archæologists present as the pommel of a bronze sword or dagger. It is believed to be unique. Professor Rupert Jones drew attention to some incised marks found upon implements of bone in the caves of Perigord, France, comparing them with similar marks of ownership, or used as tallies, or for gambling, by the North American Indians, Esquimaux, Australians, and others. His paper will be published in the "Reliquiæ Aquitanica." Lieutenant Cooper King's paper had reference to the discovery of flint flakes on the surface in Wishmore Bottom, near Sandhurst, and to the topographical changes which appear to have taken place since they were deposited.

A report was read by Mr. Boyd Dawkins on the explorations made during the past year in the Victoria Cave by the Settle Cave exploration committee. A cutting was made in a layer of stones near the surface, in which were found several bronze gilt ornaments of Roman workmanship and others which appeared to be Celtic. They were associated with the remains of the Celtic shorthorn, the goat, horse, and pig, and they probably belonged to some Romano-Celtic family which had taken refuge in the cave between the fifth and first quarter of the seventh century, when the kingdom of Strath Clyde was conquered by the Angles. Beneath the Romano-Celtic layer were found pieces of chipped flint and rude bone implements, together with bones of ox and bear. Beneath this again another shaft was sunk, resulting in the discovery of the still older occupation of the cave by hyenas, the broken bones of which showed that they must have been there in considerable numbers. With them were also found the gnawed bones of rhinoceros, cave bear, mammoth, and reindeer. These relics belong to the pleistocene period, and are probably of the same date as the Kent's Hole and Kirkdale caverns.

Mr. Moggridge gave an account of the recently-discovered human skeleton by Dr. Rivière in a cave near Mentone. The skeleton was lying on its left side, in an attitude such as might have been assumed in sleep. It was eight feet beneath the modern floor, and nine feet from the entrance. The body was lying N. and S., with the head to the S. Eye teeth of deer and small shells, both pierced, encircled the skull; possibly they may have ornamented a fillet. In contact with the body flint implements had been placed, and a circle, or rather oval, was formed around by rude stones in juxtaposition. A mass of metallic grain (oxide of iron), four inches long and one inch wide, was found touching the teeth, as if one end had been placed within the lips. The shin bones of this skeleton were platycnemic, like those of the skeletons discovered by Mr. Busk in the caves of Gibraltar. Beyond the fact that it is of the

stone age and associated with deer, no date can be assigned to this skeleton.

Sir Duncan Gibb read two short archæological papers which will probably be submitted to the Institute. Mr. A. A. Carmichael gave a description of an underground dwelling at Druinnah-Uamh, in Valaquie, on the north-west coast of north Uist, one of the Hebrides. The ground plan of this structure was crescentic; a dome-shaped roof was formed by overlapping stones, and there were four recesses in the walls. On the floor were found fragments of broken pottery, antlers of the red deer, and bones of the ox, pig, and goat or sheep; with mussel, limpet, cockle, periwinkle, and a few broken scallop shells. Mr. Campbell, of Islay, also contributed some remarks upon this structure. Professor Nicholson, of Toronto, exhibited to the meeting a silicified chip of wood found in a silicified forest near Pikes Peak, in the neighbourhood of Colorado city, in the Rocky Mountains. The chip appeared to have been cut across the fibres of the wood with an instrument which, it was suggested, could scarcely have been of any other material than iron, and silicified afterwards, but no evidence was offered as to the date of the forest.

