788 EEPORT— 1889. 



observations. It is stated that the minimum distance at which the two points ot 

 a pair of compasses can be distinguished at the tip of the tongue is, on an average, 

 !•! mm. iu Europeans. It was found to be 3 mm. in negroes, 2-6 mm. in 

 Soudanese. After two negro boys had been educated for four years in England it 

 was found that their tactile sensation had become more acute, and they could then 

 distinguish the points of a pair of compasses at 2 mm. Observations on the various 

 regions of the body bore approximately the ratio indicated above. 



TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17. 

 The following Papers and Reports were read : — 



1. Tlie 'Esquimaux. By Dr. Fridtjof Naxsen. 



2. Northiimherland in Prehistoric Times. 

 By the Rev. G. Rome Hall, F.8.A. 



Prehistoric archaeology is an important branch of anthropology, the science of 

 man as found in all places and all times. It is the connecting link between geology 

 and history. As respects the prehistoric periods in this county a brief notice alone 

 is possible on this occasion. The old Saxon Northumbria is not in question — that 

 is, the land north of the Humber far-reaching to the Firth of Forth — but the com- 

 paratively modern Northumberland, greatly lessened in its geographical area. If 

 the present paper had regard to the former, this review of the time preceding the 

 Roman Conquest would have to be begun with the evidence of the existence of 

 Paleolithic, or cave-men, contemporary with extinct animals, discovered in the 

 Victoria and other caves near Settle, in Yorkshire. On the east coast of England, 

 however, no trace of them has as yet been found farther north than Norfolk. We 

 come, after an immense and unknown lapse of time, to the Neolithic period, when 

 the earliest inhabitants of Northumberland, who were, so far as we can ascertain, 

 cognate with the Basques and Lapps, crossed the Tyne in small family or tribal 

 bands. Though probably never numerous, their polished weapons and implements 

 have been frequently found. Many of these may belong to a later epoch, as the 

 various periods overlapped. There is no evidence from barrow exploration of a 

 dolicho-cepbalic race nearer than the Yorkshire Wolds. 'Long heads' reappear 

 afterwards, but very rarely ; perhaps through intermarriage with their conquerors. 

 These bring us to the Bronze period, of which relics of nearly all known varieties, 

 found between the Tyne and Tweed, may be inspected in our public and private 

 collections, especially in that of the Rev. William Greenwell, F.S.A., such as swords, 

 spear and javelin heads, celts, rings, pins, &c., the smallest implements being placed 

 with the dead, the large being too valuable to the living to be thus disposed of in 

 burial-mounds. Considerable hoards of bronze articles have been found near 

 Alnwick, Rothbury, and Walhngton. Gold was now in use, as it may also have 

 been in Neolithic times, as beads of that always precious metal were discovered in 

 a barrow at Four Laws, or Chesterhope, together with a thin bar of bronze. Near 

 Bellingham, in North Tynedale, a gold armlet was found. Burial by inhumation 

 was customary in the later Stone age, and cremation followed. In Ancient British 

 times in this county Mr. Greenwell has ascertained, judging from his own explora- 

 tions, that the proportion of cremated to inhumed bodies is nearly as two to one ; 

 but both modes of burial are frequent in the same ' family ' barrow, as at Warks- 

 haugh and Pitland Hills, near Birtley. Interments were sometimes in split-oak 

 coffins, found at Featherstone ; but usually in stone-lined graves, the body being 

 doubled up as in the posture of sleep, sometimes with an urn, a ' food-vessel,' placed 

 near the head. Cinerary urns, containing ashes of cremation, very rarely with a 

 small * incens3-cup,' are also often found in the burial mound. The British name 



