REVIEWS 697 



are of necessity one of the chief features of the book, and these are well selected 

 and admirably produced. 



To many persons the paleolithic art proves most fascinating, and the high 

 degree of merit attained in those very ancient times is now well known. Mr. Parkyn 

 records thirty-five different animals as represented in Paleolithic Art, and the list 

 is of interest to paleontologists not only for what it includes, but by reason of the 

 omissions. The most notable absentee is the hippopotamus, a beast which would 

 certainly have been included if he had been known to the savage artists ; and 

 there are no monkeys, although one anthropomorphic figure on the wall of the 

 Spanish cave "Hornos de la Pena " is provided with a tail, a decoration which 

 may or may not have been suggested by the presence in that region of our 

 quadrumanous cousins. The animals depicted, and the conspicuous animals 

 omitted, may eventually assist us in correlating the pictures and the three paleo- 

 lithic ages in which they were drawn — namely, the Aurignacian, the Solutrean, and 

 the Magdalenian, — with the later glacial and inter-glacial periods. There are, for 

 instance, two mysterious drawings of elephants which Mr. Parkyn thinks are 

 clearly not intended to represent the mammoth. What, then, is this brute ? No 

 tusks can be seen, and the animals bear a resemblance to the female of the existing 

 Indian elephant ; but is it possible that the originals were representatives of 

 Elephas antiquusl If this be the case, the sketches must have been drawn in pre- 

 Wiirmian times. We may call attention to a few slips in this part of the book. 

 The bird called a " penguin " is not the real penguin, but the Great Auk. The 

 term " Reindeer Period " is not usually applied to the Aurignacian, Solutrean, and 

 Magdalenian ages collectively, but to the Magdalenian age only. The reindeer 

 is not by any means characteristic of the Aurignacian, the fauna of that time 

 indicating a much warmer climate than that of the Magdalenian. 



The remainder of the book is on an equally high level with the chapters on 

 Paleolithic Art, and the section dealing with the working of gold in the Bronze 

 Age is particularly informing. Gold was one of the earliest metals to be worked, 

 and much of it came from Ireland. The famous Late Keltic art is also well 

 described ; sword-sheaths, shields, mirrors, fibulae, pottery, and many other objects 

 being considered and illustrated. One of the very finest specimens of the art of 

 the Early Iron Age is the famous bronze mirror found near Birdlip in Gloucester- 

 shire. Mr. Parkyn gives a good description of this, but he makes one rather 

 important mistake. He says that the mirror was found in a grave "at the foot 

 of the Cotteswold Hills." The grave was, on the contrary, on one of the very 

 highest points of the Cotteswolds, the village of Birdlip being nearly 1,000 ft. 

 above sea-level. The mistake is excusable, because the original description by 

 John Bellows is somewhat ambiguous to any one not familiar with the district. As 

 is well known to archeologists in the West of England, nearly all the prehistoric 

 remains in Gloucestershire are found on high ground, the Severn Vale no doubt 

 being at that time very marshy and almost uninhabitable ; and the Birdlip find 

 was no exception to the rule. The mirror and other specimens found with it are 



now in the Gloucester Museum. 



A. G. Thacker. 



ENGINEERING 



Engineering. By Gordon D. Knox. [Pp. xii -f 276, with 17 illustrations.] 

 (London : T. C. & E. C. Jack, 19' 5.) 



This book is one of the volumes in the " Romance of Reality" series now being 

 issued by the publishers, and the author has done his work remarkably well. In 



