G. GENERAL NATURAL HISTORY AND ZOOLOGY. .333 



rites, and to the existence of ecclesiastical castes. The round 

 fragments are all pierced in the centre, as though designed 

 to be worn as amulets or relics. The singular habit of per- 

 forating, after death, the skull of one who had been trepanned 

 w T hile living, and of placing the bone rings in the skull of the 

 dead, says M. Bertillon, points to their belief in the immor- 

 tality of the soul, and the desire to furnish the subject with 

 a whole cranium in the habitations of the blessed. 20 J3, 

 1874, 383-396, and 13 i?, April 10, 1875. 



ORIGIN AND TRUE CHARACTER OF CERTAIN STONE W r EAPONS. 



In the Turkish collection of geological specimens and petri- 

 factions at the Vienna Exhibition there were certain sharp 

 objects, made of flint, about six inches long, one inch broad, 

 and one fourth of an inch thick, which were, invariably, at 

 once pronounced to be flint knives of the stone age by those 

 who had made a study of such objects. As explained by 

 Dr. Hammerschmidt, however, they proved to be modern 

 articles, employed by the million, where wheat is grown, in 

 Roumelia, Anatolia, Syria, etc., by the peasantry in the manu- 

 facture of a kind of thrashing-machine, in the form of sleds 

 armed with these knives, which are drawn over the grain by 

 pxen or men. They are very similar to the machines em- 

 ployed by the Romans, which were doubtless carried in all 

 directions by their colonists. 7 (7, IX., 1874, 568. 



CRANIA-ETHNICA. THE CRO-MAGNON RACE. 



Messrs. Quatrefages and Hamy have published the second 

 livraison of their great work upon the human crania, entitled 

 Crania- Ethnica. The first part w T as devoted to a group to 

 which they applied the names of the Canstatt races, and em- 

 bracing such unusual forms as the Neanderthal, Nagykap, 

 and other historic skulls. The present is devoted to what 

 they call the race of the Cro-Magnon, in which they include 

 human crania from the Madelaine, Laugerie-Basse, Bruniquel, 

 Soloutre, etc. As in the Canstatt race, the authors consider 

 the Cro-Magnon race as having continued in existence from 

 the period when they were first found to the present time, 

 being represented now by a few individuals, especially in 

 Africa. The me;alithic tombs of Roknia contain a lanre 

 number of skulls similar to the Cro-Magnon, and the type is 



