xxii Proceedings. [December i^tk, 1Q15. 



Mr. J. Wilfrid Jackson, F.G.S., read a paper entitled 

 "The Money Cowry as a Sacred Object among North 

 American Indians." 



The same Author read a further paper entitled "The 

 Aztec Moon-cult and its relation to the Chank-cult 

 of India." 



These papers will be printed in full in the Memoirs. 



Professor G. Elliot Smith, M.A., M.U., F.R.S., read a 

 paper entitled " Further Evidence for the Derivation of 

 Elements of Early American Civilization from the Old 

 World." 



Discussing the significance of pre-Columbian representations 

 of the elephant in American sculptures and codices (already 

 summarised in Nature, November 25, 1915, p. 340, and December 

 1 6, -p. 425), and making use of the evidence supplied by trun- 

 cated pyramids and the winged-disc symbolism in substantiation 

 of the influence of Egypt and Asia, attention was called to the 

 fact that a great part of the ancient Indian pantheon, centred 

 around the god Indra, had been bodily adopted by the Maya 

 people of Central America. Evidence was adduced to explain 

 the details of the process of transmission (which probably began 

 somewhere about 200 B.C. and continued for many centuries) 

 and the confusion which was introduced during the migration. 

 Particular attention was called to the great influence exerted by 

 the late conventionalised form of the Indian Makara, as a sea- 

 elephant, in determining the design not only of the Copan 

 elephants in the far east, but also of the early Christian and pre- 

 Christian representations of the elephant upon the sculptured 

 stones of Scotland and Scandinavia in the far west. 



The fact was again emphasised that practically every 

 element of the early civilisations of America was borrowed from 

 the Old World. Small groups of immigrants from time to time 

 brought to America certain of the customs, beliefs and in- 

 ventions of the Mediterranean area, Egypt, Ethiopia, Arabia, 

 Babylonia, India, Indonesia, Eastern Asia, and Oceania ; and 



