80 General Notes. 
A few individuals (I d6 not know whether they were enough to 
make it the phiral number), living less that a hundred miles from 
the city of New York, having a greater desire for notoriety than to 
benefit the human race, attempted last spring and summer to organ- 
ize a_ private international congress of prehistoric anthropology. 
The list of complimentary officers, Vice-Presidents, etc., was formi- 
dable, and comprised most, if not all, distinguished foreigners, and 
the farther away the more there were of them. The list appeared to 
have been copied from the records of some young and ambitious 
anthropological society, and to have contained ail its honorary associ- 
ates and corresponding members. The scheme was doomed from tlie 
beginning, as an international affair, for, while no anthropologists at 
home were consulted, or at least gave their adhesion, the time was 
too short to perfect arrangements with foreign countries and have 
their societies represented. But one foreigner of any note attended, 
and he— well, he concealed his disappointment with that suavity 
which belongs to his nation. No great harm was done to the science 
of prehistoric anthropology by the failure of this pretended Inter- 
national Congress, for no one was greatly deceived ; but its instiga- 
tors should take warning from this attempt and not repeat the fiasco. 
Think of getting up such a congress without the co-operation of any 
of the members of the anthropological section of the Association for 
the Advancement of Science, and without a representative from 
any of the anthropological societies of the United States except the 
local one interested. 
Anthropological News. — Dr. A. B. Meyer, of Dresden, writes 
to Nature (XXXIX., p. 30) to state that there are no autochthonic 
Papuans or Negritos in Celebes, and to express doubts of their oc- 
curring in other islands to which they are attributed by Quatrefages 
and Flower. 
The first discovery of remains of cave-dwellers in Scandinavia has 
recently been made in a cave on a small island near Gottland. The 
remains consisted of the old fireplaces, and the bones of various 
animals, pottery, flint chips, etc. Most of the bones had been 
broken to extract the marrow. In the upper strata the bones of 
pigs, horses, etc., predominated, but in the lower those of seals ni- 
During the past summer the museum at Copenhagen has explored 
a large kitchen-midden in Jutland, situated in a forest a couple of 
miles from the sea. Besides the usual assortment of bones and 
shells, many flint implements and fragments of pottery were found, as 
well as some bone and horn tools, a few of the latter showing traces 
of ornamentation. 
