The title well expresses the scope of the work. "Such an inquiry is no mere matter of musty antiquarian speculation; it constitutes an important study of the mind of the man of bygone ages. It introduces us alike to the history of great centres of civilization, and to the triumphs and achievements of individual genius. It makes us ponder on some of those first steps upon the path of knowledge, which were so hard to take, but which form the foundation of our present vast acquisitions. It reveals to us the religious ideas in many variant and most inresting phases. And by the light of cuneiform decipherment, are enabled to exchange crude conjecture and arbitrary fancies for general certainty and harmonious historical transmission and development." At the close of the second volume, the author says: "I claim to have demonstrated that the Euphrates valley was the main source whence were derived the primitive constellations of the Greeks. I claim, further, to have shown the natural line of ideas which produced the constellation-figures; and although the research of the future will doubtless greatly add to the mass of material available for the further elucidation of the subject, and will enable us to correct many errors in detail and to explain many circumstances and incidents now obscure and perplexing, yet I am not afraid that the principle maintained in this work and the general conclusions now arrived at, will be unable to stand the influx of more light from the East." With this brief note, I must dismiss this work of vast learning for the present, promising a more adequate review in a future number of THE AMERICAN ANTIQUARIAN.

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THE mounds of Nippur have furnished a large number of magic bowls. During March and April one hundred and seventeen, most of which were in a fine state of preservation, were brought to light. Usually one or more demons are pictured at the centre, frequently chained by their ankles. When placed upside down, they confine the demons beneath. Sometimes two are fastened together at their rims, and the demons are thus safely confined in this magic prison. Sympathetic magic has certainly taken a deep hold on the human mind.

Another important find, is a silver vase containing "several hundred well-preserved Cufic silver coins." Considerable gold and silver jewelry were gathered from the slipper-shaped coffins. A wooden coffin taken from a brick vault of the Roman period contained the remains of a man of the higher class. Professor Hilprecht says in the Sunday School Times: "Partly on his bones, partly scattered on the floor of the mortuary chamber, we discovered two diamond-shaped gold plates, each about four inches long; two gold frontlets; two heavy gold buckles, representing a lion's head, and inlaid with precious stones; six gold rosettes; one gold earring, and a string of heavy gold beads. In the northeast city fortifications were

found baked clay balls, spear heads, stone maces, and arrows.” These show what were the chief weapons of the time-the early Sumerian period.

The discovery of over three thousand gold pieces, coined by the successors of Harun-ar-Raschid, has also been chronicled. A boatman of Bagdad exposed a terra-cotta vase in an ancient embankment, striking the spot with his punting pole. The upper part of the vase was broken off and a stream of gold fell into the Tigris. The boatman secured what remained in the lower part of the vase, but aroused suspicion and was arrested and compelled to reveal the secret. A search by Bedry Bey, who is an official of the Ottoman Museum of Constantinople, was rewarded by the recovery of the great horde from the stream.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL NOTES.

BY ALEXANDER F. CHAMBERLAIN

SEQUENCES IN PREHISTORIC REMAINS. To the Journal of the Anthropological Institute (Vol. XXIX., pp. 295-301, with plates 31-33) for November December, 1899. Professor W. M. Flinders Petrie contributes a suggestive paper under this title. The discussion of the question, whether in dealing with ages before any written record of years, reference to time or dates is possible; whether the prehistoric ages can be reduced to an historic sequence, is one which the author is specially qualified to enter upon, by reason of his Egyptian researches, from which the data for the present argument is taken. By means of a card-catalogue of Egyptian graves (900 slips being selected, as representing the best graves out of some 4,000), Prof. Petrie arrives at a sequence-classification of pottery first, then weapons, tools, works of art, etc., which is fairly reliable. To use his own words: "This chaos of over 900 types of pottery, hundreds of stone vases, weapons and tools of flint and of copper, ivory work, and beads, extending over many centuries, perhaps one or two thousand years, has now been reduced by this system to an orderly series, in which we can not only state exactly the relative order of the objects, but also the degree of uncertainty and the extent of range which belongs to each object." Thus, prehistoric archæology "has made another step toward becoming an exact science." It is worth noting that in the arrangement of the pottery of seven sucessive stages, the degradation of the wavy-handled type was "the best clue to the order of the whole period." In the history of the slate palettes it appears that the rhomb is the earliest type, while line borders come last. Another order is quadrupeds, fishes, turtles, and birds. The study of the pottery specimens reveals, also, the fact that "form is more important than material."