In the department of Ethnology and Philology, Dr. Charnock contributed four papers-two on the derivation of local names in Sussex, and two on the gipsies. It is unnecessary to enter into a description of these papers, as they will in all probability be submitted to the Institute. Mr. Evans's paper "On the Alphabet and its Origin" was divided under three heads, relating, 1. To the origin of writing, and the method of its development in different parts of the globe; 2. To the original alphabet from which that in common use amongst us was derived; and 3. To the history and development of that original alphabet. Mr. Evans supposes that the Phoenicians, borrowing the idea from the Egyptians, struck out for themselves a more purely literal, and therefore more useful form of alphabet. Their alphabet, unlike the letters of the Egyptian hieroglyphics, does not appear to consist of merely a few survivors from a whole army of symbols; on the contrary, it seems to present some trace of arrangement, and the symbols representing the letters appear to be grouped in pairs or threes, each consisting of objects in some manner associated with each other. Mr. Hyde Clarke, in a paper on the ethnological and philological relations of the Caucasus, endeavoured to identify the Ude with the ancient Egyptians, the Abkas with the Falasha of the Upper Nile, the Circassians with the Dravidians, and the Georgians with the Caucaso-Thibetans. The Ude and the Abkas he believes to be connected with the statement of Herodotus as to the Egyptian

colony established in Colchis by Sesostris. Mr. Phené, in continuation of a paper read at the previous meeting of the British Association at Edinburgh, contributed some further evidence tending, in his opinion, to confirm the existence of serpent worship in Argyllshire. The Rev. J. C. Atkinson, in further extension of a paper formerly contributed to the Ethnological Society, on the predominating Danish aspect of the local nomenclature of Cleveland, Yorkshire, showed that out of something like two hundred and fifty Cleveland names dating back to mediæval times and earlier, upwards of two hundred and ten, or considerably more than eighty per cent. must be ascribed to Danish as distinguished from an English or an Anglican source.

Pro

In a paper on the primitive weapons of ancient India, Sir Walter Elliot described the forms of the weapons in use by the Dravidians and others with whom he had come in contact during his long Indian experience. His researches lend confirmation to the hypothesis formerly suggested by the writer of this Report in two papers on primitive warfare, published in the "Journal of the Royal United Service Institution," as to the probable identity of certain weapons in use by the Australians, Dravidians, and ancient Egyptians, and show that these distinct races, which Professor Huxley has traced to the Australioid stock, are singularly alike in some of their arts and warlike contrivances. fessor Rolleston brought before the meeting a large number of detailed measurements of skulls obtained by Canon Greenwell in his excavations. His examination of these skulls had been conducted independently of any knowledge of their archæological surroundings. Two types of skull, the same as have been described by Dr. Thurnam in his well-known papers, were found in the series submitted to him. Skulls of the dolichocephalic and brachycephalic types were frequently, however, found to bear the same label, and might be presumed, therefore, to have come from the same barrows. If it should turn out to be the fact that these two kinds of skull had been found with the same archæological surroundings, this would be a different condition of things from that which had been described as existing in the Wiltshire barrows, and would have to be explained either as being the result of an intermixture of the two races peacefully, or as the manifestation of a tendency to variation not unparalleled even in wild tribes. The form of cranium which Retzius had called the common Celtic form was almost entirely absent in this series, as also the form of cranium known as the Borris type. Professor Rolleston also exhibited ten photographs and three skulls of the Jungle Weddo of Ceylon. There is no doubt of the genuineness of the skulls, yet one of the three was as markedly brachycephalic (the cephalic index

