Oct. 21, 1886] 
and the author. The cairn commonly known as ‘‘ Queen 
Boadicea’s ‘Tomb’? was composed of blocks of limestone, 
about 40 feet high, 300 feet long, and 200 feet broad. A shaft 
was sunk near the centre of the cairn, but the only remains 
discovered were a few refuse heap bones of hog, sheep or goat, 
ox or horse, too fragmentary to be accurately determined. They 
were, however, of the character found almost universally in 
Britain in the burial-places of the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. 
The cairn itself was similar in character to one near Mold, in 
the same district, in which a skeleton was discovered in 1832 
lying at full length, clad in a golden corselet, and adorned with 
300 amber beads. An urn full of ashes and other remains was 
also met with. While the cairn was being attacked, a cave was 
discovered 141 feet to the south-west, and there were found 
bones and teeth of various animals which belonged to the 
Pleistocene age, and similar to those discovered in the caves 
of the Vale of Clwydd. Above these was found a deposit con- 
taining fragments of charcoal and large quantities of broken 
bones of wild and domestic animals. Slabs of limestone burned 
on their upper surface were also found, and pointed out the 
position of the fireplace. The date of this upper deposit was 
fixed by several fragments of pottery, which was in its character- 
istics similar to that of the Bronze Age. Besides these, a large 
number of human bones were found, increasing in number as 
the explorers dug their way to a square sepulchral chamber, 4 feet 
10 inches by 3 feet 10 inches. This chamber was packed with 
human skulls and bones of all ages in the greatest confusion, 
and evidently interred from time to time. Among the bones 
were found two jet ornaments, a beautifully polished flint flake, 
with edges carefully bevelled, and some fragments of rude pot- 
tery of the kind commonly found in sepulchral urns of the 
Bronze Age. The chamber and the deposits showed that caves 
had probably been used for habitation and sepulture in North 
Wales in the Bronze Age, as they had already proved to have 
been used in the Neolithic Age. The human remains threw 
great light on the ethnology of the district in the Bronze Age, 
and proved that in the Neolithic Age the population of that part 
of Wales was of the oval-headed Iberic type, so widely spread 
throughout Europe. All the skulls were of this type save one, 
which possessed all the characteristics usually found in a round- 
headed Celt of the Bronze Age, and the presence of this skull in 
a sepulchre of the Iberic people appears to mark the beginning 
of the fusion of the two races, which has been going on ever 
since, and by which the Iberic type is at the present time 
being slowly obliterated. 
On Bowls Barrow, near Heytesbury, in South Wilts, by W. 
Cunnington.—These researches, the writer stated, had been 
made at the east end of the barrow, where the original cist had 
been found empty, but with a skull near it. Several other 
skulls were also found in a more or less broken condition. 
Covering the floor of the barrow near where the skeletons were 
found was a black unctuous earth, which had been found to 
contain a large quantity of ammoniacal salts. Separated from 
the cist at’ the east end of the barrow several horns of oxen had 
been found, in addition to those that were found there 
some years ago. The skulls and other human remains which 
had been found were clearly primary burials, and were covered 
by large blocks of Sarsen stone, some of which weighed from 
200 Ib. to 300 Ib. 
The Crania and other Bones found in Bowls’ Barrow, by 
Dr. J. G. Garson.—The author said that the skulls are of large 
size, and long and narrow in form. In general outline they 
present two distinct forms, namely, the elongated oval, and 
what is called the coffin-shaped. They all conform in every 
respect to the long barrow type, and are all those of adult 
males. 
Papuans and Polynesians, by the Rev. George Brown. —The 
object of this paper was to show that the two races had a com- 
mon origin. Mr. Brown said he had worked for many years 
among the purest types of Polynesians and of Papuans, and in 
reducing the languages to writing he became convinced that, 
from the point of view of language and from their manners and 
customs, some of the difficulties in assigning to the two races a 
common origin were not so insuperable as they appeared. He 
considered that the basis of the Polynesian race was Papuan 
with an Asiatic admixture. The idea that cannibalism existed 
because of the love of animal food and the inability to gratify 
this appetite in any other way was all nonsense : in ninety-nine 
cases out of a hundred it was only practised as a means of re- 
venge. The author gave a description of the etiquette and 
NATURE 
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609 
general manners and customs of the two peoples, and, summing 
up his argument, said the points of similarity were so much more 
numerous and marked than the points of difference that as they 
inquired further they would find no insuperable difficulty in 
giving them one common origin. 
