TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 877 
common with ages before or after them. This is the way to place a large quantity 
of material roughly in order. 
4, Method of style, serves to group in sequence the forms which are clearly 
intermediate between’ others, after their approximate place is already fixed by 
statistics. 
5. Method of compression. The earliest and latest examples of each type to be 
examined, to see if it be possible to concentrate them. Such inquiry always results 
in revealing a tension between two or more types; either one must be earlier or 
another later than in other cases, proved by their occurring together on one slip. 
The range of similar types helps to decide this. 
Practically a range in prehistoric Egypt of perhaps athousand years (may be 
half or double of that) is broken up into a scale of fifty parts of equal activities ; 
and we can define the age of every type of object found in that scale, as 38 to 41, 
53 to 65, &c.; these numbers may be termed sequence dates, or 8.D. 
Pottery is the best material for study. But all other forms in stone, metal, 
ivory, &c., are useful evidence, though more liable to transmission and to copying. 
We reach thus a system for the exact definition of all that we can learn on 
prehistoric times: a system which can be applied to all countries where enough 
material can be studied, and which will enable us to exactly state any correlation 
discovered between the civilisation of diferent lands, when a sequence date of one 
country can be proved equal to a given sequence date elsewhere. 
10. On the Sources of the Alphabet. 
By Professor W. M. Fuinpers Petrie. 
The large series of signs used in Egypt about 2500 B.c. is now shown—by 
such signs existing as far back as 5000 B.c.—to be independent of the hieroglyphic 
system or any derivatives of that. Similar signs in Crete show this system to 
have extended to the Mediterranean by about 20U0 B.c. 
On looking at the more extended forms of the Greek alphabet found in Karia 
and Spain, about 60 signs are seen in use, representing about 43 sounds. Three- 
quarters of these signs are common to the system found in Egypt and Crete. 
The only conclusion at present seems to be that signs were in use from 
5000 3.c. onward, aud developed by 2500 B.c. to over 100 in Egypt, of which half 
survived in the fuller alphabets of Karia and Spain. The compression and 
systematising of these signs were due to 27 of them being adopted for a numerical 
system by the Pheenicians, and thus the alpha beta order was enforced by com- 
merce on all the Mediterranean. This accounts in the only satisfactory way for 
the confusion of the early Greek alphabets, and is a view forced on us by the 
prevalence of these same signs long before Phoenician commerce. 
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19. 
1. Notes on the Yaraikanna Tribe, Cape York, North Queensland. 
By Dr. A. C. Havpon, F.2.S.—See Reports, p. 585. 
2. Report on the Ethnological Survey of Canada.—See Reports, p. 497. 
3. Primitive Rites of Disposal of the Dead, as illustrated by Survivals 
im Modern India. By Witu1am Crooxe, B.A. 
The author discussed— 
(a) Customs connected with the preservation of the corpse, such as various 
forms of mummification; (4) platform burial; (c) direct exposure of the dead to 
