816 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1895. 



circles, the central perforation in the middle passing entirely through 

 the piece of ivory, which at that point is three - fourths of an inch 

 thick. The circles were also made with a metal tool, more likely of 

 native manufacture, out of a piece of foreign iron or steel, the end 

 of which was iiled A -shaped, as mentioned in connection with the 

 instruments of the Eskimo. 



These African specimens, two made of hippopotamus teeth and one 

 of ivory, are similar in texture to the materials employed by the 

 Eskimo, and the process adopted practically the same because of such 

 texture. 



These illustrations are here introduced not with the object of tracing 

 the migration or transmission of a given pattern, but because of the 

 interest naturally excited by the independent discovery of a process of 

 workmanship found to have developed in such widely remote localities. 



In northern Africa the same form of circle, nucleated and as concen- 

 tric rings, is very much employed for decorative purposes. What the 

 original signification may have been it is now, perhai)s, impossible to 

 determine, and it may be that in the two localities to be referred to 

 below the designs were brought from Europe, and i)robably originally 

 from the Ottoman Empire. 



On plate 44 is shown a leather, brass mounted knife sheath, at the 

 upper end of which is a tolerably fair attempt at a figure consisting of 

 concentric rings, while beneath it a series of rectangular figures within 

 one another. The designs are produced by pressure from the under side, 

 the patterns having been made before the i)iece of sheet metal was 

 placed about the sheath. This example is from Tangier, in Morocco. 



From an antique subterranean chapel at Carthage was obtained, 

 about fifteen years since, a collection of Christian lamps and other evi- 

 dences of the secret profession of the then new faith, among the orna- 

 mentation upon some of which relics are many symbols of Christianity 

 and of monograms of the name of Jesus Christ, but the most interest- 

 ing in the present connection is the recurrence of the very widespread 

 figure of concentric rings, as also of squares or rectangular figures 

 within one another, as will be observed upon the illustration of the 

 Eoman lani}) in plate 45. 



This illustration is reproduced from an article by A. Delathe on 

 Carthage I'antique chapelle Souterraine de la Colline de Saint- Louis.' 



Upon another lamp of the same general form, from the same locality, 

 is a cross pattee, the arms of which are severed with nucleated and 

 concentric rings, exactly like many of those upon Alaskan objects. 



The larger rings and square figures upon the lamp shown in plate 45 

 resemble those upon the brass-ornamented Moorish knife sheath from 

 Tangier, Morocco (plate 44), where it was secured by Lieutenant A. P. 

 Niblack, U. tS. iT. The chief interest lies in the two designs near the 



1 Cosmos, Revue tie Sciences et de leurs applications, Paris, Nouvelle S^r, 582, 

 1896 (March 21), p. 495. 



