70 ETHNOLOGY AND ARCH^OLOGT. 



other litter of six, two of which are snow white, the others greyish white ; a casual 

 passer by, though close to them, would not discern them unless they were in 

 motion. 



HYACINTHS IN GLASSES. 



The following mode of procedure may perhaps be only partially suitable to our 

 keen Canadian winter climate, but the hint is worth noting for those who delight 

 in these beautiful and fragrant substitutes for the simmer Flora: — A correspondent 

 of the Field says — "The following I have found to bean excellent way to start 

 the roots of hyacinths for water (an uncertain process sometimes). I found it out 

 by accident, and it may have been noticed by others before; but I have never 

 seen it in print. I had potted 50 or 60, and placed them in a cool shade to plunge 

 in saw-dust, but the weather being favorable for out door work they were left for 

 a week or ten days. On looking at them, they had by rooting forced themselves 

 out of the soil, and emitted a perfect circle of roots; this induced me to place all 

 my roots intended for glasses this year, in small pots filled with light soil, just large 

 enough to take the bulb (the motive for this was to keep the roots close, so that 

 when they were about one inch long they would go into the neck of the glass 

 without breaking). The roots soon filled the glasses, and this ensures a fine bloom ; 

 they were kept in a cool dark cupboard for a month, then gradually put into light 

 and heat, the latter very moderate, the hyacinth being impatient of much and rapid 

 heat." 



ETHNOLOGY AND ARCHAEOLOGY. 



INSCRIBED SIDONIAN SARCOPHAGUS. 



At the November meeting of the Syro-Egyptian Society of London, Mr. Aim- 

 worth gave some details of the discovery at Sidon of a Sarcophagus, with a Phoe- 

 nician inscription on it. Dr. Benisch read a translation of the inscription by the 

 Rabbi Isidor Kalisch, with remarks on the mode of decipherment. This translation 

 was compared with others made by Dr. Dieterich, of Marburg; by the Due de 

 Luynes, in Paris, and by Mr. W. Turner, and a writer signing himself E. E. S., in 

 the Journal of the American Oriental Society. Only comparatively slight discrepan- 

 cies distinguish these independent translations, made almost simultaneously on 

 both sides of the Atlantic, thus leaving no room to question that here we have 

 another of the fruits of the singular impetus given to philological and paleeo- 

 graphical research by the successful labors of Young and Champoleon. The lan- 

 guage of Phoenicia, after being lost for upwards of two thousand years, is thua 

 being deciphered, and its secrets placed within our reach by living scholars. 



SKULLS OF THE ANCIENT ROMANS. 



At the recent meeting of the British Association at Glasgow, a paper was read 

 before the Ethnological section by J. B. Davis, F. S. A., " On the Skulls of the 

 Ancient Romans." Three skulls were exhibited to shew the high cerebral devel- 

 opment. One of these skulls was found in a sarcophagus at York, and another 

 under the Via Appia. The teeth of two of them were stained with verdigris, from 

 contact with the copper coin placed in the mouth to pay Charon, the ferryman to 

 Hades. In one case, the fare, an obolus, was found beside the skeleton. 



Dr. Black made a few remarks upon the general characteristics of the Roman 

 skull, an example of which, fouud in a Roman shaft at Xewstead, Roxburghshire, 



