364 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



nothing of the people from whom it had its origin. Within 3 or 

 4 miles of Stonehenge there were 300 or 400 tumuli. There wai 

 no reason why there should be this extraordinary number of tu- 

 muli there, were it not that they clustered ai'ound this spot as a 

 sacred place. In these tumuli there were found no ancient weap- 

 ons of iron ; 2 or 3 had been found there, but they had evi- 

 dently been placed there subsequently. More than 50 of these 

 tumuli contained, however, weapons or ornaments of bronze, and 

 he therefore believed that Stonehenge was a monument erected 

 during the Bronze Age. 



Rock Sculptures. — A paper, by Mr, H. M. Westropp, on *' Rock 

 Sculptures in various Parts of tlie World," was read at the L868 

 meeting of the British Association. It embraced a description of 

 the various carvings on rocks in different parts of the world, which 

 the author showed had everywliere a remarkable analogy or like- 

 ness. Sir James Simpson had said that man, even in the earliest 

 and rudest ages, was a sculpturing and painting animal, and ex- 

 hibited his love of imitation when his artistic instinct was evolved. 

 The conjectures of the origin and age of the carvings have been 

 various and numerous. Professor Nilsson attributed those found 

 in Scandinavia to the Phoenicians, and he considered the circles as 

 S3mibols of the sun and other heavenly bodies, which the author 

 consid<;red an untenable Iiypothesis, as no such remains were 

 found among the Phoenicians themselves. Similar circles were 

 found in America and other countries where no Phoenician influ- 

 ence could have reached. The author thous^ht we mio^ht come to 

 a just conclusion concerning their origin, if we remembered that 

 man, in his rude, earl3% and primitive age, bore a great analogy 

 in his thoughts and actions to a child. The savage and the prim- 

 itive man had the same fondness for imitation, the same love of 

 laborious idleness, as the child. A child would pass hours in whit- 

 tling and paring a stick, building a diminutive house or wall, and 

 tracing forms on the turf. The savage would wear away years 

 in carving his war-club and polishing his stone adze. From these 

 considerations, the author was led to attribute these carvings and 

 sculptures to the laborious idleness of a pastoral peof)le. Passing 

 the long and weary day in tending their flocks and herds, they 

 amused themselves by cutting those various figures of the sun, 

 moon, or any animals or objects in their neighborhood, on the 

 rocks near them. Sir James Simpson had shown that most of the 

 Scandinavian carvings belonged to the stone age, which was 

 synchronous with the pastoral phase of civilization. Some of the 

 ruder descriptions might belong to an earlier age, or the hunting 

 phase. 



Antiquities of the Pacijic Islands. — Various idol statues and 

 monuments occur in the several islands of the different groups. 

 Some of the monuments bear evidences of great antiquity, and 

 of skill and perseverance on the part of the forgotten races who 

 formed them. Many of the relics are of such enormous magni- 

 tude, and of such an elaborate character, that if they were the 

 work of the ancestors of the present inhabitants, the people have 



