PREHISTORIC BRONZES 465 



I found in Professor Strebeloff a most interesting and 

 hig-hly educated man, and enjoyed his hospitality more 

 than once. To find a scientific man who could read 

 English and speak German was a treat. He gave me a 

 small collection of Siberian spiders for an entomological 

 friend. 



The most interesting event which happened to me in 

 this town was, however, the purchase of a small collection 

 of bronze and copper celts and other instruments which 

 had been du^ out of the ancient araves between Krasno- 

 yarsk and Minusinsk. 



The most interesting of these bronzes are figured as 

 tail-pieces in this volume. So far as I know, this little 

 collection, which is now in the British Museum, is unique 

 in this country. In Erman's "Travels in Siberia," 

 published in 1848, in an English translation (vol. ii. page 

 139), a description will be found of a similar collection 

 from the same district. In an ethnological periodical 

 published at Toulouse, entitled Mat ^riazix pour F Histoire 

 Primitive etNaturelle de I' Ho7nnie (1873, page 497), a very 

 similar collection is described and figured (plate xvi.) by 

 M. E. Desor, the bronzes having been forwarded to him 

 for that purpose by M. Lapatine, a Russian engineer 

 residing in Krasnoyarsk. As I passed through St. 

 Petersburg on my return journey, M. Russow, the curator 

 of the Anthropological Museum in that city, showed me, 

 in their almost unique series of Siberian objects of 

 ethnological interest, a collection very much like my own 

 from the same valley, and I also discovered a case of 

 bronzes in the Imperial collection in the Hermitage in 

 St. Petersburg, evidently having the same origin. All 

 authorities agfree that these bronzes are the remains of a 

 race antecedent to any of the present races of Siberia. 

 M. Lapatine states that he obtained his bronzes from 



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