TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION D. — DEPT. ANTHROPOLOGY. 631 



that yet a more minute search would prohahly reveal traces of this curious custom, 

 not only in France, but also in Great Britain and Ireland, and, in fact, wherever the 

 holed stone is found as a covering to dolmens, believing that these holes are con- 

 nected with the same superstition — being made to facilitate the entrance and exit 

 of the spirit — and that the discovery of trepanned skulls in these dolmens would be 

 of great ethnological importance, as proving, if not a racial identity, at least some 

 commimication between widespread peoples in prehistoric times. Looking upon 

 it as an important fact that this custom of trepanning still exists, according to Dr. 

 Broca, among some of the South Sea Islanders, the Kabyles of Algeria, and the 

 mountaineers of Montenegro. Miss Buckland suggests that greater attention should 

 be directed to this curious subject by English antiquaries. 



2. On Bushmen Crania. By Professor G. Rolleston, M.B., F.B.S. 



3. On the Salting Mounds of Essex. By H. Stopes, F.G.S. 



The author described the results of a series of investigations in these mounds- 

 They consist of a reddish burnt clay, mixed freely with broken pottery of very rude 

 type, charcoal, and wood-ashes, and clinkers. "They exist only m one peculiar 

 position. Out of very many examined, none were more than five feet above ordinary 

 high-water mark, and none reached to low-water level. They are all uniform in 

 character and composition, ranging from one to five feet in thickness, and possess 

 the same character at top as at bottom. In size, they are very varied ; sorne 

 covering ten acres of ground. The number of them is unkno%vn, but eighteen stiU 

 exist between Strood and Virley (a space of alwut six niUes). All occur in the 

 marshes, but some are outside the sea-waU, and the greater nimiber within it. 

 Of those that are outside the existing sea-wall, two still retain the characteristic 

 traces of Saxon tillage. Not a single mound is known to the author which feces 

 the open sea. All of them fringe the creeks and estuaries, and they are invariably 

 placed upon the London clay. 



Many specimens of the pottery were exhibited, showing extremely coarse 

 manufacture, all of which were imperfect. Two fragments were of Roman make. 

 One flint scraper also was shown, but as it was upon the surface, the author con- 

 sidered it did not really belong to the mound upon which it was found. 



Many local traditions were mentioned, and the opinions stated of several gentle- 

 men as "to their cause ; notably that of the Rev. T. 0. Atkinson, as to their being 

 the resultants of salt-works of Roman date. 



4. The Mountain Lajips. By Lieutenant G. T. Temple, B.N. 



The author stated that in Norway the Lapps are very generally, but incorrectly 

 called Finns, and therefore often confomided with the real Finns or Quaens. They 

 are regarded by most historians as the descendants of the aboriginal people of 

 Norway. The" total number of Lapps in Norway at the present time does not ex- 

 ceed 17,000, and of these upwards of 15,000 are sea or fisher Lapps, whose mode 

 of life differs but little from that of the Norwegian fishermen. In the interior of 

 Northern Norway, however, there are still about IGOO fjeld or mountain Lapps, 

 who live partly by the chase and fresh-water fishing, but chiefly on the produce of 

 their reindeer, the herds comprising in 1865 about 102,000 tame animals. 



For centuries they have been in contact with civilisation, but to this day their 

 mode of life is that of the half-wild hunter, the half-civilised nomad. Their 

 usages, their ornaments, and their implements all bear traces of a wild state ; and 

 they are, alas ! like the North American Indians, of all the allurements of civilisa- 

 tion, only susceptible to the temptation of spirits. It does not require very sharp 



