1867.] Archseology and Ethnology. 373 



Dr. Voelcker estimates that rape cake yields in the manure 4/. 

 worth of ingredients for every ton consumed ; cotton cake no less 

 than bl. 6s. worth per ton of matter in the excrement ; linseed cake 

 37. 15s. per ton ; beans and peas about 31. ; while other feeding 

 substances possess but little worth as regards their fertilizing value. 

 Rice meal, for example, yields but 11. per ton to the dungheap, and 

 molasses hardly anything at all. It is plain that facts of this kind 

 must for the future materially affect the judgment which will guide 

 the choice of purchased food by the farmer. 



We have to report that the English Agricultural Society has at 

 length resolved upon confining within professional limits those 

 educational efforts which its charter binds it to make. Hitherto the 

 small contribution made by it in this direction has gone merely 

 towards the granting of prizes to country boys who pass the best 

 examination in branches of general education before the University 

 examiners. Hereafter whatever it may grant will be devoted to the 

 reward of professional studies alone ; and some stimulus may thus 

 be given to the work of professional agricultural education, which it 

 has hitherto almost entirely ignored. 



We must not close our record without a word upon the Paris 

 Exhibition, to which we had anticipated devoting a large share of 

 our space. The grand programme put forth by the Commissioners 

 has almost entirely failed so far as agriculture is concerned. The 

 periodical exhibition of live stock and of implements at work, 

 which was part of the original scheme, has not been carried out 

 as intended. The display is confined to a mere show of imple- 

 ments by the agricultural machinists of this and other countries, 

 and there is no particular novelty calling for remark. We can 

 only report that in the agricultural department a very small con- 

 tribution is made to that wonderful general effect which is now 

 commanding such universal admiration. 



2. ARCHAEOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY. 



We have this quarter to notice a most exhaustive treatise on ancient 

 writing, by Professor J. E. Stephens, of Copenhagen, entitled " The 

 Old Northern Runic Monuments of Scandinavia and England." 

 Although published in Denmark it is written in the English lan- 

 guage, a fact which seems highly flattering to us as a scientific nation. 

 Runes, according to Professor Stephens, " appear at the close of the 

 Roman period, and were employed by the ' Barbarians ' who over- 

 turned the Roman and Keltic systems." The Kelts " brought with 

 them their Ogham staves and the Romans their alphabet, so the 'Bar- 

 barians ' brought with them these their native characters." Runic 



