OCTOBEE 30, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



637 



time formed part of a continental deposit, 

 and perhaps to discover much more than 

 this. Such an undertaking might be car- 

 ried out in conjunction with other investi- 

 gations of the highest interest, such as the 

 attempt to obtain a record of the swing of 

 a pendulum at the bottom of the ocean. 



E. B. POULTON. 



{To he Concluded.') 



SECTION H. ANTHROPOLOGY. 



The Liverpool session of the Anthropo- 

 logical Section will long be remembered as 

 one of exceptional interest. The President, 

 Mr. Arthur J. Evans, keeper of the Ash- 

 molean Museum at Oxford, had long pre- 

 viously arranged for a discussion on the ori- 

 gin of the Mediterranean race and culture, 

 and numerous distinguished archaeologists 

 and anthropologists had been invited to at- 

 tend and join in the discussion, among 

 others may be mentioned Prof. Sergi, M. 

 Salomon Reinach, Dr. P. Topinard and 

 Prof. D. G. Brinton, but these four were at 

 the last unfortunately unable to be present. 

 In the course of his able address the Presi- 

 dent touched on many points that were 

 coming on for discussion during the meet- 

 ing, and he thus, as it were, struck the key- 

 note of the proceedings. Taking it as a 

 whole the meeting was distinctly archseo- 

 logical in character, and it will probably be 

 found that the giving of a distinctive char- 

 acter to a meeting will ensure a higher 

 average of excellence in the papers than if 

 the communications offered are left to 

 chance. There is more likelihood of a num- 

 ber of distinguished men interested in a 

 comparatively limited subject gathering to 

 meet with one another by prearrangement, 

 than the same number of equally compe- 

 tent men in various departments of An- 

 thropology ; but at the same time no depart- 

 ment of Anthropology should be entirely 

 unrepresented. 



The range of the subjects dealt with at 



the meeting will be evident from the follow- 

 ing summary, in which no attempt is made 

 to retain the order in which the papers were 

 read. 



Mr. Seton Karr exhibited a selection of 

 the paleolithic implements he discovered 

 in Somaliland, these form a remarkable 

 series taken in conjunction with the types 

 from India and "Western Europe, and sug- 

 gest either the extension of an associated 

 people or a migration. Recent numerous 

 finds of flint implements in North Ireland 

 appear to throw back the age of man in 

 Ireland further than the typical Neolithic 

 period which is the limit usually acknowl- 

 edged, but it is not yet generally accepted 

 that the strise on some of these implements 

 are really of glacial origin. Mr. W. J. 

 Knowles brought forward evidence to show 

 that at Whitepark Bay, County Antrim, 

 Neolithic settlers carried away to sites 

 among the sand hills, the weathered cores 

 and flakes, of palgeolithic age from the 

 raised beach and worked them up into 

 fresh implements, which still show the 

 older flaked surfaces ; their newer surfaces, 

 however, are still fresh. A lantern exhibi- 

 tion of photographs taken by Prof. W. A. 

 Herdman, of the dolmens of Brittany, led 

 to a discussion of their age. Most speakers 

 dated them as being neolithic, but perhaps in 

 some cases of later date. Prof. Boyd Daw- 

 kins, however, claimed them as belonging 

 to the Bronze age. Mr. F. T. Elworthy re- 

 corded the very recent discovery of a cist 

 burial in Somersetshire, of which he ex- 

 hibited photographs. The man, judging 

 from his skull, certainly belonged to the 

 Roundbarrow or Bronze race, but the in- 

 terment and the earthen vessel were more 

 neolithic in character ; perhaps he was a 

 pioneer. The ancient forts or brochs of 

 Scotland formed the subject of a paper by 

 Miss Maclagan. 



The occurrence of an European Copper 

 age was more than once alluded to. Dr. 



