xxx vi. New Zealand Institute. 



several remains of antiquity which he has brought to light with the 

 subjects mentioned in legends which have been handed down to us 

 through the uncertain traditions of the poets. 



The unhappy complications in Eastern Europe of a few years ago 

 have at least brought forth some good results to antiquarian research. 

 Thessaly having been ceded to Greece, learned men at Athens are 

 already taking steps for the preservation of any objects of interest 

 whieh may be brought to light on that classic soil. In Cyprus, 

 English, Greek, and Turk are united in the careful search for 

 Cypriotic, Phoenician, and Greek remains, which no doubt still 

 abound in that island, no longer, I am glad to say, to sell to the 

 highest bidder in Western Europe or America, but to form a local 

 museum at Nieosia. 



The Commission which is now labouring at Rome has already 



been rewarded, besides minor triumphs, by the discovery of the walls 



of Antemnse, a city which is mentioned by Virgil, when he tells how — 



Five mighty towns, their anvils set, 

 With emulous zeal their weapons whet : 

 Crusturnium, Tibur the renowned, 

 And strong Atina there are found, 

 And Ardea and Antemnas crowned 



With turrets round her wall ; 



and which is stated by Livy to have been the birth-place of Hersilia, 

 the wife of Romulus, and to have been one of the cities that joined 

 in the attack on Rome in revenge for the rape of the Sabines. How 

 far we can regard the incidents related by Livy as literally true, or 

 whether we must treat them as a vast pile of legend built on a 

 slender foundation of history, it would be out of place for me here 

 to consider ; but at least we may take it as a fact that Antemnse was 

 a town which flourished ere Rome was built, and was destroyed long- 

 before the time of Pliny, and that even a very few years since it was 

 believed that no traces of it could be found. 



Turning to geographical research, much valuable information has 

 been obtained concerning the hitherto little known countries of Central 

 Asia, by the explorations of O'Donovan in the Merv Oasis, by Floyer 

 in Beloochistan, Baber in Western China, and other travellers both 

 English and Russian. 



The results of the interesting geographical and ethnological 

 investigations made by my friend M. Miklouho Maclay during his 

 scientific travels in South-Eastern Asia and Oceanica, have been given 

 to the world by means of lectures before the Russian Geographical 

 Society, and are soon to appear in a complete form, the work being 

 published at the expense of the Emperor. Recent events, which have 

 turned our attention to New Guinea, make the information he has 

 collected during several prolonged visits to that island of special 



