154 



NATURE 



[August 5, 1909 



ARCHAEOLOGY AT AVEBUKY. 



A Guide to Avebiiry and Ncighbourliood. By R. H. 

 Cox. Pp. 68. (London : E. Stanford, 1909.) Price 

 2S. net. 



" A GUIDE to .Avebury " — a fascinating title, 

 jtV giving hope of a learned speculation as to the 

 uses of this, the most stupendous work of ancient times 

 m this island. Was it \vithin the circle of this great 

 earthwork that the astronomer-priests conducted their 

 observations, and was the great bank thrown up to 

 form an artificial horizon to mark the lapse of time 

 and change of season by the movements of the sun 

 and stars, or was it simply to veil the mysteries and 

 maintain the secrecy of the rites of a dominant priest- 

 hood, on whom the people, in those days before al- 

 manacs were thought of, were dependent for in- 

 structions when to sow and when to carry out any 

 other of the operations of agriculture or of life that 

 are subject to the seasons for their accomplishment ? 

 But no ! there is little upon these questions to be found 

 in this " Guide," which gives, indeed, a sort of 

 general introduction to the study of the ancient remains 

 in and around Av-ebury, and catalogues the camps, the 

 tumuli and the trackways to be found in a long 

 excursion from Barbury Castle round by Oldbury 

 Castle, Oliver's Camp, St. Ann's Hill, Rybury, and 

 Martinsell to Marlborough, but we look in vain for 

 any real conception of the grandeur and mystery of 

 the place. 



The maps are a feature of the book, but they are 

 difificult to understand; on p. 22, for instance, there 

 is nothing to show what the red lines mean, and the 

 red spots marking tumuli and camps cannot be dis- 

 tinguished, and do not by their size in any way indi- 

 cate which are the more important; then there are 

 only two indications of sarsen stones, the northern 

 labelled " Grey wethers," and we wonder if the author 

 has ever seen the vast sea of sarsen stones near 

 " Glory Ann " and " Totterdown." 



On p. 44 we are informed that near Urchfont is 

 the watershed between the head-waters of the Wilt- 

 shire Avon and the " Stour," an extraordinary state- 

 ment, as the Stour rises some thirty miles away to the 

 south-west, and the waters from Urchfont (Hart's 

 fount) flow into the Bristol Avon. 



On p. 53 we have the statement that the West 

 Kennet Long Barrow is now taken over by H.i\L's 

 Board of Works, and on the same page the author 

 writes of it as " the Government's long barrow," all 

 of which is pure imagination, as the barrow is no 

 more the property of the Government than is Silbury 

 Hill or Avebury. These inaccuracies make us chary 

 of accepting the author's statements, but they are in- 

 significant compared with Lord Avebury 's statement 

 on p. 6 that the earth and chalk from the ditch have 

 been thrown up on the hincr side, whereas, of course, 

 the curious fact at Avebury is that the bank is on the 

 outside of the ditch. 



As the author makes no mention of the late Rev. 



A. C. Smith's " British and Roman Antiquities of 



North Wiltshire," we presume he does not know the 



book or the elaborate maps contained in it, showing 



NO. 2075, VOL. 81] 



every road and trackway, every camp, tumulus, or 

 sarsen stone that exists, or of which there is tradition, 

 in the 100 square miles round .Avebury, and we venture 

 to think a careful study of it would have been useful 

 to the author. 



We hoped, when the delving archEeologists were 

 collected at Avebury this summer, that something 

 might be done to protect the most interesting relic of 

 all — the two remaining stones of the " cove " of the 

 northern circle — but apparently the use of these stones 

 as protection for a hayrick was deemed quite appro- 

 priate. R. H. C. 



VENOMS AND ANTI-X^ENOMS. 

 Venoms, Venomous Animals, and Anti-venomous 

 Serum-therapeutics. By Dr A. Calmette. Trans- 

 lated by E. E. -Austen. Pp. xvi + 403. (London: 

 John Bale, Sons, and Danielsson, Ltd., 190S.) Price 

 iji. net. 



WH.ATEVER may be thought of their reputed 

 po.vers in other directions, there is no question 

 of the peculiar fascination exercised by snakes upon 

 the popular imagination, so that a translation of a 

 work by Prof. Calmette, whose name in all that 

 relates to snake-venoms and antivenoms is familiar in 

 men's mouths as household words, is certain to 

 command attention. 



The volume consists of five rather unequal parts, 

 dealing respeclivcly with the classification, habits, and 

 geographical distribution of poisonous snakes; the 

 chemistry and physiology of snake-venom ; immunisa- 

 tion, and the preparation of antivenoms; the venoms 

 of various classes of animals other than Ophidia ; and 

 records and results of numerous cases of snake-bite 

 treated with the author's antivenin. 



The book is addressed particularly to medical men, 

 naturalists, travellers, and explorers, and the author 

 believes that physiologists also may read it with profit. 

 Its value to the physiologist is diminished by the fact 

 that, as a summary of our knowledge, its design is 

 hardly catholic enough ; but that it will prove of very 

 great service to the medical man, and particularly to 

 the medical officer stationed in the tropics, there can 

 be no two opinions. For just those things that the 

 medical man wants to know, and the medical officer 

 is expected to know, about snakes — what venomous 

 species he is likely to encounter in his own province, 

 how those species may be recognised, how their 

 various venoms manifest their action and to what 

 degree they are dangerous, end on what rational 

 principles the treatment of snake-bite is based — are 

 here to his hand in a single volume of convenient size 

 and of moderate price. 



The first part of the book, which deals with 

 poisonous snakes from the systematic and geo- 

 graphical points of view, may be described as a 

 condensed extract of the British Museum Catalogue, 

 leavened with remarks on habits, and finely flavoured 

 with well-chosen figures. The British Museum Cata- 

 logue, which itself is a marvel of conciseness, does 

 not lend itself to condensation of this sort, but the 

 figures in this instance make it good. W'hat one 



