Oct. 15, 1885] 
NATURE 
587 
divided on each edge of the two faces by lines which repre- 
sent the proportions of the human body, the male on the one side, 
and the female onthe other. The opposite edge to that on which 
the proportions are shown is divided into too parts in the same 
space as the height of the body. The object aimed at by the 
use of this scale is to compare any person, or statue, or photo- 
graph with the model of perfect human form given by John 
Marshall, or to determine the parts of the body in proportional 
decimals of the whole, to facilitate description. 
Mr. J. Theodore Bent read a paper on Jnsular Greek 
Customs as seen in the islands of the Agean Sea. He pro- 
ceeded to notice the modern Greek customs concerning birth 
and childhood, comparing them with ancient ones, among the 
customs described being that of fate-telling, and the notions 
regarding the deleterious influence of Nereids on children. 
The customs connected with death and burials were next 
described, and shown to be the same as those of the Greeks 
2009 years ago. Some instances were given of the poetry of 
death-wails, and it was shown that the belief in Charon and 
Hades existed still in the islands of the AZAgean Sea. Among 
the other customs described in the paper were feasts for the 
dead, which could be traced to a remote antiquity, and the 
ancient belief in vampires still survived. Instances were also 
given from agricultural life of the identity between ancient and 
modern customs, including the ceremony gone through before 
sowing of seed, the use of skins for grain, the granaries in the 
ground, in the kind of agricultural implements used, and also in 
the names used for animals. 
Gen. Pitt-Rivers explained the provisions of the Act of 
Parliament relating to the preservation of ancient monu- 
ments. The Act scheduled the most important and best-known 
ancient monuments in the country, and provided that these 
should be registered. and after their registration, although they 
remained the property of the owner of the land on which they 
were situated, and might be sold along with the land, could not 
be destroyed by the owners. There were also a vast number of 
minor monuments of great interest and value well worthy of 
being preserved. It was not proposed that the Government 
should meddle with these minor monuments. What he (Gen. 
Pitt-Rivers) had done with regard to these minor monuments 
was to endeavour to see all the principal gentlemen most inter- 
ested in local archzeology, and ask them to let him know when 
any injury was done to monuments in their district. In the 
Island of Lewis the agent of Lady Matheson had promised to 
assist him in every way he possibly could; and Dr. Aitken, 
Inverness, had promised to him to do the same thing ; and he 
had received promi-es of a like kind from a number of other 
gentlemen. In his wanderings throughout the country in con- 
nection with the working of this Act of Parliament, he had 
found no owner of the monuments scheduled in the Act un- 
willing to put his monument under the Act because he wished 
to destroy it. The feeling of those who were unwilling to put 
their monuments under the Act had rather been that they con- 
sidered they were quite as able and willing as the Government 
to preserve the monuments. What the State desired was to 
preserve the monuments in the hands of any owners into whose 
hands they might fall. In these days there was no knowing to 
whom land might belong now that the gospel of plunder was 
proclaimed, and it was desirable that there should be some sort 
of security that the monuments might be preserved hereafter. 
As the result of his wanderings in order to work this Act in 
England and Wales, about half of the owners of the scheduled 
monuments had voluntarily placed them under the protection of 
the Act. In certain cases the monuments were leased, and 
the proprietors refused to place them under the Act without 
compensation, which the Government could not give. 
Miss A. W. Buckland read a paper on American Shell- Work 
and its Affnities. Yn this paper the attention of anthropologists 
was called to some remarkable works in shell recently discovered 
in mounds in various States of North America, as described by 
Mr. W. H. Holmes in a valuable contribution to the Proceedings 
of the Bureau of Ethnology, Washington. These shell-works con- 
sist not only of beads of various shapes and sizes, but also of celts, 
fish-hooks, chips, and other implements of war and the chase, 
bracelets, pins, crosses of various forms, and more particularly of 
masks and elaborately engraved gorgets, the ornamentation upon 
which seems to bear some religious or astronomical signification. 
