Address of the President. 21 



It would be useless to theorise or draw conclusions until 

 the explorations are completed. We shall then arrive at the 

 facts of the case, and I believe shall be able to rely upon 

 thera. The point that will, I think, strike most people, is. 

 Where did this deep deposit of red earth come from in which 

 these bones and implements are irregularly imbedded ? and 

 I think that this must be traced and satisfactorily answered 

 before we can arrive at any conclusion. 



In reference to this subject, I cannot now refrain quoting 

 a short passage from the work of a modern traveller, an 

 author with his eyes open, and quite aware of all the diffi- 

 culties of the question. 



The Rev. Mr Tristram, in his Travels in Palestine, pub- 

 lished under direction of the Committee for General Litera- 

 ture and Education, states that at Sumvah there are extensive 

 stone quarries, from which ancient cities evidently have been 

 built. That they were very extensive, and had been worked 

 as mines, excavating the rocks, and leaving large chambers 

 supported by pillars. These chambers or " caverns are now 

 the dens of wild beasts, and the excrement of the hyaena 

 covered the floors. Vast heaps of the bones of camels, oxen, 

 and sheep had been collected by these animals, in some 

 places to the depth of two or three feet, and in one spot I 

 counted the skulls of seven camels. 



" We had here a beautiful recent illustration of the mode 

 of formation of the old bone caverns, so valuable to the 

 zoologist. These bones must all have been brought in by 

 the hyaenas, as no camel or sheep could possibly have entered 

 the caverns alive, nor could any floods have worked them in. 

 Near the entrance where the water percolates they were 

 already forming a soft breccia." (p. 237.) 



In relation to the second or lake habitations we have 

 during the past year works published increasing our know- 

 ledge of their range in Europe. " Lake Habitations and 

 Pre-historic Remains in the Turbaries and Marl Beds of 

 Northern and Central Italy," by Bartolomeo Gastaldi, has 

 been translated and published by the Anthropological Soci- 



