerton of Tatton. After a careful summing-up of this evidence by Sir Alexander Cockburn, the

The Society has, by the kindness of Mr. Thoms, the executor of the late Mr. Bruce, been put in possession of a collection of papers left in an unfinished state by its late Director. Of these, the most nearly complete series is composed of documents relating to the dispute between Cromwell and the Earl of Manchester in 1644, for which the greater part of the Preface is already written, and for which Prof. Masson has consented to add such introductory matter as may still be found necessary. Besides, there are a few papers relating to the Star Chamber sentence upon Prynne, to which a fragment of the biography of Prynne There is also a may serve as a preface. collection of State Papers relating chiefly to the marriage of Charles I. and the early years of the reign of that King, with an historical fragment on that period.

GENERAL DI CESNOLA is prosecuting, as we have already mentioned, further researches in Cyprus. In the neighbourhood of Salamis he has found several sculptures of the Græco

through these tanks by means of special machinery and vulcanite piping (metal has to be avoided n order to prevent contamination), which had to be made expressly in England, as were also the glass plates which form the inner sides of the tanks. At the present moment, in the first tank on the left, as one enters, is a mass of brilliant orange-colour, some four feet in area, which, on closer inspection, is seen to be formed by a group of stoney corals, each polyp nearly half an inch in diameter, and fully expanding its circle of tentacles to the current. These corals, which are similar to those building the coral reefs and islands of tropical seas, do not occur in northern latitudes, and cannot be seen nearer home than the Mediterranean. The next tank has an assemblage of longtentacled anemones, closely packed side by side, and forming a group of wonderfully graceful form and rich colour. Further on we come to some large Mediterranean Wrasse, which of all fish have, perhaps, the finest display of colour, and with these are, at this moment, several specimens of the Sepia, the cuttle-bone cuttle-fish. This is a common animal at Naples, and is largely eaten, but has not yet been seen in English or German aquaria. Somehow the Sepia manages to suggest to one that he is a small marine elephant, his head having somewhat the shape familiar in that wise beast, and his arms being carried like the elephant's trunk. He swims altogether differently from the mode adopted by Octopus, a near relative, who is to be seen in great numbers in some of the tanks, and often of great size. The Octopus, when he loosens his hold of the glass or rock (over which he can crawl very nimbly by means of his huge sucker-bearing arms), swims backwards by opening and shutting the parachute-like membrane surrounding his mouth, formed by membrane stretching between each of his eight arms. Sepia quietly swims along by means of a pair of long translucent fins, which undulate regularly on each side of the body.

In the Calamaries, which are to be seen in another tank, this long marginal fin is extended greatly on each side, so as to form a pair of wings, with which the creature moves through the water, much in the same way as a heron or heavy-flying bird slowly flaps its way along in the air. The Calamaries are very delicate animals, nearly a foot long, and almost transparent. They are almost rod-like in proportions, and though the two large eyes point out the head, yet since the calamary moves with as much precision backwards as he does forward, and seems to have no preference in the matter, visitors to the Aquarium often mistake his head for his tail. Occasionally the Sepias have been seen to throw out their "ink" and blacken the whole of their tank for a few minutes, but in half-anhour the colouring matter is all carried away by the stream. Dog-fish are, of course, abundant, as in other aquaria, and we are expecting some of the rarer sharks. The electric Ray is seen loafing at the bottom of several of the larger tanks, but his virtues are not duly appreciated by visitors. It is intended to place one of these fish in a small open reservoir, so that those who wish may "take a shock," an experience which is really not painful, provided that the Ray be a small specimen or a little out of sorts. The large tanks on the right contain some gigantic Star-fishes and Sea-cucumbers, and many very large specimens of an Umbrella Jelly-fish (Rhizostoma). It is not a little curious to watch the small fish, like a John Dory, but not more than three inches long, who is the constant companion and inhabitant of these large Jelly-fish. The little fish may be seen swimming by the side of his friend, and will then suddenly make a bolt under the skirts of the Jelly-fish, and be seen through the transparent substance of its bodywalls. Frequently the little fish remains in his strange abode for hours together, and is, of course, captured with the Jelly-fish.

