Siippleinent to " jVa/iti-e," November 14, 1901. 



literature in demand in England and Germany respec- 

 tively may not be taken as an indication of the relative 

 position of science teachinj; in the two countries. For 

 depth and breadth of treatment, we naturally turn to 

 works like that under consideration — a treatise which 

 the facts before us now declare to be in such little 

 demand here that the English publishers do not feel 

 warranted in undertakinj,' the further responsibility of 

 issuing a revised edition. On the other hand, it may 

 be confidently asserted that there is no other country 

 in the world which of late years has produced such a 

 vast number of little elementary books on chemistry. It 

 is no e.xaggeration to say that books of this class can 

 be named by hundreds. Almost every newly appointed 

 teacher, lecturer, and professor feels it a duty to contribute 

 to the list of what may in the majority of cases be called 

 little cram books. Thus, while the demand for a substantial 

 work is on the decline, there is apparently an unlimited 

 field for manuals of the kind referred to. The system 

 of wholesale smattering which is so characteristic of the 

 modern educational revival in our country appears to 

 have acted prejudicially upon the chemical literary energy 

 of our authors and publishers, which is thus being frittered 

 away m small efforts directed mainly towards the re- 

 quirements of e.xamining boards. It has been said with 

 justice that in the domain of fiction magazine writing 

 has been the curse of high-class English literature. It 

 may with equal truth be asserted that writing up to the 

 requirements of examining bodies has been the curse of 

 English chemical literature. The Americans have in 

 recent times shown a great desire to possess good text- 

 books of science, and their translations of certain German 

 works are in use in this country. It only remains now 

 for some enterprising American to bring out a translation 

 of the new " Roscoe and Schorlemmer ' to convert the 

 position into one of ignominy for the country which first 

 contributed this treatise to the literature of modern 

 science. R. Meldola. 



PR.tl-ARYAN RELIGIOX IN GREECE. 

 Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Cull and its Mcdilerianean 

 Relations. By Arthur J. Evans. "Journal of Hellenic 

 Studies," vol. xxi. pp. 99^ I'p. xii -I- 106. (London : 

 Macmillan and Co., Ltd., igoi.) Price bs. net. 



FEW discoveries in the archa2ological field during the 

 past few years have commanded such universal 

 attention and have so profoundly modified our conception 

 of the origines of European civilisation as the excavation 

 of the Mycen;uan palace and city of Knossos in Crete by 

 the able and energetic keeper of the Ashmolean Museum 

 at Oxford, Mr. Arthur J. Evans. It is not many years 

 ago since, in spite of the discoveries of Schliemann and 

 his successors at Troy, at Mycen;e and at Tiryns, and of 

 the steadily accumulating evidence from all parts of the 

 Greek world, things "Myceniuan" were still looked at 

 askance, especially by classical archaeologists of the 

 older school, who could never accustom themselves to 

 the idea that the classical Greece which they and their 

 forefathers".for three centuries back had known by heart 

 was but the .fcroW phase of Greek life and activity, that 

 NO. 1672, VOL. 65] 



long before the P'irst Olympiad Greece had been the 

 seat of a magnificent and luxurious culture of which 

 faint echoes are preserved to us in the Homeric poems, 

 and of which the actual remains still exist upon Greek 

 soil. The treasuries of Minyas and of Atreus still stood 

 above ground, but none seemed to realise theirjintense 

 interest ; Mycena- still existed off the road from Corinth 

 to Argos, but nobody had thought of looking to see 

 whether it had really been "golden" and "widewayed" 

 until the firm belief of Schliemann in the historical 

 reality of the Trojan War impelled him to go and look. 

 We know what he found, and now, after twenty years, 

 we can appreciate the revolution which he wrought in 

 our conceptions of the earlier ages of Greece. Mr. 

 Evans's Cretan discoveries have rivetted our attention 

 once more upon the antiquities of the" Mycen;tan "Age, 

 and now we can see clearly, where before we saw but 

 darkly, that the relics of the First Greece which we can 

 hold between our hands are not those of any problem- 

 atical " Mycen:can '' period, the date of which was but 

 doubtful and was, indeed, not to be too closely investi- 

 gated lest it upset our traditional ideas too much — are, in 

 fact, the relics of the Heroic Age of Greece. The 

 Heroes existed : and here are their cities, their palaces 

 and their works of art. No such actual personages as 

 Agamemnon or Achilles or Minos need ever have existed 

 in life, but their magnificent figures undoubtedly represent 

 the great kings who ruled in Mycenre and the Isles, in 

 Lacedasmon and in Crete, in times which to the Homeric 

 singers were already ancient. The Trojan War is no sun- 

 myth, it is a tradition of an actual occurrence. Theseus 

 may never have actually rescued Ariadne from the Mino- 

 taur, but the Labyrinth has been laid bare by the spade 

 of Mr. Evans, and the Cretan kings who are personified 

 by the legendary Minos undoubtedly lived therein and 

 venerated there a deity to whom the bull was sacred and 

 to whom human sacrifices were very possibly offered in 

 remote days long before the story of Theseus and the 

 Minotaur took shape, .^nd now Mr. Evans has dis- 

 covered and placed before us the actual hicroglyphed 

 tablets which contain the records, the accounts, the 

 inventories, the registers of the daily transactions of the 

 Minoans of the Heroic .Age. We cannot yet read them, 

 but there is no doubt that no energy will be spared to 

 attain this end. We are on the brink of discoveries 

 which may extend our knowledge of the beginnings of 

 Greek, and therefore also of European civilisation, in 

 directions which cannot as yet be guessed at. We may 

 yet read the actual historical records of events of which 

 Greek tradition has preserved to us but distorted and 

 imaginative accounts. 



The i>urpose of Mr. Evans's present monograph is to 

 arrive at some measure of certainty with regard to the 

 religious conceptions of the Heroic Greeks on the basis 

 of the representations of cult-scenes which they have left 

 behind them on gems, rings, vases, &c. It is a diflficull 

 task, but one which Mr. Evans has essa\ed with much 

 success, though it may seem to the reader that his treat- 

 ment of it is somewhat too voluminous, that, indeed, 

 while reading it is occasionally difficult to see the wood 

 for the trees. This is no doubt due to Mr. Evans's un- 

 rivalled power of illustration from (ireek legend and his 



