I90 



NATURE 



[June 21, 1900 



doubt whether the small excess is of any significance. It seems 

 improbable that it could have been due to residual vapour, and 

 it is perhaps not outside the error of experiment, considering 

 that the apparatus was not in the best condition. 



May 31.— "Palaeolithic Man in Africa," By Sir John Evans, 

 K.C.B., F.R.S. 



In April 1896, just four years ago, I ventured to call 

 the attention of the Society {Roy. Soc. Proc, vol. Ix. 

 p. 19) to some paleolithic implements found in Somali- 

 land by Mr. H. W. Seton-Karr. In doing so, I pointed 

 out the absolute identity in form of these implements with 

 those from the valley of the Somme and numerous other 

 pleistocene deposits in North-western Europe and elsewhere ; 

 and I cited others from the high land adjoining the, valley of 

 the Nile, and from other places in Northern and Southern 

 Africa. I was at the same time careful to point out that though 

 there could be no doubt as to this identity in form, no fossil 

 mammalian or other remains had been found with these African 

 implements. I did not, however, hesitate in claiming them as 

 palzeolithic. 



Since the publication of my short note, an extensive collection 

 of stone implements formed in Egypt by Mr. H. W. Seton-Karr 

 has been acquired by the Mayer Museum at Liverpool. I have 

 not had an opportunity of examining the specimens, but a 

 detailed account ^ of them, with numerous illustrations, has 

 been published by the Director of the Liverpool Museums, Dr. 

 H. O. Forbes. The majority of the implements are of Neo- 

 lithic Age or even of more recent date, and with the account of 

 these I need not here concern myself ; but the author is at con- 

 siderable pains to dispute my view that the instruments of 

 palpeolithic forms belong to the Palaeolithic Period. As he says, 

 Mr. Seton-Karr's statement that he sometimes found spear- 

 heads "on the ground surrounded by a mass of flakes and chips 

 as though the people had dropped their work and fled," is very 

 suggestive and important. He adds, however, that "one such 

 occurrence is almost sufficient in itself, I venture to think, to 

 disprove the high antiquity claimed by Sir John Evans for these 

 implements." 



Were it certain that the so-called spear-heads were really of 

 paleolithic form, and had the flakes and chips been fitted on to 

 them so as to reconstitute the original blocks of flint, as has 

 been done in the case of undoubted palaeolithic specimens by 

 Mr. Spurrell and Mr. Worthington Smith, the question would 

 still remain to be discussed as to the condition of the localities 

 in relation to subaerial denudation. 



It is, however, hardly necessary to discuss these points, as 

 some recent discoveries made in Algeria will, I venture to think, 

 go a long way towards settling the question. I propose, there- 

 fore, very briefly to state their nature. About sixty miles to 

 the south-west of the town of Oran, and about ten miles to the 

 north of Tlemcen, on the plateau of Remchi, about a mile to 

 the south of the River Isser, lies a small lake known as Lac 

 Karar. It occupies a depression in lacustrine limestone of com- 

 paratively recent geological date, superimposed on beds of 

 Lower Miocene Age. The level of the water, which is some 

 15° C. warmer than that of the ordinary springs of the district, 

 and appears to be derived from some deep-seated source, seems 

 to be about 600 feet higher than that of the River Isser. The 

 lake originally filled a much larger part of the depression than 

 it does now, and from its old bed a considerable amount of 

 material has of late years been extracted for the Service des 

 Fonts et Chaussees. This material consists of sand and gravel 

 rich in iron pyrites, in the midst of which lie, pell-mell, bones 

 of animals and stone implements fashioned by the hand of 

 man. 



These have for some years been diligently collected by M. 

 Louis Gentil, a geologist, and form the subject of a memoir 

 that has just appeared in I' Anthropologic (Tome xi. ), by my 

 friend M. Marcellin Boule, of the Galerie de Paleontologie at 

 the Jardin des Plantes, Paris. Some 200 specimens of imple- 

 ments have been submitted to him, of various sizes, and all or 

 nearly all of well-known palaeolithic forms, including several 

 with a broad chisel-like end, of which examples have been found 

 in the laterite of Madras and the gravels of Madrid. They are 

 for the most part formed of an eocene quartzite, though some 

 smaller specimens of the type known as that of " le Moustier " 

 are formed of flint. The fades of these latter is not so dis- 



i Bull. Livey/i. Mus., II., Nos. 3 and 4 (Jan. 20); Nature, vol. Ixi. 

 April 19, p. 597. 



NO 1599, VOL. 62] 



tinctly palaeolithic as that of the former, of which some, through 

 the kindness of M. Marcellin Boule, are exhibited. 



