312 CAUSES OF DEGENERATIVE EVOLUTION 



custom for the electors to proceed to some 

 mountain for the purpose, probably because 

 it was the custom in former days to hold a 

 general meeting there, before the election. 



In Iceland, the altliing consisting of 

 two chambers now was formerly one large 

 assembly held in the open air upon the 

 Logberg (the Mountain of the Law) near to 

 the Lake of Thingvellir. In the Eepublic 

 of Andora, criminal sentences are still 

 pronounced with great solemnity from the 

 Market-Place. 1 



(&) Among the Ossetes, where the family com- 

 munity still flourishes, the only inalienable 

 and unsaleable property is not the real 

 property, but certain personal possessions, 

 such as the great cooking-pot with the 

 chain by which it is hung over the fire. 

 " At first," says Kowalewsky, " this may 

 appear a strange custom, but it must be 

 remembered that possessions of that kind 

 were of equal importance to the Ossetic 

 ' family ' as were their tombs to the 

 ancient Greeks and Eomans, which ex- 

 plains how any infringement of the 



1 In Montenegro, it was the custom, till recently, for the Prince 

 himself to render justice, sitting under a tree in front of his palace 

 at Cettigne. This mode of jurisdiction, which was probably a 

 survival of the old system of which we have been speaking, has not 

 completely disappeared. 