What is an Aryan? by Sir George Campbell, K.C.S.I.— 
The great difficulty which we had in distinguishing the Aryan 
was that the Aryan race was seldom pure. Almost all the 
Aryans we met with were a very mixed race, but by their fea- 
tures and colour they were easily distinguished from the 
Turanian and Negro races. The difficulty in distinguishing be- 
tween the Aryans and the Semites lay in their features, and if the 
rather high features, which we called Jewish, were the real types 
of the Semites, what were the types of the Aryans? There 
were two distinct branches of Aryans with which he had long 
been in contact—the dark branch found in India and Asia, and 
the fair branch, which included the whole of Enrope and Asia 
Minor. Then in part of Western Asia, in the Hindu Kush, 
there was a whitey-brown variety of the race, which might be 
classed as the intermediates, and this he believed to have been 
the original habitat of the Aryan race. The question, of course, 
was what was the original Aryan—white, brown, or whitey- 
brown? and he was inclined to think that he was a whitey- 
brown, and that his primeval seats were in the higher recesses of 
the Hindu Kush, and that the branch which went into India had 
become darker by admixture with the aborigines, while those 
who went into Europe had become fairer or been completely 
blanched into whiteness by similar admixture with the fair races. 
As to features, he had come to the conclusion that the high 
prominent features which we were accustomed to speak of as 
distinctive of the Semite races were the real original features of 
the Aryan, and that the Jews had acquired them only by ad- 
mixture with the Aryan races. The true type of Semite he 
believed was to be found in the Southern Arab. 
On the Influence of the Canadian Climate on Europeans, by 
Prof. W. H. Hingston, M.D.—After describing the physical, 
geographical, and climatic characteristics of the country, the 
author proceeded to say that the heat of the summer in Canada 
was more easily endured than the moist humid summer weather 
often experienced in Europe. The skin was called into greater 
activity, and the heat of the summer weather acted very strongly 
on the liver, but if European residents adopted the indigenous 
customs ofthe country, lived moderately and temperately,and led 
active lives,their livers would give them no trouble. The cold 
weather in winter stimulated people to activity. The mortality in 
early life was large, because in no country in the world were there 
so many children, but the mortality in adult life was not large. 
With the exception of Malta, the Canadian stations used to be 
considered the healthiest posts of the British army, and there 
were really no diseases peculiar to the country, while many 
which prevailed in England and in Europe had no existence 
there. 
The Life-History of a Savage, by the Rev. George Brown.— 
The author gave an account of the life-history of a native of 
New Britain, an island in the Polynesian group, about forty 
miles north-east of New Guinea. He commenced with the 
birth of the example child, and said that when a child was born 
to the Papuan people who occupied this land, a warm banana- 
leaf was wrapped round his body, and he was fed with the ex- 
pressed juice of the cocoa-nut, and left ever afterwards to be 
‘dressed in pure sunshine.” He described the children’s games 
of the people, and the initiation of the boy as he grew up into 
certain secret rites, and the ceremonies at the various feasts, 
especially on his marriage, and the feast when he was taught to 
curse his enemies. On the occasion of his marriage there was 
an interchange of goods and a distinct payment for the wife. 
Presents were also given by the women to the bride and by the 
men to the husband, and after a broom had been given to the 
former, and a spear to the latter, a stick was given to the man. 
The spear meant that the husband was to protect his wife, and 
the broom that with it the wife was to do her household work, 
and the stick was a symbol of his authority, or, in plain English, 
“Here’s the stick with which to whack her if she does not.” At 
the time of death the cries of the friends of the deceased were 
very piteous and touching. The dead person was cried to to 
come back, was expostulated with for having left his friends, 
was entreated to say how his friends had offended him, and so 
on, the mourners seeming to be speaking in the very presence 
of the spirit of the dead person, Many of the things which we 
should call good they also called good, but they had a definite 
