458 Notices of Memoirs — 



the dim past, when history and writing were unknown, they were 

 approaching the boundaries of scientific Archaeology. 



Every reader of Virgil knew that the Greeks were not merely 

 orators, but that with a pair of compasses they could describe the 

 movements of the heavens and fix the rising of the stars ; but when 

 by modern Astronomy we could determine the heliacal rising of 

 some well-known star, with which the worship in some giveix 

 ancient temple was known to have been connected, and could fix 

 its position on the horizon at some particular spot, say, three 

 thousand years ago, and then found that the axis of the temple 

 was directed exactly towards that spot, we had some trustworthy 

 scientific evidence that the temple in question must have been 

 erected at a date approximately 1100 years e.g. If on or close to 

 the same site we found that more than one temple was erected, 

 each having a different orientation, these variations, following as 

 they might fairly be presumed to do, the changing position of the 

 rising of the dominant star, would also afford a guide as to the 

 chronological order of the difi^erent foundations. The researches 

 of Mr. Penrose seemed to show that in certain Greek temples, of 

 which the date of foundation was known from history, the actual 

 orientation corresponded with that theoretically deduced from 

 astronomical data. 



Sir J. Norman Lockyer had shown that what holds good for 

 Greek temples applied to many of far earlier date in Egypt, though 

 up to the present time hardly a sufficient number of accurate 

 observations had been made to justify us in foreseeing all the 

 instructive results that might be expected to arise from Astronomy 

 coming to the aid of Archeology. 



The intimate connection of Archaeology with other sciences was 

 in no case so evident as with respect to Geology. 



By the application of geological methods manj' archaeological 

 questions relating even to subjects on the borders of the historical 

 period had been satisfactorily solved. 



When they came to the consideration of the relics of the Early 

 Iron and Bronze Ages, the aid of chemistry had of necessity to 

 be invoked. By its means they were able to determine whether 

 the iron of a tool or weapon was of meteoritic or volcanic origin, 

 or had been reduced from iron-ore, in which case considerable 

 knowledge of metallurgy would be involved on the part of those 

 who made it. With bronze antiquities the nature and extent of 

 the alloys combined with the copper might throw light not only 

 on their chronological position, but on the sources whence the 

 copper, tin, and other metals of which they consisted were originally 

 derived. 



Like Chemistry, Mineralogy and Petrology might be called to 

 the assistance of Archgeology in determining the nature and source 

 of the rocks of which ancient stone implements were made ; and, 

 thanks to researches of the followers of those sciences, the old view 

 that all such implements formed of jade and found in Europe must 



