330 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



shades, such as red, yellow shot with black, etc. 15 A y Octo- 

 for 31, 1875,483. 



DISCOVERY OF ANCIENT WELLS NEAR ASHILL, ENGLAND. 



An extremely interesting archaeological discovery has late- 

 ly been made near Ashill, in England, of three wells on the 

 site of an ancient Roman camp at Ovington, the mouths of 

 which were covered with solid oaken frames. One of these 

 was excavated to the depth of forty feet, and in it were found 

 first a bronze fibula, some Samian ware, broken pottery, stones, 

 and bones of cattle, with some other articles. Lower down 

 the contents consisted of layers of urns, of which fifty were 

 nearly perfect, and most of them of great beauty. They had 

 been carefully let down into the hole, some of them inclosed 

 in baskets ; and the urns in each layer were arranged in dif- 

 ferent ways. At the lowest level several of the urns had 

 still attached to them the remains of the cord with which 

 they were let down into position. It is thought that these 

 pits were formerly used for sepulchral purposes, and after- 

 ward hastily filled in with rubbish and covered up. 15 A, 

 October 31, 1874, 483. 



hyde clark's comparison of American and accadian 



languages. 



An elaborate paper was read before the Anthropological 

 Institute, May 26, 1874, by Hyde Clark, and has since been 

 published in a pamphlet, entitled " Researches in Prehistoric 

 and Protohistoric Comparative Philology, Mythology, and 

 Archaeology, in Connection with the Origin of Culture in 

 America, and the Accad or Sumerian Families." The de- 

 sign of the author is, in his own words, " to bring archaic 

 philology into union with those nascent studies of anthro- 

 pology, archaeology, and mythology which have met with ac- 

 ceptance and popularity." He has elsewhere drawn atten- 

 tion to the similarity between the Agaid of the Nile and the 

 Abkhass of the Caucasus with the Omagua and Guarani of 

 Brazil, and in this treatise he enforces the unity of the race, 

 and the history of migration, by reference to philological 

 proofs. He first draws attention to the Pygmaean and other 

 so-called prehistoric races of North and South America, of 

 Africa, and of the islands of the Pacific Ocean, and then by 