PREHISTORIC BOVIDE. In L'Anthropologie (Vol. XI., 1900, pp. 129-158), Dr. J. Ulrich Duerst publishes the first part of an interesting illustrated account of Some Prehistoric Bovidæ." According to the author, the species of bubalus represented on the Algerian rock-carvings is identical with that on the Chaldean cylinders, this species (bubalus antiquus or B. palæindicus) having spread from India, where it lived in the pleistocene epoch, to Mesopotamia, and then to northern Africa. It may also, as some cranial remains from the diluvium of Dantzig seem to indicate, have spread over parts of western Europe also. This animal, which Assurbanipal hunted, was driven back by the progress of civilization toward India, where its descendants still survive in the Arni (bubalus Arni). The oldest representative of the genus is the Bubalus sivalensis, whose remains are met with in the Miocene of the Siwalik Hills. The literature concerning fossil oxen is very large, the fluvial deposits, bogs, lake-dwellings, cave-dwellings, etc., furnishing abundant specimens. Dr. Duerst holds that the Bos primigenius, the typical prehistoric ox, has the same geographic distribution as the Bubalus palæindicus, and that the region of its origin is the same as that of the latter. Indeed, in the Siwalik Pliocene skulls of oxen have been found, belonging to two species: Bos primigenius being one of them. The Bos primigenius must, therefore, be traced back to India. This species had been domesticated in Greece in the Mycanian epoch, according to Keller, whose opinion, however, has been disputed by Krause and others. It was certainly domesticated long before the rise of the Babylonian empires; but whether the Babylonians had domesticated it themselves, or received it from alien sources is uncertain. If we believe Nehring, all the short-horned breeds of cattle in Europe are descended from the Bos primigenius. Dr. Duerst, however, recognizes two races of primitive oxen, the second species finding its modern representatives to-day in Syria and Mesopotamia. This second race is "the cattle of the lake-dwellings of central Europe, the oldest cattle in the world."

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SEXUAL CHARACTERS OF ANCIENT SKULLS. In L'Anthropologie (Vol. XI,, 1900, pp. 179 192), Dr. E. Pitard presents the results of a detailed comparison of some fitty male and fifty female crania from ossuaries (of various dates, chiefly prior to the twelfth century, A. D.) in Valais, the valley of the Rhone. The chief conclusions arrived at are: the female skull, is, as compared with the male skull, of the so-called "frontal" type, and of relatively greater cranial capacity (as already shown by Manouvier); the weight of the male skull is absolutely greater, and the various segments of the skull (according to the curves) are greater in male skulls; the principal diameter of the cerebral cranium are (relative to the cranial capacity) relatively greater in female skulls; in female skulls the width of the forehead is relatively larger than the width of the face, and the forehead more vertical.

MODERN EUROPEAN IMPLEMENTS OF STONE. Under the title "Some Stone Implements Recently, or at Present, in Use in Europe," Dr. E. H. Giglioli describes (with figures) in the Archivio per l'Antropologia (Vol. XXIX., pp. 229-238) the stone hammers of Iceland, a stone pestle from Italy, a calendering stone from the Isle of Wight, stone polishers (for metal objects) from various parts of Italy, stone plow-protectors and plow-shares from various parts of Europe. These survivals of the Stone Age are of great interest alike to the historian of human culture and to the archaeologist vom Fach.

