TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION D. — DEPT. ANTHROrOLOGY. 695 



4. On some Objects recently exhumed in Britain, of apparently Fluinician 

 origin. By Dr. Phene, F.8.A., F.B.G.S. 



Tlie places at or near which the objects were discovered were described as 

 having in one case natural, in the other artificial, hillocks or tumuli of earth or 

 stone simulating rude animal outlines. One of the localities was the vicinity of 

 Dartmoor, the other that of the great serpentine mound, containing a chamber in 

 the head, found by the author some years since not far from Loch Etive. In the 

 first — Newton Abbot in Devonshire — had been fomid, some years since, at a depth 

 of 25 feet below the surface, leaning against a prostrate oak tree, equally deeply 

 buried, a rudely carved black oak figure, under two feet in height ; at the last — 

 North Ballachulish — a similar figure, nearly five feet high, including an attached 

 pedestal. As to the simulation of animal forms, natural and artificial, botli were 

 referred to in America and in France, and in or near them in each such case had 

 also been found figures somewhat similarly designed, but not in wood. But there 

 were stUl existing figures in wood and stone of almost identical sizes and outlines 

 in places long held by the Phoenicians, as Minorca, &c. A remarkable piece of 

 ■evidently Assyiiau scidpture, found in Lord Mount-Edgecumbe's estate in Devon- 

 .shire, lent fui'ther probability, from its locality being known a.s that of once 

 Phoenician occupation, and necessarily of importation in exchange for export tin, that 

 the object at Newton Abbot was made or imported by those people ; and thebronae 

 head of a cow found in a bog in Ireland, having the Phoenician emblems upon it, 

 seemed a further example of importation by them. The figure at North Ballachulish 

 had a clearly Oriental feature. The eyes were formed of white stone inserted in the 

 dark oak or ebony, and a recess at the base of the figui-e seemed evidently formed for 

 SL reliquary, and, with the sign of a crescent on the head, was pointed out by the 

 author as a proof of its being an object for worship. This figure was also found 

 at a depth from the surface, indicating a date as far back as the Phoenician traffic. 

 The thickness of peat under which it lay has been estimated at 12 feet. It was 

 shown that North Ballachulish and Newton Abbot were both secure and therefore 

 valuable harbours, and the gold of Sutherland and tin of Devon were a sufficient 

 inducement to attract Phoenician traders. Drawings of all the objects were 

 exhibited. 



MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 



The following Papers were read :— 



1. Notes on the Geographical Distribution of Manhind. 

 By Miss A. W. Buckland. 



Commenting upon the fact that the Geographical Distribution of Man has not 

 occupied the attention of naturalists so much as that of plants and animals, Miss 

 Buckland quoted the ' Encyclopedia of Geography,' published in 1834, to show that, 

 although great advances have been made in Anthropological research since the 

 formation of the British Association, the problems of fifty years ago remain un- 

 sohed. Ethnologists are still divided into monogenists and polygenists, and 

 although at present the monogenist theory is in the ascendant, little has yet been 

 done towards the discovery of the original birthplace of the human species, or of 

 that semi-human progenitor depicted by Darwin. 



The origin of the black, the white, and the yellow races, distinctly depicted 

 on Egyptian monuments five thousand years ago, remains undiscovered ; whilst in 

 almost every island of the Pacific may be found traces of one or more vanished 

 races, differing from the two distinct peoples at present inhabiting them. The 

 Australians form another separate race, which has been connected by Professor 

 Huxley with the hill tribes of India, and also with the ancient Egyptians ; but 



