ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 33 



in the encircling ridge mark the sites of entrances, and 

 hearthstones are found in the central spaces. In all the 

 heaps examined the shells are rarely found broken. The 

 inference was drawn that the shells had been opened after 

 having been placed near the fire, or in hot water, so that they 

 could be parted with the hands without the use of an in- 

 strument. 



Most of the bones found had been broken, probably for 

 the purpose of extracting the marrow? A few bone tools 

 were found, and many fragments of pottery. 



ANNUAL MEETING FOR THE ELECTION OF OFFI- 

 CERS. 



January 20, 1880. 



A Strange Chart. 

 By W. BAINBRIDGE HOFF. 



Commander Hoff state'd that in 1869 he was shown a chart 

 in the Naval Arsenal, Lisbon, Portugal, that had sufficient 

 novelty about it to be worthy of special mention. 



It represented the Indian and Pacific oceans lying between, 

 say 30° N. and 36° S. latitude, and extending sufficiently in 

 longitude to embrace the eastern African and Asiatic coasts 

 and the western coast of America. It had been prepared by 

 a Spanish Jesuit, who dedicated the chart to " Jesus Christ 

 the Master of the World," and had preceded his signature 

 with a prayer. The text was in Latin, and the date of the 

 chart was somewhere in the first quarter of the seventeenth 

 century- 



The extraordinary feature of this map was that geographic 

 positions had seemingly been laid down at random, and 

 that any correction for latitude and longitude applied to any 

 one point did not answer for another. Nearly all the results 

 of late discovery were on this chart, but entirely adrift in 

 position. This would lead to the belief that the chart had 

 been intentionally distorted — and this proved to be the case. 



