SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—H. 455 
it was almost impossible to trace the original building. The 1930 season (last winter) 
has almost finished the clearing of the great Temple of Ishtar. 
During these seasons a house built by Sennacherib for his son, and some very 
interesting early arched tombs, were also discovered. Stone cuneiform inscriptions 
are numerous, and, among other finds, are a practically perfect prism of Esarhaddon, 
pieces of a cuneiform tablet giving in epic form the events at the end of the Kassite 
wars, a life-size bronze head of 3000 B.c., and an almost complete stone cylinder of 
about 1830 B.c., giving the account of the rebuilding of the Temple of Ishtar. The 
painted pottery of the third millennium has appeared in fair profusion, and there 
have been found numerous pieces of cylinders or tablets, quantities of beads, coins 
(four hoards) and several cylinder seals. 
Mr. H. P. Vowxes.—The Harly Evolution of Power Engineering. 
Apart from the use of wind for ship propulsion, the earliest method of utilising 
the forces of nature appears to have been the river-rotated water-raising wheel. This 
may have been known in Sumerian times. Vitruvius, however, gives the first 
unmistakable reference to wheels of this type, also describing the water-wheel driving 
millstones through toothed gearing. 
There are at the present day several primitive forms of water-mill, none of which 
involves gearing. These may have preceded the geared mill of Roman times. One 
of them, operating pestles through a trip-hammer mechanism, appears to be referred 
to by Pliny. 
Heron of Alexandria describes what has every appearance of being a wind-mill, 
used to move a piston by a trip-hammer arrangement similar to the pestle and mortar 
water-mill. The wind-mill is not heard of again until the tenth century a.p., when 
authentic references to such mills are made by three Persian writersin Arabic. There 
are large numbers of wind-mills of very primitive design in eastern Persia to-day. 
Yet another form possibly of early origin is used in China. The earliest authenticated 
date for a wind-millin Britain is a.p. 1191. 
A method of obtaining rotary motion by steam is described by Heron. This is 
an adaptation of the stationary eolipile already in common use in his time. There 
were no further developments of note in connection with steam until Heron’s book 
was translated into Latin and Italian in the sixteenth century. 
Some brief notes are added relating to early knowledge of magnetism and 
electricity, from Thales in Europe and Susruta in Asia in the sixth century B.c. down 
to the work of Faraday 100 years ago. 
Sir W. M. Furnvers Perriz, F.R.S.—Exzcavations at Old Gaza. 
The site of Tell Ajjul appears to be the old city of Gaza, on the side of the Wady 
Ghuzzeh ; it was deserted about 2000 B.c., when the present Gaza was established, 
five miles to the north. It is thirty-three acres in area, all of the Middle and Karly 
Bronze Ages. The latest period is that of the Hyksos, who were buried with their 
horses. They had no separate civilisation, but used the products of each country 
which they overran. Beneath them were the Canaanites of the twelfth dynasty, 
with a high civic life, having a regularly planned city, with shrines and baths. They 
used skilfully made gold jewellery, and their weights showed trade with Egypt, 
North Syria and Babylonia. 
Before them there was a desolation of the region, due to the passage of a people 
from North Syria down into Egypt, forming the seventh and eighth dynasties. These 
_ invaders destroyed the old Copper Age civilisation, which is marked by immense 
fortifications (like those of Homs), a long tunnel, pottery inheriting from the neolithic, 
and the beginning of copper weapons. This was about the earlier pyramid period, 
in the fifth and sixth dynasties. The civilisations of Palestine are now linked with 
those of Egypt at each stage. 
Prof. and Mrs. C. G. Seriaman.—The Social Organisation of the Nilotes. 
By Nilotes we mean the tall, very dark-skinned, dolichocephalic negroids 
of the White Nile and its tributaries, whose life and interest centre round the keeping 
of cattle. Of these tribes the best known are the Shilluk, Dinka and Nuer, our 
