president's address. Ixxix. 



ropes round their necks, suggesting that they were kept as 

 domestic animals a t that period . Many interesting discoveries 

 of a later age have been made in a Hittite excavation at 

 Sakje-Geuzi, at Carchemish, in Malta, in Egypt, and else- 

 where. In Egypt the earliest type of mummy has been 

 found in 2nd or 3rd dynasty tombs at Sakkara. What 

 appears to be a very valuable work on the pottery and history 

 of the Bronze Age has lately been published, which will have 

 a special interest for us from the fact that the author, Hon. 

 John Abercrombie, spent a considerable time in examining 

 the fine collection of prehistoric pottery in our Dorset Museum. 

 He dates the Bronze Age in this country from about 2,000 to 

 200 B.C. It has been lately discovered that three large lifts 

 were in operation in the Imperial Palace on the Palatine Hill 

 in Ancient Rome, and that a system of hot and cold water 

 supply, closely resembling our modern arrangements, existed 

 in Pompeii. To turn to present times, a tribe of white 

 Eskimos is reported to be living in the neighbourhood of 

 Victoria Island, who are supposed to be descendants of an 

 ancient Norwegian Colony. An account of white Eskimos 

 was given by De Poincy in 1658, which may refer to the 

 same people. The publication, " Man," for last March, 

 contains an article describing certain obsolete English utensils, 

 and advising the preservation of such things in Museums, as 

 they will before long be unobtainable. There are a good 

 many specimens in our Dorset Museum of things that have 

 recently gone out of use, and they might be added to by our 

 Members. In this connection I may mention one small 

 article which I had never myself heard of except in the song, 

 " My lodging is on the cold ground," namely, a " rush ring," 

 nor did I know exactly to what it referred. But I have 

 lately acquired, and have now brought for exhibition, a deed 

 of 1494 with five seals, each of which was apparently made 

 by taking a small lump of beeswax, perhaps hardened with a 

 little resin and coloured red, in a leaf, and squeezing it into 

 the desired round, flat shape. After this a small ring, made 

 by twisting a rush, was pressed down on the top, and the seal 



