158 REPORT—1874. 
in any particular figure, it should not affect the argument. The evidences he found 
were direct and indirect. On the breast of the giant in Sussex, at about a foot 
below the surface, he found a large number of small particles of burnt clay. On 
subsequently opening a tumulus on the Clyde he found precisely similar pieces of 
burnt earth ; and on carefully reading again the account given by Strabo, he found 
the area was filled with hay and straw, in other words with vegetation hastily 
gathered and dried; and as the sedgy margins of streams near this great figure 
would afford such material most readily, and if (as it no doubt was) this was hastily 
collected and torn up, portions of the clay-soil would adhere to the roots, and such 
portions on being burnt would exactly resemble the burnt particles he had found. 
The indirect evidence was, that for obvious reasons he expected to find the largest 
amount of cremative matter at the feet of the figure, but on going to excavate it was 
found that an extensive square area had been removed to a depth of two or three 
feet; and he considered this could only have been done in consequence of the 
soil so il being found to be particularly rich, and for that reason worth 
removal. 
On “Natural Mythology,” and some of the Incentives to its Adoption in Britain 
and Ireland. By J. 8. Punnt, F.S.A., F.R.GS. 
In this paper the author carefully abstained from any subject which might 
approach to natural theology, but confined himself wholly to instances of a mytho- 
logical impersonation of remarkable natural objects, giving as an instance of his 
argument “ the image which fell down from Jupiter.” 
A very large photograph of the Sphinx of Egypt was exhibited, for the purpose 
of showing the weathering of the stone, the characteristics of which led the author 
to think that the original and natural condition of the rock before being sculptured 
into its present form was that of a human similitude, and that this very fact had 
suggested the artistic labour displayed upon it. The diagrams showed a number of 
curious appearances of rocks in yarlous parts of the world, some almost as like the 
human countenance in their purely natural condition as the Sphinx is at present. 
He thought that the localities of such objects had been sought as places of venera- 
tion, and no doubt for the celebration of religious and even sacrificial rites, and 
around them, as on Dartmoor, which abounded in such appearances, were tumuli 
and barrows of the dead. In such barrows were often is objects now preserved 
in museums; but these he considered, though generally looked on as the most im- 
ortant relics of the past, were not nearly so important as the positions of the 
rows themselves with their surroundings. In looking at matters in this way he 
found in a number of instances, where the result of death in strife was not in 
question, that the sites were of peculiar and most interesting selection, as the place 
sacred to former worship by the deceased, his natural Gods (the sun, river, and rock- 
idols), &c. were all studied in the selection of the place where he reposed. Hence 
survivors and visitants to such tombs would soon identify (under the changes from 
weather and various natural effects produced by mist and varieties of light) these 
semblances with departed persons; and this once the case, every such similitude 
would be identified as the place of abode of some mythological spirit, power, or 
divinity, to which henceforth the place would be held as dedicated. at such 
matters were noticed by the ancients was clear from Ptolemy’s description of the 
Capo del Orso, in the Mediterranean. All would be struck with the peculiar 
mythological personage Proteus as perhaps the strangest of the classic deities; but 
those who have witnessed the wonders of mirage in the Grecian archipelago and the 
Straits of Messina would comprehend how easily the superstitious and alarmed 
mind would see a Proteus or a Cyclops. Dartmocr and other similar places had 
the most surprising changes in appearance ; and the same feeling would see in them 
deities of mist, mountain, and flocd that were so popular in the mythological legends 
of different lands. 
The Origin of the Moral Idea. By C. Stantanp Waxe. 
Among even the lowest savages actions such as murder, adultery, and theft are 
looked upon as crimes, although they are not thought to be “immoral,” as this term 
ee 
