116 REPORT— 1877. 



■way with the wheat and barley of that land to the Swiss lake-dwellings and over 

 a great part of Europe, having been evidently known in Greece and Rome at a very 

 early period, whilst a similar liquor still formed the chief beverage of all African 

 nations, being now, as formerly in Egypt, fermented by means of plants. In China 

 and Japan rice was and is used to make wine or beer instead of wheat or barley or 

 American maize. In Bolivia this is chewed to produce fermentation, like the 

 M kava " of the South-Sea Islands, a practice which reappears among the in- 

 habitants of Formosa, who use rice instead of maize. The sour milk or " kournis " 

 of the pastoral tribes of Central Asia, and the mead of the ancient Scandinavians, 

 both reappear among the Kaffirs of South Africa. Palm wine was used wherever 

 palms flourished; but wine of the juice of the grape, although known in very 

 ancient times, seemed to have been confined to the civilized races of Western Asia 

 and Egypt, extending later to Greece and Rome. The multitude of wines described 

 by Pliny were, however, in almost all cases flavoured with herbs or garden plants 

 for medicinal purposes. The conclusions to be drawn from the history of fer- 

 mented beverages, as recorded by travellers, were that the earliest stimidants were 

 simply leaves and roots chosen by animal instinct, chew 7 ed, and found by expe- 

 rience to produce exhilaration and strength. With the dawn of civilization, these 

 roots and plants, still chewed, were mixed with water, and thus a kind of fer- 

 mentation was induced, producing a mildly intoxicating drrnk; and when the 

 agricultural stage was attained the cereals took the place of the earlier roots and 

 leaves, and were also probably at first chewed to produce fermentation, as still in 

 Formosa and South America, to be superseded in a higher degree of civilization 

 with the use of the grape. Yet even in this, as in the liquors made from grain, the 

 roots and plants of an earlier age were retained for flavour and to produce fer- 

 mentation: and even the form and material of the earlier drinking-cups were 

 retained in civilized countries skilled in the manufactory, whilst the originally 

 medicinal character of these beverages gave rise to many superstitions, to the 

 deification of plants and their dedication to various gods, to the birth of gods of 

 wine, as well as to the universal custom of commencing every orgie with libations 

 to the gods and of proposing healths at feasts. The art of distillation, though 

 probably known early in the Christian era, is comparatively modern, and was 

 certainly imknown to savage races until " fire-water " was introduced, to their 

 serious detriment, by Europeans. 



On some Paleeolithic Implements found in the Axe Valley. 

 By J. Evans, D.C.L., F.B.S. 



The author called attention to the discovery of palaeolithic implements in the 

 valley of the Axe, a considerable collection of which had been obtained for the Albert 

 Memorial Museum of Exeter by its curator. The implements had for the most 

 part been found upon the South-western Railway in ballast dug in a pit at Broom, 

 between Chard Junction and Axminster. They present the usual forms of palseo- 

 lithic implements, though formed of chert from the Black Down beds, and not of 

 flint. Though no mammalian nor testaceous remains have as yet been found in the 

 gravel, it seems to be of the same age as the other gravels in which such implements 

 had been found. Though the number of implements collected was large, they are 

 by no means common. The author exhibited a large, but somewhat rude specimen. 

 The discovery of these implements proved that where chalk flints were scarce other 

 siliceous rocks were utilized by Palaeolithic men for the same purpose. 



On some Saxon and British Tumidi near Guildford. By Col. Lane Fox. 



The author considered that in one of the tumuli the central interment, whether 

 burnt or otherwise, must have been placed on the surface of the ground, the mound 

 raised above it ; but no trace remained. Near the centre of the mound, however, 

 three British urns were found with burnt bones in them — probably, he thought, 

 secondary interments, but possibly the original interment for which the mound 



