786 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



stone, as in Fig. 8.* The burial-places " thus form a gradual transi- 

 tion from the great grave chambers, and the stone cists with their 

 many skeletons, of the Stone age on the one side, to the insignifi- 

 cant grave with burned bones at the end of the Bronze age on the 

 other." The graves were usually covered with a barrow, and this 

 often contained several stones. The barrows are generally situ- 

 ated upon some height which commands an unimpeded view over 

 the sea or some large lake. "Weapons, ornaments, and vessels of 

 earthenware or wood are often found by the remains of the dead. 

 The author believes, from the evidence of the finds lately made 

 in that land, that the condition of Greece during its Bronze age was 

 in many ways like that of the North during the same stage of its 

 civilization ; and that probably Homer's description of the heroic 

 age of Greece would in more than one respect apply to the south 

 of Scandinavia three thousand years ago — " at least if we do not 

 allow our eyes to be dazzled by the poetic shimmer which hangs 

 around the heroes of the Trojan war." But the Bronze age both 

 began and ended in Greece earlier than in the North. There are 

 also other countries in which the Bronze age ended later than in 

 Scandinavia. Of these was Mexico, when the Spaniards entered 

 upon the conquest of it. And yet in many respects, the author 

 remarks, the civilization of the Aztecs was " as high as that of 

 which Europe could boast in the middle ages." He expresses no 

 inference from this remark, but presumably expects us to draw 

 one that the Scandinavians of the Bronze age were possibly not so 

 barbarous as we assume that they were. 



■»«» 



ANTHROPOLOGY AT WASHINGTON. 



Bt Peof. J. HOWAED GORE. 



THE early voyagers to America, coming from the civilized 

 countries of Europe, were perhaps more surprised at the 

 native inhabitants whom they found than at the broad rivers, 

 boundless forests, or vast plains. The Indians, with their curious 

 customs and various costumes, produced dissimilar impressions 

 upon their different beholders. But all found that the most in- 

 teresting portions of the reports which they sent back to their 

 homes were the descriptions of the strange people whom they had 

 seen ; the report being in some cases accompanied with specimens 



* In the middle of the bottom of this barrow was a stone cist nearly seven feet long (a), 

 containing an unburned body and a bronze pin. Higher up were found three small stone 

 cists containing burned bones and antiquities of bronze. Close by the little cist at the top 

 of the barrow stood a vessel filled with burned bones, and near the cist, marked 6, lay a 

 heap of burned bones, covered only by a flat stone. 