Our big Frog-fish, which was one of the ornaments of the Aquarium, on account of his diabolical countenance, is dead, but another will shortly succeed to the vacant place. In the smaller tanks, the delicate 66 pelagic" forms, those perfectly trans

parent glass-like animals which swim on the surface of the sea, are daily renewed when weather permits; and at present there are some really lovely things of this kind to be seen here which could nowhere else be exhibited, since the Naples Aquarium is the only one which can draw supplies from a warm sea. The Cestum Veneris is one of the most striking of these transparent organisms, being a band of perfectly glass-like consistency nearly a yard in length, undulating like a snake, and slowly moving through the water by means of two rows of large vibrating fringes, which glisten with all the colours of the rainbow. Some of these are brought in nearly every day by the fishermen, and hundreds of the long chains of transparent Salpæ, not to speak of Beroes, as big as lemons. Glass-shrimps, inhabiting the transparent_little tubs known as Doliolum, and sometimes a Leptocephalus, a true vertebrate fish, of which one at first sees only the black eyes, all the rest of its body being absolutely as clear and invisible as a piece of glass, a really ideal ghost of a fish.

In some of the small tanks are living specimens of the Red Coral of commerce, looking, to my mind, far more beautiful with the delicate feather-heads of the polyps set on the red matrix than when scraped and polished. The Sea-pens are also numerous, and of most brilliant tints and fantastic form. Then for the geologist there is a group of some forty or more Lamp-shells (Terebratula vitrea), very near to the species found in the chalk-beds of England, but here living in their quiet and unobtrusive way. One sees clearly how it is that the Brachiopods have kept their place so long in the Fauna of the world, ever since the early Cambrian slates were deposited.

I cannot take more of your space to describe the richly-coloured Nudibranchs, which are everywhere creeping about the stones and sides of the tanks, the various species of crabs and lobsterlike animals, the sea-horses, tube-worms, and most graceful barnacles. It is time to say something of the arrangements made for the prosecution of zoological researches in other parts of the building. Upstairs is a large laboratory with a series of tanks and work-tables. Twelve zoologists can be accommodated here. Besides this there are several separate rooms, each provided with tanks and work-tables, and these are already in use. The tables are let to various foreign Governments for the use of their Universities, and Cambridge has also hired one for three years. In spite of efforts made there, and an application to every college and to the chief officers of the University, Oxford has not as yet condescended to patronize the Naples Laboratory. It is desirable that your readers should be made acquainted with the kind of work which is at present going on in the Laboratory, because an application is about to be made to English scientific men to assist in clearing off the fraction of the expense of construction which still remains as a debt, and because, possibly, there are other people in the same child-like state of mind as that of an Oxford Fellow, who, after expounding to me his views on the subject of hermaphroditism (of which I need scarcely say he knew nothing), exclaimed, "Now do you really think that so trivial a subject as marine zoology is one which a college should encourage by pecuniary assistance?"

Most of the work which is being done in the Laboratory relates to the history of the development of animals. Since the general adoption of the Theory of Descent, it has become, above all things, necessary to make out the minutest details in the growth of the egg to the perfect form; for by knowing this in detail we are enabled to infer the stages of development in past ages of the ancestors of living species. Accordingly, naturalists now harden with various re-agents, then cut into thin slices, and then scrutinize most carefully with the highest powers of the microscope, the stages of development of all possible organisms, and are gaining the most minute knowledge of the mode of development of the various species studied. At present, one naturalist at the Zoological Station, a German, is studying the Tubularia and its develop

ment in the most detailed manner, by the most delicate methods of section known to microscopists. Another Russian gentleman is occupied with the reproductive organs of the remarkable worm Sipunculus. A second Russian will study the development of the Polyzoa. An English naturalist from Cambridge is daily receiving the eggs of Sharks and Dog-fishes, and, by laborious methods, determining every detail of their long series of changes before emerging from the egg. Another Cambridge man is experimenting on the nervous system of Cuttle-fishes; whilst your Correspondent is slicing the eggs of the same animals, and endeavouring to determine how its various organs take their origin, in order to compare them with the same processes in other Molluscs. Similar methods are being applied to the eggs of various crabs by a third Russian observer; whilst an eminent Professor from Jena has been thoroughly exploring the microscopic anatomy of Amphioxus and the Ascidians. The Professor of Zoology from Vienna is expected in a few days to take possession of a work-table, and another Professor from Holland has also announced his intention of coming soon. Embryology is, however, not the only study which is being prosecuted; an Italian gentleman is very busy in one of the rooms of the Laboratory in determining the different species of Crustacea found in the Bay, and we are much hoping that some of the English faunistic naturalists will come and make use of the dredging apparatus, boats, and fishermen attached to the institution, in order to get this kind of work well started.

