Jnly 18, 1872] 



NATURE 



227 



some particular sioamy or deity, and each receiving from 

 time to time a dab of red or white paint, as a proof that 

 the priest has performed before it tlie customary -poojah 

 or worship. 



Fig. 4. — Harpoox HEAD,".KE^^T's Cavekh 



This being so, the discovery of these implements in 

 Europe may have some bearing upon an important ethno- 

 logical question. We have good reason to believe that 

 the dolmen-builders came, in the first instance, from 



India, for we find in Wilts and Berks, and elsewhere, 

 exact counterparts of some megalithic structures, and 

 those of a peculiar construction, which yet remain in the 

 san-e Shewaroy district in which the celt worship is 

 still practised. May we not then regard it as possible 

 that the fabrication of polished implements, as well as 

 the practice of dolmen building, originated in India, 

 where they are still retained, and that these costly 

 polished celts were brought hither by our Aryan ancestors, 

 as the Israelites carried their Teraphim about with them, 

 or as the Trojans, after the fall of their city, are repre- 

 sented in Virgil as carrying with them their household 

 gods : — 



" Ilium in Italiam portan', victosque penates ;" 



and that the worship was only abandoned here as men 

 became enlightened, or were subjected to the dominion 



Fig. 5. -Bone Awl, Kemt's 



(.335. 



of some race of a different theology? Since we find 

 abundant traces of the Aryan language in our own, and 

 of their sepulchral architecture in our dolmens, why 

 should we not find in our fields and fens some of their 

 idols ? It is quite consistent with, and in a certain sense 

 confirmatory of, such a belief, that in almost every country 

 in which these things are found, they are regarded by the 

 common people with superstitious reverence, as if the 

 practice of adoration had in the lapse of ages merged in a 

 vague and faint tradition of sanctity. 



Nor is it any objection to this hypothesis, but the re- 

 verse, that these implements are usually found in and 

 about dolmens, as at Tumiac and Mont St. Michel, 

 where nearly seventy highly polished celts of imported 

 materials — Asiatic jade and hard tremolite — were found 

 ranged in regular order. It has been usual with almost 

 all people, in all ages, that those things which they most 

 esteemed in life should rest with them in their graves ; 

 and as we often find in our own country the priest's paten 

 and chalice placed in his coffin, or the Anglo-Saxon's 

 sword and shield laid beside him in the earth ; so, pos- 

 sibly, these Prehistoric men may have wished that the 

 stone idols which, when living, they adored — the Lares 

 and Penates of their time — should be laid beside them in 

 their tombs. 



But in pursuing the train of thought suggested by our 

 author, we had well-nigh forgotten his book, and we 

 have only space to congratulate all those who are inte- 

 rested in these researches — and they are now many — on 

 the ample and valuable additions which he has made to 

 this new and most interesting chapter in the history of 

 our race. 



NOTES 



The following officers have been electei^ for the Brighton 

 Meeting of , the British Association : — President-elect — Dr. 

 William B. Carpenter, F.R.S. Vice-Presidents-elett — The Earl 

 of Chichester, the Duke of Norfolk, the Dake of Richmond, 

 the Duke of Devonshire, F.R.S., Sir John Lu'jbjck, Bart., 

 M.r., F.R.S., Dr. Sharpey, Sec. R.S., Mr. Joseph Prestwich, 

 F. R.S., Pres. G.S. Section A : Mathematical and Physical 



Science. President — Warren De La Rue, F.R.S. Vice-Presi- 

 dents — J. Norman Lockyer, F.R.S.; Lord Rosse, F.R.S; 

 Prof. II. J. Stephen Smith, F.R.S. Secretaries— Prof. W. K. 

 Clifford, R. A. Proctor, A. C. Ranyard. Section B : Chemical 

 Science. President— Dr. J. Hall Gladstone, F.R.S. Vice- 

 Presidents— F. A. Abel, F.R.S.; Prof. Williamson, F.R.S. 

 Secretaries— Dr. Mills ; W. Chandler Roberts ; Dr. W. J. Rus- 

 sell, F.R.S.; T. Wood. Section C: Geology. President— 

 R. A. C. Godwin-Austen, F.RS. Vice-Presidents— Thomas 

 Davidson, F.R.S.; Prof. P.M. Duncan, F.R.S.; Rev. T. Wilt- 

 shire. Secretaries — Henry Woodward, Louis C. Miall, G. 

 Scott, William Topley. Section D : Biology. President — Sir 

 John Lubbock, Birt., JLP., F.R.S. Vice-Presidents— John 

 Ball, F.R.S.; Dr. Be ddoe ; Prof. Flower, F.R.S.; Colonel A. 

 Lane Fox ; J. Gwyn Jeffreys, F.R.S.; Dr. Burdon Sanderson, 

 F.R.S. Department of Zoology and Botany. Sir John Lub- 

 bock, Bart., M. P., will preside. Secretaries — Prof. Thiselton 

 Dyer; H. T. Stainton, F.R.S. Department of Anatomy and 

 Physiology. Dr. Burdon Sanderson, F.R.S., will preside. 

 Secretaries — Dr. Gamgee, F.R.S.; E. Ray Lankester ; Dr. 

 Rutherford; Dr. Pye- Smith. Department of Anthropology. 

 Colonel A . Lane Fox will preside. Secretaries^Dr. Charnock, 

 F. W. Rudler, J. H. Lamprey. Section E : Geography. 

 President — Francis Gallon, F.R.S. Vice-Presidents — Clements 

 R. Markham ; Major-General Sir Henry Rawlinson, Bart., 

 F.R.S., Pres. R.G.S.; Major-General Strachey, F.R.S. Secre- 

 taries — 11. W. Bates, A. Keith Johrston, Rev. J. Newton, J. H. 

 Thomas. Section F : Economic Sc ence and .Statistics. Presi- 

 dent — Prof. Henry Fawcett, M.P. Vice-Presidents — R.Dudley 

 Baxter, William Newmarch, F.R.S. Secretaries — J. G. Fitch, 

 Edmund Macrory, Barclay Phillips. Section G: Mechanical 

 Science. President — Frederick J. Bramwell, C.E. Vice-Presi- 

 dents—John Hawkshaw, F.R.S.; C. W. Merrifiekl, F.R.S.; 

 Charles B. Vignoles, F.R.S. Secretaries — H. Bauerman, J. 

 Gamble. The First General Meeting will be held on Wednes- 

 day, August 14, at 8 P.M. precisely, when Prof. Sir William 

 Thomson, F.R.S., will resign the Chair, and Dr. W. B. Car- 

 penter, F.R.S., will assume the Presidency, and deliver an Ad- 

 dress. On Thursiay Evening, August 15, at S r.M., a Soiree ; 

 on Friday Evening, August i5, at 8.30 P.M., a Disccurse on In- 



