900 KEPORT— 1887. 



en-aten and his connections considered. The Ramessids. The priest-kings. The 

 XXIIud dynasty, called Bubastite. Various types recounted, and remarks on the 

 whole matter considered as a subject of study and of educational information. 



4. Boat-shaped Graves in Syria} By George St. Clair, F.G.S. 



In passing through the Anti-Lebanon lately, from Damascus to Baalbec, the 

 writer noticed that the graves at the hamlet of £1 Fijeh have the form of a flat- 

 bottomed boat ; those at Ain Haiuar are formed like long narrow boats, with an 

 ark or house occupying the middle part ; and the graves at the village of Yafufeh 

 are built in three tiers, of which the upper one may be representative of the ark, 

 while the head- and foot-stones are almost certainly the conventional reproduction 

 of the head and stern of the boat. 



The author asks the question : What led these people in the mountains to build 

 their graves on the model of a boat.^ Authors are quoted to show that arks or 

 ships were carried in procession by the Phoenicians, as also were sacred boats in 

 the funeral processions of the ancient Egyptians. The Egyptians conveyed the 

 body across a lake, and both the lake and the boat were symbolical, typifying the 

 voyage of the Soul in the Underworld. 



The system passed into Greece, where we have Charon and his boat. Charon's 

 boat is sculptured on a funeral monument in the Ceramicon at Athens — a recently 

 uncovered cemetery ; and the bas-relief of a ship appears on a tomb at Pompeii. 

 From these facts and others the writer of the paper would infer that the boat- 

 shaped graves of Syria are fashioned by traditional custom in perpetuation of a 

 practice which appears to have originated with the ancient Egyptians. 



As a supplementary conclusion, it is suggested that the head-stones and foot- 

 stones of modern graves may be the surviving representatives of tlie prow and 

 poop of the sacred boat of the dead. 



5. On 108 Skulls from Tombs at Assouan. By W. S. Melsome. 



6. Account of a ' Witches Ladder ' found in Somerset. 

 By Dr. Edward B. Ttlor, F.B.S. 



7. The Effect of Town Life upon the Human Body. 

 By J. Milner Fothergill, M.B. 



It is generally recognised that the effect of town life upon the physique is not 

 beneficial ; and as the population of boroughs has now exceeded that of the country 

 the fact becomes one worthy of our attention. The great and rapid increase of 

 large towns at the present time adds to the importance of the subject and deepens 

 its gravity. 



Of old there were but few large towns, in our modern sense of a ' large ' town ; 

 but Lugol, the great French authority on ' scrofula,' noted how the popidatiou of 

 Paris deteriorated, and how scrofulous were the third generations of persons who 

 came in from the country perfectly healthy. Other observers have noticed the bad 

 effect of town life elsewhere. And the recent researches of Mr. James Cantlie 

 have demonstrated the rarity of a pure-bred Cockney of the fourth generation. If 

 physical deterioration and early extinction are the fate of town dwellers —and of 

 that there seems no question — it behoves us next to inquire as to the how and the 

 why of it all. 



It may be well to begin by contrasting the actual circumstances of country^ life 

 and of town life. Of old the baron lived in his castle, while the populace lived 

 around in villages of limited size. For men of all conditions of life the one thing 



' This paper is printed in extento in the Q^iarterly Statement of the Palestine 

 Exploration Fund, October 1887. 



