Ixxx GENERAL SUMMARY OF SCIENTIFIC AND 



Historical Society, America possesses a series of illustrations of 

 Egyptian art not surpassed by any European collection ; and 

 it is to be hoped that in time all other branches of antiquity 

 -will be equally well represented in America. The Peabody 

 Museum in Cambridge has already a representation of the 

 Stone Age of Europe scarcely surpassed by any museum in 

 Europe. 



A second part of the great work of the Imperial Archaeo- 

 logical Society of St. Petersburg upon the antiquities of 

 the Scythia of Plerodotus has lately been published, and in- 

 cludes elaborate figures and descriptions of numerous articles 

 obtained from the mounds in the steppes of the Black Sea. 



The occurrence in various localities in Europe, always un- 

 der circumstances indicating great antiquity, of certain hu- 

 man cranium, has been recorded in the earlier volumes of the 

 Aiimial Record ; and M. Quatrefages, in a recent memoir, 

 considers these as representing a peculiar type, which he calls 

 the Canstadt race, and including several w^ell-knovvn skulls^ 

 such as the Neanderthal, Engis, Nagy Kap, and others. 

 The peculiarity of these specimens consists in enormous 

 frontal sinuses and other characteristic features. 



The interest of Biblical scholars and ethnologists has been 

 greatly excited by the publication of the translation of an 

 Assyrian tablet, as rendered by Mr. Henry Smith, of the Brit- 

 ish Museum, this giving a circumstantial account of the del- 

 uge, which, though differing somewhat in details from the 

 Mosaic account, exhibits sufficient similitude to indicate a 

 common origin. The tablet containing this account, as con- 

 tained in the British Museum, is quite imperfect ; but during 

 a recent visit to ancient Assyria, for the purpose of further 

 exploration, Mr. Smith was so fortunate as to discover the 

 remaining fragment, by which he is now enabled to complete 

 the history. 



A contribution to the early history of man consists in the 

 discovery of his remains in the bone breccia of Corsica, asso- 

 ciated with the bones of Lagomys and other sub-arctic ani- 

 mals, proving conclusively that at the time when these re- 

 mains were embedded the climate of the counti-y Avas very 

 different from that which prevails at present, and belonging 

 rather to the post-glacial period, and corresponding probably 

 to that of the reindeer period in France. 



