was indicated by azure wreaths and coils of dotted spray on a white ground. In the figure of the upper part of an elegant lady in a yellow jacket and light chemise, the flying tresses and outstretched arm suggest violent action. Another fresco fragment shows a more rude female figure in the act of springing from above and seizing the horns of a galloping bull. With the remains of a series of scenes exhibiting female toreadors found toward the close of the previous season's excavations it was possible to reconstitute a complete panel of one of these fresco designs. The whole is a tour de force of ancient circus shows. A Mycenæan cowboy is seen turning a somersault over the back of a charging bull, to whose horns in front clings a girl in boy's costume, while another girl performing behind, with outstretched hands, seems to wait to catch her as she is tossed over the monster's back. The fallen body of a man beneath another bull brings out the grimmer side of these Minoan sports." A private staircase opening from the north wall of the newly discovered hall leads up by a double flight to upper rooms, which are on the general level of the great central court and of the originally discovered buildings on its west side. They are, however, isolated by the intervention between them and the great central court of a large room to which they have apparently no means of access. A passage opening on the west side of the hall leads to what appears to have been the most secluded part of the residential quarter of the palace. Here were rooms on the levels of the halls of the Colonnades and of the Double Axes. At one point in these apartments were the remains of what appeared to be a wooden staircase, the upper part of which was choked with broken seal impressions. One of these impressions, "only a fragment," bears part of the impress of a Babylonian cylinder, "thus supplying direct proof of correspondence with the East." Mr. Evans remarks especially upon the elaborate drainage system of this quarter of the palace: "The well-paved floors are underlaid by quite a network of stone channels, in places crossing each other at different levels, and roomy enough to allow a man to crawl along them. A succession of stone shafts leads down to these from the upper story, in one case apparently connected with a latrine, of which a curious and in some respects very modern example also occurs on the ground floor. In another part of the palace sections of a terra-cotta drain-pipe have been found of a most advanced form, provided with stop-ridges." In another quarter south of this group of chambers were smaller rooms, in which parts of two boards of inscribed tablets were found. One of these contained lists of persons indicated by the man-sign, the other referred to the armory, the exhibits, besides the linear characters of the inscriptions, outlining figures of swords. The pottery of this and the adjoining region gave some new illustrations of the prehistoric writing of Crete. Another magazine contained vases in the earliest palace style, some of which were painted with very naturalistic lilies. In an adjoining chamber was a kind of domestic shrine, which is thus described: "On a small dais, beside a tripod of offerings, and with a miniature votive ax of steatite before her, rose a painted terra-cotta figure of a goddess, pillar-shaped below according to the old religious tradition, and with a dove on her head, while in front of her stood a male votary holding out another dove. That a goddess was associated with the palace cult of the double ax further appears from a gem on which a female

divinity is seen bearing this symbolic weapon in her hand." In the basements of one of the eastern terraces and below the level of the later palace were found remains of another magnificent construction which was still earlier than the structure called Minoan. In it were vases of the Kamares class, some with lily designs in white, a miniature vase of gold and porcelain, and a miniature pillar-shrine of painted terracotta with doves perched on the roof. In another basement, not far away from this one, and at a slightly lower level, was found a mosaic of small porcelain plaques, which seems, as described by Mr. Evans, to have represented "scenes disposed in various zones, recalling the subjects of Achilles's shield-the walls and houses of a city, a vine and other trees, warriors with bows, spears, and throwing sticks, besiegers and defenders, and various animals. But the most surprising part of all is the houses of which the city is composed. Fragmentary as are their remains, it has been possible to reconstitute about a score of these. The varying character of the structure-stone, timber, and plastered rubble—is accurately reproduced, and the walls, towers, gateways (a whole street of a Minoan city) rises before us much as it originally stood. But, what is even more surprising than the fact that the elevations of these prehistoric structures should thus be recovered to us intact from the gulfs of time, is the altogether modern character of some of their features. Here are three stories (some of the semi-detached kind showing contiguous doorways) with windows of 4 panes, or double windows of 3 panes each, which seem to show that the inmates of the houses had actually some substitute for glass." The part of the eastern side of the great parallelogram in which the halls of the Colonnades and the Double Axes are situated showed that it was a building of 3 stories. The limits of the palace on the eastern slope of the hill are said by Mr. Evans to have extended themselves beyond all anticipation, but much denudation has taken place. Among the finds are remains of a large architectural fresco with realistic imitation of veined marble, and stone jars more capacious than any previously brought to light. A stone. spout jutting out from a neighboring wall and connected by a conduit with an oil-press above, explained their purpose and the manner in which they were filled. Farther down were massive lines of supporting walls, forming here the outer eastern boundary of the palace.

In the small but well preserved Mycenæan settlement excavated by Miss Boyd at Gourniá, sacrificial vases, bronze saws, and other implements, and ante-Mycenaean fetishes and idols have been brought to light; and through the excellent preservation of some of the buildings a sensible addition has been made to our knowledge of Mycenaean domestic architecture.