From the fact that implements and ornaments of the same form 
are found in the islands of the Pacific, and that sume of the 
peculiar symbols engraved upon the ancient American gorgets 
reappear slightly altered on shell gorgets in the Solomon and 
Admiralty Islands, and also on the great Japanese drum ex- 
hibited this year at the Inventions Exhibition, the author inferred 
that a commerce existed between the islands of the Pacific and 
the American continent prior to the Spanish conquest. 
Mr. E. F. im Thurn read a paper giving an account of the red 
men about Roraima, in British Guiana. Inthe paper an interest- 
ing account was given of the journey to Roraima, the scenery being 
described, as well as the manners and customs of the natives. 
In some of the villages visited the natives had never previously 
seen white men, and the utmost excitement was caused by the 
arrival of Mr. im Thurn. The natives of the villages visited 
were repulsively ugly, and it was almost impossible to distinguish 
men from women by their dress. The native tribes lived in 
remarkable isolation from each other, and even the different 
families in the same village lived in remarkable isolation from 
each other. There were traces of the Stone Age to be found 
of high interest. Stones were shaped into adzes and wedges, 
and they were often made into forms of animals, or of whistles, 
and models of bottles, which the natives had seen. There was 
among these tribes a revival of the ancient art of making stone 
implements, though these implements were simply regarded as 
ornaments. The natives also made drawings of rocks, which 
were used as ornaments, and which were evidently imitations of 
the drawings seen on the actual rocks. Mr. im Thurn closed 
his paper with an account of a number of some very remarkable 
games played by the tribes for the amusement of the visitors, in 
which the movements of animals were imitated in dances. 
Mr. J. W. Crombie read a paper entitled 4 Game with a 
fiistory, which was really an exposition of the antiquity, uni- 
versality, and signification of the well-known game of ‘‘ Hop- 
Scotch,” a term which is probably a corruption of ‘‘ hop-score.” 
The author commenced by pointing out that as children in their 
play generally imitate something they have observed to be done 
by their elders, and a game once introduced is handed down 
from generation to generation of children long after its original 
has ceased to exist, many innocent-looking children’s games 
conceal strange records of past ages and pagan times ; hence the 
importance of the study of this apparently frivolous subject is 
now fully recognised by anthropologists. The game of ‘‘ Hop- 
Scotch” is one of great antiquity, having been known in Eng- 
land for more than two centuries, and it is played all over 
Europe under different names. Signor Pitré’s solar explanation 
of its origin appears improbable, for, not only is the evidence in 
its favour extremely weak, but it would require the original 
number of divisions in the figure to have been twelve instead of 
seven, which is the number indicated by a considerable body of 
evidence. It would seem more probable that the game at one 
time represented the progress of the soul from earth to heaven 
through various intermediate states, the name given to the last 
court being most frequently Paradise or an equivalent, such as 
Crown or Glory, while the names of the other courts correspond 
with the eschatological ideas prevalent in the early days of 
Christianity. Some such game existed prior to Christianity, 
and the author considers that it has been derived from several 
ancient games; possibly the strange myths of the labyrinths 
may have had something to do with ‘‘ Hop-Scotch,” and a 
variety of the game played in England under the name of 
“Round Hop-Scotch” is almost identical with a game 
described by Pliny as being played by the boys of his day. The 
author believes that the early Christians adopted the general 
idea of the ancient game, but they not only converted it into an 
allegory of heaven, with Christian beliefs and Christian names, 
they Christianised the figure also; abandoning the heathen 
labyrinth, they replaced it by the form of the Basilicon, the 
early Christian church, dividing it into seven parts, as they 
believed heaven to be divided, and placing Paradise, the inner 
sanctum of heaven, in the position of the altar, the inner sanctum 
of their earthly church. 
Mr. George Campbell, M.P., read a paper entitled Zhe Rule 
of the Road from an Anthropological Point of View, in which 
he maintained that for all right-handed people the rule of going 
to the left hand in passing people was the most scientific and 
the most convenient. There was nothing, he maintained, to be 
said in favour of going to the right, and he held that the British 
rule should be maintained both for roads and for footpaths, and 
that we should give in to no right-handed innovation. 
Miss Jeanie M. Laing reid a paper on The Modes of Grinding 
and Drying Corn in Old Times. In some parts of Aberdeen- 
shire are found the remains of the straw kilns that were used for 
