October 30, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



639 



Scandinavia cannot be its place of origin, 

 for there the Iron Age began later than the 

 Christian era. It is admitted that the Iron 

 Age comes per saltum in Swiss lake dwell- 

 ings, in Italy, Greece, France and Britain. 

 Iron is found going with the Kelts into 

 these various regions. 



Hallstatt, in Austria, is the only place in 

 Europe where articles of iron are found 

 gradually replacing those of the same kind 

 made in bronze. It has not been hitherto 

 pointed out that within a very short dis- 

 tance of the Hallstatt cemetery lies one of 

 the most famous iron mines of antiquity, 

 that of Noreia. From this center iron 

 spread into Italy, Switzerland, Gaul, Spain, 

 Greece and eastern Germany. He sug- 

 gested that the old bronze workers came 

 across an outcrop of volcanic iron, such as 

 that known in at least one place in Green- 

 land. Man would thus find ready to hand 

 masses of wrought iron, and there is no need 

 to suppose that meteoric stones first sup- 

 plied him with that metal. This view was 

 discussed but it did not find much accept- 

 ance. Prof. Flinders Petrie referred to his 

 recent discovery in Egypt of various iron 

 tools of such a character that they must 

 have been made by a people long acquainted 

 with iron. They occurred in company with 

 an Assyrian helmet. He put them down to 

 about 670 B, C. This is the oldest datable 

 iron find. 



Various other papers bore upon the 

 primitive civilization of Europe. The presi- 

 dent, for example, read one on ' Pillar and 

 Tree worship in Mykensean Greece,' in 

 which he showed the great part played by 

 these objects in the religion of that epoch. 

 On a gold ring from the early Mykensean 

 period (about 1500 B. C), a dual cult of a 

 male and female divinity in their pillar 

 shape is illustrated, and an armed sun- 

 god is being brought down on to his obe- 

 lisk, or Bethel, by ritual incantation; other 

 signets show pillars and trees enclosed in 



small shrines. The cult of the sacred fig 

 tree and the early sanctity of the dove 

 were alluded to. This ancient pillar and 

 tree worship largely survived in the rustic 

 cult of classical Greece. 



Another important paper on ceremonies 

 which date back to prehistoric times was 

 read by Mr. G. L. Gomme as an appendix 

 to the Eeport of the Ethnographic Survey 

 of the United Kingdom. It was entitled 

 ' On the Method of Determining the Value 

 of Folklore as Ethnological Data.' He 

 dealt with the traces of fire worship in the 

 British Islands, and by a process of analysis 

 and synthesis arrived at the conclusion that 

 the fire, obtained in a sacred manner, was 

 maintained within a group connected by 

 common descent, whose welfare is depend- 

 ent upon the performance of the ceremony 

 and the continual possession of the fire. 

 This is equated with the early tribal system 

 of the Aryans. By connecting by lines all 

 the places in a country where more or fewer 

 of these customs occur, a diagram is ob- 

 tained the contour of which forms what Mr. 

 Gomme calls an ' ethnological test-figure.' 

 He has previously suggested that water- 

 worship customs are non-Aryan in origin, 

 and therefore belongs to the pre- Celtic peo- 

 ple of these islands, and it is noteworthy 

 that the ' ethnological test-figure ' produced 

 from water customs difiers radically from 

 that produced by the fire customs. ■ 



Other interesting communications were a 

 beautifully illustrated account of the Swe- 

 dish boat-graves from 600 to 1000 A. D., by 

 Dr. H. Stolpe. Mr. G. Cofiey brought for- 

 ward additional evidence in support of his 

 view that the spirals and some other de- 

 vices of the incised stones of ISTew Grange, 

 Dowth and Loughcrew, in Ireland, had been 

 derived from Scandinavia, one important 

 piece of evidence being the discovery of a 

 second drawing of a boat similar to those 

 of the well known rock-scribings of Swe- 

 den. Mr. E. A. S. Macalister carefully 



