or when enraged, which gives so marked a confirmation to the Egyptian story. We may conclude fairly enough, either that the Egyptian priests saw this red exudation, and imitated it with the practice of bleeding, or, as is infinitely more probable, that the Egyptian laity noticed the blood-coloured sweat of the great river-horse, and connected it with the practice of bleeding then in operation, by the interpolation of the sharp reed, and an inability to understand that their wise men could discover a remedy untaught.
PREHISTORIC ARCHÆOLOGY
IN these days of annual gatherings or Congresses intended for the promotion of Science, whether Natural, Social, or Ecclesiastical, we need not be surprised at the numerous observers now engaged in different countries in the various branches of Prehistoric Anthropology and Prehistoric Archæology founding an International Congress for the discussion of questions in which they are particularly interested. It was at a meeting of the Société Italienne des Sciences Naturelles, held at La Spezzia in 1865, that this Congress originated, with the more comprehensive than euphonious tide of "Palæoethnological." With a slight change in its designation it met at Neuehâtel in 1866, and at Paris in 1867; while the Congress, the transactions of which are recorded in the volume before us, assembled at Norwich last year under the presidency of Sir John Lubbock, and with Colonel A. Lane Fox as organising secretary, contemporaneously with the meeting of the British Association. During the present year it has found a congenial home in the midst of the richly-stored museums of Copenhagen, under the fitting presidency of Professor Worsaae; has dug in the Kjökkenmöddings, and been right royally entertained by the King of Denmark; and next year the gathering is to be at Bologna, with Count Gozzadini as president. Such meetings, especially in the ease of the followers of what must be regarded as a comparatively new science, serve at least a double purpose; as social gatherings they promote that intercourse and kindly feeling between those engaged in the same pursuit, which helps the onward progress of knowledge, while the discussions at the meetings tend to elicit truth from what may apparently be conflicting facts and opinions, and when too unruly hobby-horses are introduced into the arena, serve to control their wilder caracoles, if not effectually to break them in.
The success that has attended the institution of this particular Congress, which, by the way, is not to be held during two consecutive years in one country, cannot be better evinced than by the Report of its seven meetings at Norwich, which has just made its appearance, and forms a volume of upwards of four hundred pages, illustrated by more than fifty plates, for the most part presented by the authors of the papers they illustrate,
These Papers range over a wide area, both in space and time. The Pacific and South Sea Islands, the Cape of Good Hope and Southern and Western India, Japan and Algeria, as well as Spain, Portugal, France, Britain, and Ireland, all contribute their quota of facts; while various general questions relating to the condition, the arts, the distribution, and other circumstances of early races of mankind are brought forward and discussed. On the whole we may congratulate the Congress on the object of its assembly having been so carefully kept in view by the authors of the papers read before it, since hardly any of them, though varying much in value, can be regarded as having been irrelevant to its general purposes.
The time and space at our command being small in proportion to that ranged over by the Prehistoric Archæologists, we cannot give more than a brief notice of some few of what seem to us the more important papers; but at the outset we must express our regret, which we are sure many others will share with us, that the excellent Opening Address of the President was not more fully reported.
First of the Papers, and among the first in interest, is one by Mr. E. B. Tylor, on the "Condition of Prehistoric Races as inferred from Observation of Modern Tribes," in which some curious anomalies in the degree of knowledge in different branches of art and constructive appliances possessed by certain tribes are pointed out, and the inference drawn that it is unsafe to attempt to fix the stage of civilisation of any given people from the rudeness of one single class of implements in use among them.
Professor Huxley's Paper on the "Distribution of the Races of Mankind, and its Bearing on the Antiquity of Man," appears to have met with more favourable criticism from those present, including Professor Carl Vogt, than the author anticipated, And certainly the connection between some of the changes which in comparatively recent times have taken place in the physical geography of the earth, and the limitation of the areas occupied by different races, such as the Negroid and Australioid, seems, if not susceptible of proof, at least possible; and, if so, Professor Huxley's conclusion that the distribution of these two races of Man affords as strong evidence of his antiquity as the occurrence of his works in the gravel of Hoxne and Amiens is in a fair way of being adopted.
Touching these early works of man, we commend attention to the excellent account given by Mr. R. Bruce Foote, of his discoveries of quartzite implements of Palæolithic types in the Laterite formation of the east coast of Southern India. We know of nothing more striking than the wonderful similarity of these implements to those discovered associated with remains of extinct mammals in the old river gravels of Western Europe. But for the difference in the material there are numierous twin specimens so like each other that they might be thought to have been formed by the same hand, and yet they occur thousands of miles apart, and under what are apparently different geological conditions, though we think that much remains to be unravelled as to the origin and age of the Lateritie deposits of Madras, Still this parallelism of type seems to afford most remarkable proof that the same wants, with the same means at command for fulfilling them, result, so far as tools are concerned, in the production of similar forms, no matter where or when the men live who make them.
This is further illustrated by the stone implements from Japan, described by Mr. Franks, nearly all of which may be matched in form by arrow-heads, lance-heads, and hatchets found in Western Europe; and what is no less remarkable, the former are by the Japanese regarded as of heavenly origin, like the Elf-bolts of Scotland, and the
