POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



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fordskire as an apothecary. An accidental 

 conversation with a friend turned his atten- 

 tion to anthropological studies, on which he 

 published several memoirs, more particular- 

 ly relating to the craniological branch of 

 the subject, the most important of which 

 was perhaps the " Crania Britannica," con- 

 taining delineations and descriptions of the 

 skulls of the aboriginal and early inhabit- 

 ants of the British Islands. He was an 

 industrious hunter after specimens, and 

 formed at his house a collection of crania 

 and skeletons larger than the collections in 

 all the public museums in the country put 

 together, and which has been surpassed 

 only in very recent years by any of the Con- 

 tinental collections. The catalogue of this 

 collection, the " Thesaurus Craniorum," 

 published in 186*7, contains descriptions 

 and many figures of the specimens, with 

 twenty-five thousand measurements and a 

 large fund of information. The collection 

 was so much increased afterward that a 

 supplement to the catalogue was published 

 in 18*75. The two works contained descrip- 

 tions of seventeen hundred specimens. The 

 collection has been transferred to the Col- 

 lege of Surgeons of England. 



Congresses of German and Austrian 

 Archaeologists. The Twelfth Congress of 

 German Archaeologists met at Begensburg, 

 August 8th, the members having, previous 

 to assembling, visited a local collection of 

 prehistoric and Boman antiquities, illustrat- 

 ing the history of the settlement of the 

 Danube for two thousand years, and listened 

 to an address by Professor Fraas, on the 

 geology and history of Begensburg from its 

 beginning. The report of the general sec- 

 retary, Professor Eanke, gave a summary of 

 the general progress of archaeological sci- 

 ence during the year, and referred especially 

 to the exhibition at Berlin, and the publica- 

 tions connected with it, as having increased 

 interest in the science ; to Professor Fraas's 

 review of the primitive history of the country 

 in the Stuttgart catalogue ; to the results 

 of the Congress at Lisbon, and to the evi- 

 dence that had been found, in the Iberian 

 Peninsula and Hungary, of a distinct copper 

 age forming a transition to the bronze age. 

 The list of special publications was quite 

 full, and included essays by Tischler, Voss, 



and Virchow, on sewing-needles, belt-clasps, 

 treasures, and urns ; of Liebe on a former 

 submergence of Thuringia; of Mehlison the 

 discoveries at Kirchhcim on the Eck, and 

 the Hcrmundurs and Thuringians ; of Bosen- 

 stein on the spread of flints through trade; 

 of Plscher on the traffic in nephrite ; of Oeh- 

 lenschliigcr and Herzog on the cartography 

 of the discoveries in Bavaria and Wiirtem- 

 berg, and of other writers on single objects 

 of prehistoric research. The study of local 

 names had been advanced by the labors of 

 Buck in Swabia and Schulenberg in Bran- 

 denburg, and Voss has made special studies 

 on formulas of incantation and the bless- 

 ing of swords. Herr von Triiltsch exhib- 

 ited a series of four elaborate maps of the 

 archaeological discoveries in Schleswig-Hol- 

 stein, in which the several classes of rocks 

 and relics were very distinctly indicated by 

 colors. Professor Schaafhausen reported, 

 upon the progress of the general catalogue 

 of the anthropological material of Germany, 

 that special catalogues of the collections in 

 the principal cities and universities are al- 

 ready completed or in hand, and those of so- 

 cieties and private persons will be taken up 

 next. After spending three days in listening 

 to a series of interesting papers, the mem- 

 bers of the association went to Salzbursr to 

 meet with their fellow-workers of the Austro- 

 Hungarian Association. The sessions here 

 were more lively, and were marked with 

 greater interest than those at Begensburg, 

 for they were characterized by free discus- 

 sions of every topic, while the proceedings at 

 Begensburg were confined to the reading of 

 the papers. Count Gundiken Wurmbrand, 

 President of the Austro-Hungarian Associa- 

 tion, delivered the opening address, referring 

 chiefly to the Etruscan relics found in Aus- 

 tria, the evidences of Celtic culture on the 

 Danube, and the significance of popular 

 ethnography in prehistoric research. The 

 first day's session was occupied with a very 

 lively discussion of the " Celtic question," 

 that is, the question whether the later Ger- 

 mans were ethnologically identical with the 

 earlier Celts, or whether the two were dis- 

 tinct stems. Other interesting discussions 

 were those concerning the period of the 

 mammoth, and concerning the diluvial hu- 

 man relics found in Stramberg. The reports 

 of the German society stated that it now in- 