The Library of the Zoological Laboratory is one of its most valuable features. It contains a nearly complete set of embryological works, all the zoological journals, German, English, and French, besides the most valuable illustrated works, many of which have been presented by the publishers. The Royal Society and the Zoological Society of London have been most munificent in the presentation of series of their publications, and other presentations are expected.

To come to a conclusion, the Zoological Station or Observatory of Naples is a great success. If the travelling public only once take it in favour (and all who have visited the Aquarium are simply enthusiastic), it will flourish most vigorously, and become a really powerful engine of scientific progress. With increased revenue, there are endless fields of increased activity for La Stazione Zoologica; if sufficiently nourished, she may become the mother-institution of zoological laboratories in all parts of the globe. E. RAY LANKESTER.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL NOTES.

HOWEVER much opinions may be divided as to the age and use of Stonehenge and the other megalithic monuments of this country,—whether we believe, as anthropologists, in their prehistoric antiquity, or give them, with Mr. Fergusson, a post-Roman date, there can be but one opinion as to the desirability of checking the destruction of such remains, and of preserving them, as far as possible, for the study of future investigators. It is, therefore, to be deeply regretted that the effort which Sir John Lubbock has recently been making to secure legislative protection for such monuments should have been unsuccessful. His bill, which was thrown out by a considerable majority, had been prepared with great care, and received the approval of a number of learned Societies interested in such questions. Only a year or two ago, a portion of Abury, "the grandest monument of the kind in this country, perhaps in the world," was actually sold for building purposes, and would, probably, have been destroyed, had not Sir John promptly interposed and purchased the property at his own expense.

It was in 1858 that some quarrymen unexpectedly broke into a virgin cavern in a hill of Devonian_limestone overlooking the little fishingtown of Brixham, near Torquay, and thus discovered what has since become famous as the "Brixham Cave." At the suggestion of the late

Dr. Falconer, the cavern was systematically explored by a Committee of the Geological Society of London, under the personal superintendence of Mr. Pengelly, and aided by a local committee. The expenses of the work were chiefly defrayed by grants from the Royal Society. The general Report of the Exploration Committee, drawn up by Mr. Prestwich, has been published in the last part of the Philosophical Transactions. No fewer than 1,621 bones have been found in the Brixham Cave, but of this number only about 930 belonged to the old cave-animals proper; most of these have been determined by Prof. Busk, who contributes to the Report a valuable account of his researches. These researches have added the grisly bear to the previously-known cave-fauna. Among the flints found in the cave, fifteen show unmistakable evidence of having been artificially worked, and these are described in the Report by Mr. John | Evans. Although the existence of man during the cave-period is fully established by the evidence brought to light in the Brixham Cave, the human relics are, nevertheless, so few and so widely scattered that it may be doubted whether this cavern was ever regularly tenanted by man.

An account of some cavern-researches in Poland has been recently published by Herr J. Sawisza. One of the caves, discovered last year, near Wierszchow, has been named the "Mammoth Cave," in allusion to the number of bones of Elephas primigenius which it has yielded. Nearly 2,000 implements have been found in this cavern, the material in which they are wrought having been obtained from siliceous nodules in the neighbouring oolitic rocks.

It is well known that rude engravings of the Mammoth have been discovered on fragments of bone and horn from some of the French caverns and rock-shelters. In the last number of Cartailhac's Matériaux, M. Louis Lartet describes and figures some interesting specimens of a similar character, found in the collection of his father, and believed to be referable to some of the rockshelters of Perigord. One of the specimens is a thin plate of bone, polished on both faces, and bearing on each side an incised outline of the forepart of an elephant, probably, the mammoth. The engraving, though rude, is sufficiently faithful to suggest the idea that our prehistoric artist must have seen the creature alive. M. Lartet's other specimen is a bone bearing a complete representation of an animal, believed to be the Glutton, the bones of this species having been found in some of the stations of the reindeer period.