The most important part of the discovery is that which relates 

 to the mammalian remains found with the implements. These 

 are of elephant, rhinoceros, horse, hippopotamus, pig, ox, 

 sheep, and certain cervidae. I will not detain the Society with 

 the details given in M. Boule's memoir, but I may call attention 

 to the fact that the elephant is not the African elephant, but 

 one more nearly related to the quaternary or even pliocene 

 elephants of Europe, to which the designation Atlanticus has 

 been given. Some teeth seem closely allied to those of 

 E. meridionalis and even E. armeniacus. Having regard to 

 the whole fauna, M. Boule arrives at the conclusion that it is 

 identical with that of the fossiliferous deposits of Algeria, which 

 from their topographical or stratigraphical characteristics have 

 been assigned to the Quaternary or Pleistocene Period. He 

 also cites other Instances in Algeria, such as Ternifine and a 

 station near Aboukir, in which palaeolithic implements have been 

 found associated with the remains of a similar pleistocene fauna. 



Altogether, these recent discoveries in Northern Africa tend 

 immensely to strengthen my position with regard to -the truly 

 palaeolithic character of the implements found in other parts of 

 that vast continent, and I am tempted to bring for comparison 

 some few specimens from South Africa. One of these, found by 

 Mr. J. C. Rickard at the junction of the Reit and Modder twenty 

 years^ago, is almost indistinguishable from those of the Lac Karar, 

 as is also one from the valley of the Embabaan in Swaziland. 

 But the most remarkable is an implement of typically palaeolithic 

 character found in 1873 under 9 feet of stratified beds at Process- 

 fontein, Victoria West, by Mr. E. J. Dunn.^ May the day be not 

 long distant when researches for the implements of palaeolithic 

 man may again be carried on, and trenches be dug in South Africa 

 for peaceful instead of warlike purposes. 



Anthropological Institute, June 5. — Mr. C. H. Read, 

 President, in the chair. — -Dr. J. G. Garson explained in detail 

 the metric system of identification of criminals which is in use 

 in this country. This system, which is a modification of the 

 Bertillon system employed in France, consists in measuring as 

 accurately as possible certain dimensions of the individual, and 

 classifying them, according as they prove severally large, 

 medium or small, in such a way that the search for any single 

 set of measurements at the central office is curtailed to the 

 utmost. Finger prints are used, as an additional proof of 

 identity, on the back of the card which carries the record of the 

 measurements. The paper was illustrated by diagrams and 

 examples of the measurements and of the instruments which 

 are employed ; and was followed by a discussion. 



June 12. — Mr. C. H. Read, President, in the chair.— The 

 secretary exhibited, on behalf of Mr. II. Swainson Cowper, a 

 primitive figurine from Adalia in Asia Minor, which presented 

 analogies with the " owl-faced idols" found on the site of Troy 

 by Dr. Schliemann. — Mr. B. H. Pain read a paper on Eskimo 

 craniology, in which he stated that from observations on a 

 number of living Eskimo, lately in London, he had been en- 

 abled to extend the comparisons instituted by Virchow between 

 the dimensions of the head and those of the skull in this race. 

 Reference was incidentally made in the paper to the collection 

 of Eskimo crania at Cambridge (of which a descriptive note was 

 published in theyi??<r«a/of the Anthropological Institute, 1895), 

 as well as to the large collection of crania of Greenlanders in the 

 Anatomical Museum at Copenhagen. The paper was fully dis- 

 cussed by M. J. Deniker, Dr. Garson, Mr. Duckworth and Mr. 

 Shrubsall. — Mr. W. L. H. Duckworth read a paper on the 

 skeletal characters of the Mori-ori of the Chatham Islands. 

 The result of his observation and measurement of ten skulls and 

 two complete skeletons of Mori-ori (from the Chatham Islands) 

 is a general corroboration of the earlier results of Turner 

 {Challenger Report) and Scott {Transactions of the New 

 Zealand Institute) as to the characters of the skeletons of these 

 Pacific Islanders. Special notice was directed to the frequency 

 of occurrence of osteo-arthritis, as evidenced by the condition of 

 the sacrum, innominate bones and femora especially, and to the 

 rare form of occipito-atlantic articulation in one of the speci- 

 mens. The paper was followed by a discussion.— Mr. J. Gray 

 gave a summary of the anthropometric survey conducted by 

 Mr. James Tocher and himself in East Aberdeenshire, and exhi- 

 bited diagrams showing the relative frequency and the local 



1 See also a paper by M. E. T. Hamy in the Bulletin du Museum 

 d'Histoire Naturelle, 1899, No. 6, p. 270. 