ETHNOLOGY OF THE AMOOR TRIBES. In the American Anthropologist (Vol. II., N. S., pp. 297-338) for April-June, 1900. Berthold Laufer, under the title "Preliminary Notes on Exploration Among the Amoor Tribes," gives an account of investigations carried on in 1898-9, for the Jesup North Pacific. Expedition among the Ainu of southwestern Saghalin; the Gilyak of northern Saghalin, the lowlands of the Amoor, and the coast of the Liman; the Olcha and Tongus of the Okhotsk coast, the Poronai Valley and Patience Bay (Saghalin); the Tungus of the Amgun and the Gold of the ChabarovskSophisk region of the Amoor. The peoples in question are all fishing and hunting tribes, and their culture has grown up on a basis of Yakut (and other Siberians), Chinese-Japanese, and Russian influence, in the order given. The Yakuts gave them the iron industry, their art shows many Sino-Japanese points of contact; while "the Gilyak in the environs of Nikolayevsk now build Russian houses and make stoves, wear Russian clothing, use Russian utensils, work together with Russians in their fisheries, and bow to the images of Russian saints." The author notes that among the Gold and the Gilyak "animals such as the bear, the sable, the otter, the sturgeon, the salmon, which predominate in the household economy and are favorite subjects in the traditions, do not appear in their [decorative art, whereas their ornaments are filled with Chinese mythologic monsters which they but imperfectly understand." The Amoor people "do not reproduce the objects of nature, but copy foreign samples." Of the Ainu, we are informed that "their ornaments cannot be compared with those of the other tribes," and, while they do resemble the neighboring Gilyaks, many inventions and ideas are met with which are their own, and are not found in any other tribes,"-- such, e. g., are the ikuni or moustache-sticks. The Olcha, of Saghalin, are noteworthy on account of "a strange kind of amulet, cut out of reindeer or salmon skin," the art of making which is ancient and open to all, even women. The author also notes the striking fact that "nearly all institutions, customs, and manners, as described in the tales of the Gold, bear a marked resemblance to the outlines of culture as sketched in the epic literature of the Mongol an Turkish nations." The paper ends with a specimen of Gold folklore.

BURIAL CUSTOMS. In the Journal of Anthropological Institute (Vol. XXIX., [pp. 271-294) for November-December, 1899, Mr. W. Crooke writes about "Primitive Rites of Disposal of the Dead, with Special Reference to India," the appendix to the paper deals with "Sepulchral Urns in Southern India," being a note by the late Dr. Caldwell, Bishop of Tinnevelly, author of a grammar of the Dravidian languages. Among the topics discussed more or less at length by Mr. Moore are: Mummification (known in the Deccan, Bengal, Assam, etc., in various forms); platform burial (seemingly confine in India to the Nagas of Assam); mountain-burial (prevailing largely along the Himalaya); inhumation and cremation (found together in the Vedas),-in India earth-burial probably preceded cremation; mound-burial, dome or vault. burial; crouched burial; disinterring and bone-cleaning-surviving in modern. Hinduism of the higher type in the AsthiSancaya, or bone-collecting ceremony"; jar and urn burial (in) Southern India) Very interesting are Mr. Moore's references to the evidence in Indian thought and folklore to burial customs long ago abandoned, and the taboos of burial.

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IRANO-INDIAN ICONOGRAPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY.-In L'Anthropologie (Vol. XI., 1900, pp. 193-224) Charles de Ujfalvy continues and concludes his discussion of "Irano-Indian Iconography and Anthropology." The subjects treated of, are: The cameos, intaglios, and coins of the Sassanidae; the craniological type of the ancient Persians; the anthropological type of the dynasties of the Arsacida; métissage between Persians, Semites, and Turanians; résumé of the works of various authorities, Khanikoff, Herodotus, Justin, Ammias Marcellinus, Bogdanoff, Duhoussett, Houssay, etc. Among the general conclusions of the author are the following: The type of ths Persians of the time of the Achæmenidæ seems to have been very like that of the Macedonians of the time of Alexander. At this period also, the influence of the Semitic environment is very discernible. The transformation which begins in the period of the Achaemenide has been accomplished by the epoch of the Sassanida, the princes of that dynasty presenting a fine type, but one far removed from that of the Achæ mend. When, at the end of the epoch of the Sassanide, the Arabs intermix with the Persian Aryans, the race possesses but "feeble atavistic traces of their Achæmenidean ancestors." The result of this Arab intermixture was to reinforce the Semitic element Neither the Farsis nor the Doris of western Persia, nor the Tadjiks of Afghanistan, ancient Bactria, and Sogdiana, represent the type of the Persian Achæmenice, all being far removed from it. The Afghans are a race intermediate between the Iranians and the Hindoos, and the primitive type of the Iranians may possibly persist in the Tadjiks of Kohistan. Very interesting are the results of M. Houssay's