being eighty-one) as the others were, and, as Weddo skulls usually are, dolichocephalic. Dr. A. Campbell contributed a paper on the Looshais or Kookees inhabiting the hill tracts of Chittagong. They are described as being fairer in complexion than the people of the plains; their features resemble those of the Malays more than the Tartar-faced people of Munipore, they dry and preserve their dead, have no distinctions of caste, marriage is a civil contract, dissolvable at the will of the parties concerned, and there is no prohibition against the marriage of widows. The men live by hunting and marauding, whilst the cultivation and all the household work is left to the women; they live in log-houses, and know enough of iron-working to make spear-heads and fish-hooks. By a communication from Major Godwin-Austen on the Garos, we learn that these people occupy the extreme western end of the range of hills south of the Brahmaputra and Assam. They do not erect stone monuments, but have a similar custom of setting up posts of wood, and this in the opinion of Major Godwin-Austen has led to the use of the monoliths on the Khasi Hills, the object of both tribes in setting them up being as a propitiation for good fortune. Mr. R. B. Shaw gave a very interesting account of some religious cairns which are seen throughout the Himalayan region, covered by propitiatory offerings in the form of sticks, to which rags, flags, horse and yaks' tails are attached. The point of most interest in connection with these cairns is the fact that they are now venerated by people of three different races and religionsthe Hindus, the Buddhists, and the Mussulmans. They appear to have been originally erected to local deities, and are survivals from a more primitive form of worship which has become partially incorporated with the several religions which have been subsequently introduced into these parts, much in the same manner that in Ireland we see the veneration of holy wells and cairns associated with similar votive offerings tacitly admitted by the priesthood at the present time. Dr. Nicholas, in a paper on the ethnological relations of France and England, advocated the view of the predominance of the Celtic over Teutonic blood in the existing population of both countries, more especially the former. Mr. A. L. Lewis drew the attention of the meeting to the existence of certain curious opinions relative to the Jewish origin of the English nation, pointing out the fallacy of such views. Mr. Topley, in a remarkably original and scientificallyconceived paper on the Origin of Parish Boundaries in the South of England, showed grounds for supposing that the existing boundaries of parishes were based on some earlier and prehistoric divisions of land. The Wealden valleys being at that time covered with dense forest, were scarcely penetrable by the

earliest settlers, who would naturally select for the sites of their encampments the open dry ground near the forest, at the foot of the chalk escarpment, where wood and water were procurable. The open unwooded chalk hills on the other side would form the grazing ground for their cattle; hence the land which became attached to each camp or settlement would only extend a short distance into the forest, but would occupy an extensive tract of country over the hills in the opposite direction. These primitive causes appear to have governed the distribution of land when it became subsequently divided into parishes. It is found that of the parishes around the Wealden border, a hundred and nineteen, conforming to the rule laid down, have their villages at the foot of the slope, close to what was formerly the margin of the forest, whilst their parishes ascend the hills at right angles to the escarpment. On the other hand, the exceptions to the rule, in which the parishes descend from the villages into the Wealden, number only six throughout the whole of this district. In the department of general anthropology, Mr. Kaines read a paper on Western Anthropologists and extra Western Communities, in which he advocated greater toleration towards savages, more especially in regard to their religions, some of which, being well adapted to their civilisation, have a better effect in keeping them in order than the religions introduced amongst them by Europeans. Mr. Wake, in a paper on the Origin of Serpent-Worship, endeavoured to prove that this worship, as a developed religious system, had its origin in Central Asia, the home of the great Scythic stock, from which the civilised races of the historic period sprang, and that the descendants of the legendary founder of that stock, the Adamites, were, in a special sense, serpentworshippers. Mr. Harris read a paper on Theories Regarding Intellect and Instinct, which led to a lively discussion; and Mr. Howorth contributed a paper on Darwinism, part of which has already been read before the Institute.

Among the Members of the Institute present at the meeting who took part in the discussions were Major Godwin-Austen, Dr. Beddoe, Mr. Bohn, Mr. Brabrook, Dr. A. Campbell, Mr. Charlesworth, Mr. F. Collingwood, Dr. Hooker, Mr. Howorth, Mr. Hyde Clarke, Mr. R. Dunn, Mr. Boyd Dawkins, Mr. E. Grant Duff, Dr. P. M. Duncan, Sir Walter Elliot, Mr. John Evans, Sir Duncan Gibb, Mr. G. Harris, Mr. T. Mc K. Hughes, Dr. R. King, Mr. Kaines, Mr. S. Lee, Mr. Lamprey, Mr. Lewis, Mr. Moggridge, Mr. Clements Markham, Dr. Nicholas, Dr. O'Callaghan, Captain Bedford Pim, Mr. Phené, Mr. Rudler, Professor Rolleston, Mr. A. R. Wallace, and Mr. Wake.

To Mr. F. W. Rudler the meeting was in a special manner indebted for his services as Secretary, as also for the abstracts of