1869.] Archmology. 85 



feet if it had not thus referred to that constant and formal discussion 

 before local societies ia every county, of points in the theory and 

 practice of the profession which is almost a distinctive feature of 

 English agriculture, as compared with the other occupations in 

 which Englishmen engage. 



A last word may be given to one among the wilder theories 

 which have thus engaged attention, as it has only recently once 

 more presented itself to readers — the so-called " transmutation of 

 grain." Every now and then a farmer relates in perfect good faith 

 that he has sown oats and cut them down repeatedly until, a year, 

 or perhaps a second year thereafter, on permitting them to grow 

 and seed, they have turned out wheat. The recent occurrence of 

 disqualifications at Birmingham and Islington of pigs which had 

 been entered for exhibition — on the ground that an mspection of their 

 teeth showed that they were not all of one family, as the condition 

 of the competition required them to be — enabled the ' Agricultural 

 Gazette ' the other day thus to expose the folly of this " transmuta- 

 tion " theory : '" Here, in the animal world, where the womb carries 

 but one family at a time, where the birth is notorious, and every- 

 thing in the whole history of the produce is a matter capable of 

 record and claiming observation, no certainty seems possible ; for the 

 young are taken for exhibition, and it is protested by experts that 

 they are of difi'erent origin. But the impossibility of any confidence 

 about parentage, which even in our shoAvs of live-stock occasionally 

 occurs, is necessarily multiplied a thousandfold where the mother 

 is the sod, carrying in her fertile womb at once the germs of myriads 

 of families, where the period of gestation is indefinite, and where the 

 facility of new seeds, new germs, being accidentally deposited, is 

 excessive. In the face of risks like these, the occasional stories of 

 Oats being sown, and Wheat being ultimately reaped, go for 

 absolutely nothing. The antecedent improbability of there being 

 any real connection in such a case between the sowing and the 

 reaping is so enormous, that no scientific man would thmk it worth 

 his while to make an experiment to test it. And certainly the risks 

 of the experiment are so great, that no other than a scientific man 

 is competent to conduct it." 



2. ARCHEOLOGY (Pre-Histokic), 



And Notices of Recent Arcliseological Works. 



Pre-historic Archgeology received a new impetus when Dr. Hooker, 

 in Aug-ust last, recalled attention to the semi-savage populations of 

 India which are still erecting megahthic monuments. The im- 

 portance of the investigations of these cromlechs and dolmens 



