May 4, 1883.] 



SCIENCE. 



373 



ANTHROPOLOGY. 



Are the stone graves modern ? — Throughout 

 Kentucky, Tennessee, and other sections drainhig 

 into the Oliio, the aborigines, at some former period, 

 buried tlieir dead in stone boxes or cists, made of 

 thin slabs of limestone, and other rools;. There are 

 those Avlio maintain tliat this form of burial was 

 13ractised by a highly cultured race of people, who 

 passed away before our modern Indians set foot in 

 that country. Dr. Charles Rau, in a paper before the 

 American association at Montreal, gave an account 

 of graves opened by Dr. Wislizenus, in Randolpli 

 County, 111., containing both of Dr. Morton's types 

 of North-Americans, — the Toltecan, and the true 

 American. Dr. H. Shoemaker opened a stone grave, 

 in Monroe County, 111., which contained the remains 

 of a Kickapoo Indian. Dr. Eau concludes tliat the 

 stone graves owe their origin to the race inhabiting 

 within historic times, or even earlier, the district 

 where they are found. —{Anier. nat., Feb.) J. w. p. 



[802 



Cup-shaped sculpture. — One of the enigmas of 

 the stone age is the occurrence of cup-shaped cut- 

 tings, singly or in groups, from the size of a half-bul- 

 let upwards, upon small, movable bowlders, as well 

 as upon lai'ge stationary rocks. Dr. Eau, in his paper 

 on " Cup-shaped and other lapidarian sculpture in 

 the old world and in America," has ransacked the 

 literature of Great Britain, France, Switzerland, Ger- 

 many, Scandinavia, and India, for old-world exam- 

 ples. Many of these are very elaborately carved and 

 encircled,, giving evidence of connection with ancient 

 mystic rites. The American specimens are much 

 ruder; and the cautious author is disinclined to at- 

 tribute to them the same mystery that hangs over 

 those in the eastern world. — (Contr. N.A. etlmoL, 

 V.) o. T. M. [803 



EGYPTOLOGY. 



The Fayoum. — The good work done by Mr. Cope 

 Whitehouse {Eev. archeoL, Juin, 1882; Bull. Amer. 

 geoqr. soc, 1882, No. 2) on the boundaries of the 

 ancient Lake Moeris is to be supplemented by further 

 researches into the formation of the pyramids, and the 

 possibilities of irrigation in the Fayoum. Mr. White- 

 house is now in Cairo ; and. with the aid of government 

 surveyors, -he hopes to verify his theories, which have 

 been somewhat misunderstood. — (Athenaeum, March 

 24.) H. o. [804 



Ancient Egyptian economy. — Broken crockery 

 was not entirely lost to the Egyptian, for he saved the 

 pieces to have inscribed on them the tax-gatherer's 



receipts. Immense numbers of these inscribed frag- 

 ments have been found ; and, from the collection in 

 the British museum. Dr. Birch has given a series of 

 translations, showing the tax in Egypt under the 

 early Caesars. — (Proc. soc. bibl. arch., March 6.) 

 H. o. [805 



New discoveries. — This year promises large re- 

 sults in new discoveries. The director of the Boolak 

 museum, Maspero, though with scanty means, has 

 made great progress in new work. He has obtained 

 a royal sarcophagus of the twenty-flfth dynasty, and 

 several valuableniummies. He has also found an 

 Egyptian crypt containing an early Coptic church, 

 with all its ecclesiastical "furniture intact. — {Acad- 

 emy, March 24. ) ii. o. [806 



"Work in progress. — The mural decorations of 

 the tomb of Seti I. (Belzoni's tomb) at Bab-el-Molook 

 are now being copied by Lef^bure, Loret, and Bour- 

 goin, members of the French college of archeology at 

 Cairo. The temple of Luxor is to be excavated in 

 the autumn. Maspero is to resume the excavation 

 of the pyramid at Lisht in May. — {Academy, March 

 24.) H. o. [807 



EARLY INSTITUTIONS. 



Manumissions at four roads. —F. E. Warren 

 finds proof, in the Leofric missal, — a X.-XI. cent. 

 MS. preserved at the Bodleian in Oxford, — of the 

 existence, in England, of the custom of manumitting 

 slaves at places where four roads meet {on feower 

 loegas). The passage is given in full from the MS. 

 — {Bev. celt, Jan., 1882. Of. Bep. Devonsh. ass. adv. 

 sc.,viii. 417, 1876.) d. w. r. [808 



Ostracism. — M. Houssaye gives a brief history 

 of ostracism as it obtained in Athens and other Greek 

 cities and colonies, Apropos of the effort to introduce 

 something like it in France. — {Bev. deux monde.% 15 

 F6v.) D. w. K. [809 



Moslem property-lavr. — Baron von Tornauw 

 writes at length upon this subject. It has been gen- 

 erally maintained, in regard to the land in Moslem 

 countries, that it has been the common property 

 of the people {dei- moslemischen religionsgenossen- 

 schaft) ; that the individual has had no real right of 

 property in it, only a usufruct {nutzungsrecht). The 

 writer attempts to show, that according to the Koran, 

 according to tradition, and according to the law-books 

 {scherietbiichern} , private property in land, in the 

 fullest sense of the term {voiles eisenthumsrecht auf 

 grund und boden], existed everywhere. The writer 

 gives a list of sources (34 titles). — {Zeitschr. deutsch. 

 morgenl. gesellsch., xxxvi. ii.) D. w. R. [810 



INTELLiaHNOE FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. 



PUBLIC AND PRIVATE INSTITUTIONS. 

 Pealjody maseom of American archaeology, Cambridge, Mass, 



The ancient cemetery at Madisonville, O. — In his re- 

 cent explorations in connection with Dr. G. L. Metz, 

 Mr. Putnam made extensive researches at this place. 

 Near the cemetery are several earth-circles, from 

 forty-three to fifty-eight feet in diameter. Trenches 

 run through four of them revealed in the centre of 

 two, on the clay bottom, beds of ashes in which were 

 potsherds, flint-flakes, and burnt bones, with a per- 

 forated clam-shell. In the trench, on the clay, there 

 were found a rudely chipped stone hoe, a rude stone 

 axe with a groove, a split pebble, a fragment of a 

 stone gorget, worked antler-tips, and several rude 



arrow-points. The results of the examination of these 

 circles proved them to be the sites of habitations, over 

 which from one to two feet of leaf-mould has formed 

 since the central fires were deserted and the circular 

 structures fell from decay. The few things found 

 within the circles, and the abundance of household 

 utensils, implements, and refuse, found in the ash- 

 pits, suggest the possibility, that on special occasions 

 all the articles in the house, with ornaments, imple- 

 ments, and other personal objects, -were partly de- 

 stroyed by fire, and the remnants, being gathered up 

 with the ashes, were deposited in a pit dug for the 

 purpose; while the great number of broken bones of 

 various animals, mixed with the aslies, indicates that 

 at such times feasts were h^ld. Such a custom would 



