1896. 



NOTES AND COMMENTS. 351 



the Bronze Age is that of the Swiss Lake settlements, the later is 

 known under the general term of ' .Egean.' The latter roughly falls 

 into two divisions, an earlier, represented by the cist graves of the 

 island of Amorgos, and a later, the Mycenaean. The Amorgan period 

 exhibits abundant proof of a widespread commerce from Spain and 

 the Libyan coast to Chaldaea. Characteristic of the art of this period 

 is the returning spiral, which undoubtedly was borrowed from Egypt 

 and by the trade of this civilisation it spread into Scandinavia and 

 as far as Ireland ; but there was probably a southern route along the 

 Mediterranean to the latter island, and it is on this line, rather than on 

 the Danube and the Elbe, that we find in a continuous zone that 

 Cyclopean tradition of domed chambers which is equally illustrated 

 at Mycenae and at New Grange. In the matter of the spiral motive, 

 Crete may be said to be the missing link between prehistoric Ireland 

 and Scandinavia and the Egypt of the Ancient Empire. The 

 President announced his discovery of a prehistoric Cretan script 

 excavated from the lowest level of a Mycenaean stratum, thus the 

 great step in the history of writing implied by the evolution of symbols 

 of phonetic value from primitive pictographs is shown to have effected 

 itself on European soil. Mycenaean culture was permeated by 

 Oriental elements but never subdued by them. It is difficult to 

 exaggerate the influence of this widely ramifying Mycenaean culture 

 on later European arts from prehistoric times onwards. Beyond the 

 limits of its original seats, primitive Greece and its islands and the 

 colonial plantations thrown out by it to the west coast of Asia Minor, 

 to Cyprus, and in all probabiUty to Egypt and the Syrian coast, we 

 can trace the direct diffusion of Mycenaean products, notably the 

 ceramic wares, across the Danube to Transylvania and Moldavia. 

 The Mycenaean impress is very strong in Southern Italy and Sicily, 

 isolated relics have been found in Spain and even in the Auvergne. 

 In Bosnia and Herzegovina a sub-Mycenaean influence affected the 

 Early Iron Age. These Mycenaean survivals and Illyrian forms 

 engrafted on the " Hallstatt " stock were ultimately spread by the 

 conquering Belgic tribes to our own islands, to remain the root 

 element of the Late Celtic style in Britain, where the older spiral 

 system had long since died a natural death, and in Ireland to live on 

 to supply the earliest decorative motives of the Christian art of that 

 country. 



Geological Time. 

 Professor Poulton's interesting address to the Zoological Section 

 discussed the possibility of evolution within the allowable limits of the 

 earth's age. Biologists would probably have preferred a summary of 

 recent work on the problems of insect coloration, which the zoo- 

 logical President could have discussed with unique authority ; but in 

 this age of specialisation it is seldom that the difficulties thrown in the 

 way of zoological progress by sister sciences can be attacked by men 



