November 1, 1901.] 



SCIENCE. 



685 



the human brain. Indeed Professor Cun- 

 ningham holds that the " stimulus which 

 must have been given to general cerebral 

 growth in the association areas by the grad- 

 ual acquisition of speech can hardly be ex- 

 aggerated." '' Some cerebral variation — 

 probably trifling and insignificant at the 

 start, and yet pregnant with the most far- 

 reaching possibilities — has in the stem-form 

 of man contributed that condition which 

 has rendered speech possible. . This varia- 

 tion, strengthened and fostered by natural 

 selection, has in the end led to the great 

 double result of a large brain with wide 

 and extensive association areas and articu- 

 late speech, the two results being brought 

 about by the mutual reaction of the one 

 process upon the other." 



Of the papers presented to the Section 

 several were on matters of local archeol- 

 ogy, Dr. R. Munro giving an account of a 

 * Kitchen-midden at Elie ' ; Messrs. J. G. 

 Cunningham and Thomas Ross describing 

 respectively Roman camps at Ardoch and 

 Delvine and Dr. Duncan and T. H. Bryce 

 reporting on ' The Results of their Exca- 

 vations in the Island of Arran ' where 

 they found a number of skulls and imple- 

 ments evidently belonging to a prehistoric 

 dolichocephalic race. Of somewhat more 

 general interest were papers by Dr. J. F. 

 Gemmill, who described the development of 

 the human stapes, coming to the conclusion 

 that it arose quite independently of the 

 periotic bone and was developed from the 

 hyoid, though not from its most proximal 

 portion, this giving rise to the incus ; by 

 Mr. R. A. S. Macallister, on ' The Age of 

 the Ogham writing in Ireland,' the conclu- 

 sion reached being that for the most part 

 the inscriptions were certainly christian in 

 origin ; and by Dr. Rivers, ' On the Func- 

 tions of the Maternal Uncle in Torres 

 Straits,' showing that the wife's brother was 

 really the head of the house, even in tribes 

 where the descent was now paternal. 



Especial interest attached to a paper by 

 Mr. Brant Sero, a Canadian Mohawk, on 

 ' Dekanawideh, the law-giver of the Canien- 

 ghakas,' in which was given an account of 

 the law still in use, with some modifica- 

 tions, among the Canienghakas or Mohawks 

 of Canada and of which the salient principle 

 was the establishments of a totemic council 

 of women, who in turn elected an heredi- 

 tary council composed of seven lords or 

 masters, who made the laws and whose 

 titles descended through the maternal line. 



A report was presented by Mr. R. A. 

 S. Macallister on the recent excavations 

 made under the Palestine Exploration 

 Fund, the main purpose of which had been 

 the recovery of the city of Gath. Though 

 the work in this direction had proved un- 

 successful much material had been collected 

 which throws light on the culture of the 

 inhabitants of Palestine at different periods. 

 At Tel-es-Safi, a height overlooking the 

 valley of Elab, a building was found at the 

 depth of 14 to 18 feet which there are 

 reasons for regarding as one of the ' high 

 places ' mentioned in the Book of Kings. 



A report was also submitted upon the 

 results of the Cretan explorations. Excava- 

 tions which were begun in 1900 have been 

 continued at Knossus and have revealed 

 an ancient palace which there are reasons 

 for identifying with the traditional House 

 of Minos. Upon the walls and floors of this 

 were remains of a large series of frescoes 

 among which are full-length figures of the 

 cup-bearer, interesting as being the first 

 known portrayal of a man of the Myceneean 

 age. The art remains evidence a high de- 

 gree of skill and artistic perception, and sev- 

 eral finds illustrate a close connection with 

 ancient Egypt and Babylonia. The most 

 striking discovery, however, is that of a 

 series of clay tablets engraved with a linear 

 script and demonstrating the existence in 

 prehistoric Hellas of a system of writing 

 antedating by about eight centuries the 