A Report of the Proceedings of the Fourth General Meeting of the German Society for Anthropology, Ethnology, and Prehistoric Archæology, has recently been published, from shorthand notes, edited by Dr. A. von Frantzius. The presidential address, by Prof. Schaafhausen, of Bonn, was, for the most part, a justification of the title of the Society, showing how the special departments of ethnology and prehistoric archæology throw light upon those studies which may more strictly be called anthropological.

At this meeting an interesting discussion took place on the celebrated Neanderthal skull. Prof. Virchow, of Berlin, maintained that the form of the skull had been modified by disease, and that the Neanderthal man had suffered from a kind of cave-gout (Höhlengicht), a disease which was common to some of the cave-animals, and had left its mark upon many of their bones. On the other hand, Prof. Schaafhausen denied that the skull had been affected in its shape by disease, and held that it presented a normal form, though indicating a low type.

Some valuable observations on Microcephaly in Switzerland are recorded by Dr. Aeby, of Berne, in the last number of the Archiv für Anthropologie. The case of Marie Sophie Wyss, of Hendelbank, is well known to anthropologists through Carl Vogt's description, published in her lifetime. She died a short time ago, at the age of seventeen. In the present paper, Dr. Aeby, after giving further particulars of her life, describes the dissection which he conducted, and presents engravings of the skull.

The fresh brain weighed 317 grammes. The capacity of the cranial cavity in the fresh state was carefully determined by filling it with water; representing the cubic contents of the normal skull of a female by 100, the contents of this microcephalic skull will stand as low as 28.9. The other examples cited by Dr. Aeby include the first recorded instance of microcephalic twins. The last number of Bastian and Hartmann's Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, which is the organ of the Berlin Anthropological Society, is rich in papers on African subjects. The opening article is on West African Fetish-worship. Herr Endemann, a missionary, contributes a valuable paper on the Sotho-Negroes of South Africa; whilst Dr. Hildebrandt publishes a table of measurements of East-African tribes taken at Zanzibar.

An admirable Report on the Anthropology of Algeria, drawn up by General Faidherbe and Dr. Paul Topinard, has appeared in the Bulletins of the Anthropological Society of Paris, and has also been issued as a separate brochure. The Report was presented to the Society in the name of the Committee appointed to furnish instructions to travellers about to enter on anthropological researches in the North of Africa. In the first part of this Report, General Faidherbe supplies a sketch of the various ethnic elements which have contributed to form the Algerian population. In the second part, forming by far the larger portion of the Report, Dr. Topinard not only gives a capital résumé of our knowledge of these races, with copious references to original authorities, but also offers suggestions which may be of much value to future explorers.

In connexion with the anthropology of Algeria we may refer to a communication recently laid before the same Society by M. Bertillon, in which he compares the statistics of the civil population of the colony at different dates. It is a significant fact that the population of Algeria is actually diminishing, and M. Bertillon takes occasion to contrast this example of French colonization with the state of our colony of Victoria.

Under the title of Crania Ethnica,' MM. Quatrefages and Hamy are publishing a noble work on the crania of different races. The second part of the work, recently issued, is devoted to a description of what the authors call the "CroMagnon race." The first part contains engravings and descriptions of skulls belonging to the "Canstadt race," of which the famous Neanderthal skull may be cited as an exaggerated type.

SOCIETIES.

ROYAL-April 30.-Prof. A. C. Ramsay, V.P., in the chair.-The following papers were read: The Structure of the Mucous Membrane of the Uterus and its Periodical Changes,' by Dr. J. Williams,-On Leaf-Arrangement,' by Dr. H. Airy, and 'On the Improvement of the Spectroscope,' by Mr. T. Grubb.

SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES.—April 30.—Earl Stanhope, President, in the chair. The nominations of Messrs. F. Ouvry, O. Morgan, and J. Evans, as VicePresidents, were read.-Mr. C. T. Newton laid before the Society his remarks on Dr. Schliemann's discoveries at Hissarlik, the site of Ilium Novum. On the point whether Ilium Novum was (as formerly believed) the site of the Homeric Troy, and on other collateral issues, Mr. Newton said he desired to hold himself perfectly free, and to commit himself to no opinion. His only object was to assign to the antiquities discovered by Dr. Schliemann their proper place in the history of ancient art. Of their genuineness, he felt bound to say, no reasonable doubt could be entertained. Dividing these antiquities into classes, Mr. Newton began with the pottery, and asked himself the question-What are these vases like? what other pottery do they resemble? The first resemblance which occurred to him was the pottery found under the lava at Marino, in ancient Latium (see a paper by Sir J. Lubbock, Archæologia, xlii., p. 98). Then came the pottery found at Santorin, described in the

French Archives des Missions, and also some of the Cypriote vases in the Cesnola Collection, and some vases from Germany in the British Museum. With regard to the earliest specimens of Hellenic art of the most archaic description, only one or two shapes had any sort of correlation with the remains from Hissarlik. Rude as some of the earliest Greek works were in pottery and sculpture, the remains at Hissarlik were, beyond all comparison, ruder. Mr. Newton here entered into full details, which he illustrated by photographs of objects in the British Museum, and by some actual terra-cottas and sculptures from other collections. The upshot of the whole seemed to resolve itself into this, because the Hissarlik remains are in their extreme rudeness non-Hellenic, does it follow they are pre-Hellenic? Mr. Newton was inclined to answer this question in the affirmative, but he was aware it was attended with much difficulty, which was only to be met by careful comparison and more extensive excavations. Passing over the stone and bronze implements, about which he professed to have no special knowledge, Mr. Newton came to the so-called Treasure of Priam. It consists of a quantity of gold necklets &c., and of a number of vessels of gold and silver. The British Museum possesses a remarkably fine collection of gold ornaments, but in none of them could he trace any resemblance to the Hissarlik specimens. Mr. John Evans, however, had called his attention to the remains found at Hallstadt, in Upper Austria, and published by Baron Von Sacken, and these, no doubt, did present points of comparison. In conclusion, Mr. Newton again urged the expediency of further excavations.Prof. Max Müller said he was not altogether prepared to say that the antiquities at Hissarlik were non-Hellenic, but he would certainly say they were non-Homeric. He appealed to the feeling for the beautiful, so manifest in the Homeric poems, and so conspicuous by its absence in the remains from Hissarlik-he appealed especially to the evidence of language. Dr. Schliemann had made a great point of the vases with owls' faces in connexion with the Homeric epithet of γλαυκώπις as applied to Athene, but every Greek scholar was aware that yλavк@mis cannot possibly mean owl-headed." That termination always refers to eyes, and to eyes alone.-Never could that word have meant with the head of an owl."-Earl Stanhope stated that in spite of what had fallen from Prof. Max Müller, he retained his belief that the recovered city was none other than the Homeric Troy.-Mr. Bunbury wished to state, in reply to the animadversions of Mr. Gladstone, in a letter read to the meeting, that as a second analysis had proved to Dr. Schliemann that some of the arms and implements found by him, and which he at first believed to be copper, were, in fact, of bronze, he ventured to think that he was justified in the inference that the same result would follow if all the others, now classed as copper by Dr. Schliemann, were accurately tested. He doubted (and Dr. Percy was of the same opinion) whether any arms or edged implements could be made of copper.-Mr. A. W. Franks said that facts were against this conclusion. There could be no manner of doubt that implements of pure copper had been found in France, in Ireland, in India, and in Syria. He this evening exhibited two copper celts from near Bethlehem. It was also believed that some of the Cypriote implements were in reality_copper. -Further remarks were made by Mr. Howorth and Mr. B. Dawkins.

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ARCHEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE.-May 1.—Mr. O. Morgan, V.P., in the chair.-Mr. R. H. S. Smith read Notes on some of the Specimens of Wrought Gold forming part of the Ashanti Indemnity,' of which Messrs. Garrard exhibited many specimens. Among these, the most conspicuous were, one of the human heads, probably of a victim gagged for sacrifice; one of the griffins from the King's chair; one of the enormous iron sword-blades, supported on four golden balls; the King's leopard-skin cap, ornamented with gold bands in repoussée; and one of the