The excavations of the Italian Archeological Mission at Phæstos, under the direction of Prof. Halbherr, have been practically completed, after three seasons of work. The architectural lines of the palace here are described as being "incomparably more striking than those of Knossos. The pavement of the agora is traversed by some curious slightly raised diagonal lines, and the agora terminates on the north in a broad series of stone steps. To the west is another imposing flight of stone steps leading up through a portico to a great hall measuring 27.70 by 13.75 meters-surpassing in dimensions any Mycenæan apartment yet discovered. Its structure is like that of the Hall of the Double Axes at Knossos;

but in the center is a great stone pier which apparently served no structural purpose. The other apartments show a fundamental similarity of plan with that of Knossos. The central court or quadrangle is peculiarly imposing. Both Knossos and Phæstos seem to have been inhabited from the remotest prehistoric times; but after both were burned in the Mycenaean age, Phæstos was in time resettled.

Another Mycenæan palace has been discovered by Prof. Halbherr at Hagia Tríada, a few miles west of Phæstos. It stands on a hilltop overlooking the plain through which the river Lethæus flows to the sea. The excavations, only begun, have yielded results full of promise. Among them are more tablets with pre-Hellenic inscriptions, two frescoes, one of a wood scene and the other of a sumptuously arrayed Mycenæan lady, and a vase decorated with 26 figures in relief of a procession of a band of warriors headed by their chief.

At Palæócastro, at the extreme east of the island, Mr. R. C. Bosanquet has discovered two cemeteries of the Kamares epoch, in which a mode of sepulture now commonly prevailing in the Levant (packing the bones, cleansed by previous interment, in chambers) is shown to have been in vogue before the Mycenæan age, some Mycenæan tombs, and Mycenæan mansions, one of which is of a type intermediate between the ordinary dwelling and the great palaces.

The belief is maintained by Mr. Evans that in Crete the double ax was, in part, at least, associated with a divinity known to the Greeks as the Cretan Zeus, which in its original character was essentially a sun or light god. It was in itself an object of worship as the dactyliform of the divinity with which it was associated. On a Mycenæan gem from east Crete, found by Mr. Hogarth, votaries are actually seen in the act of adoration before it. The fresh discoveries, moreover, confirmed the view that though a male divinity was also represented, at times in warrior guise on the signets and seal impressions of the palace, the most prominent place was taken by a goddess who from her lion-guardians might be regarded as a prototype of the Latin Rhea, Cybele, though in other aspects of her personality she seems to approach the Cretan Aphrodite or Ariadne. Evidences of the cult of the double ax were also remarked in the palace shrine described by Mr. Evans. The whole result of the excavations at Knossos, Mr. Evans said, had been to bring out in a remarkable way the underlying element of truth in ancient tradition. In his account given at the meeting of the British Association Mr. Evans spoke of clay cups having been found with ink inscriptions, a new departure in the prehistoric script." He also described some modern features in the mosaic representation of a Minoan street; and ivory figures of youths, as displaying naturalistic details not found again in such work till the age of the Italian Renaissance. Below the Mycenaean palace had been found remains appertaining to what seemed to have been an earlier royal dwelling going back into the third millennium B. C., in which were beautifully painted vases, some of eggshell-like fabric, and some embossed in imitation of metal-work. The Neolithic stratum underlying the whole site was productive of more stone implements, pottery, and primitive images of clay, marble, and shell, perhaps the tridacna, and pointing to a prehistoric intercourse with the Indian Ocean.

In an account of his excavations in the Dictæan cave, given before the Anthropological In

stitute, May 27, Mr. D. G. Hogarth expressed the belief that the cave was undoubtedly the one that was the seat of the legendary birth of Zeus. It stood near a lake bed which had a subterranean outlet. The cave was exceedingly rich in remains, but little evidence existed in it of Mycenæan or pre-Mycenaean times, nearly all the remains being subsequent to the Mycenæan period. The skulls found were clearly of sacrificed animals. The honors of Dicte had been largely usurped by the cave of Ida, but Dicte showed a variety of ancient objects of the stone age-symbolical axes of fractional size, and others a massive Mycenæan wall, and a few specimens of Hellenic and Roman work. Mr. Hogarth said he had excavated another settlement at the end of the Dictæan cave, the little wasted settlement of Zachro. In two caves he had found human bones, and what seemed to be cists like those of the Egean islands of the prehistoric period. In one cave he had lighted on five bursals. One cist bursal was untouched, and included a new kind of pottery more regular than the Neolithic pottery. The vases tended to show the existence of a native pottery lineally following the Neolithic period. In connection with an address by Mr. Evans, a lecture was given by Prof. Boyd Dawkins on the Animal Remains of the Cave, dealing with the geological aspects which led to inferences of its high antiquity. Among the skulls discovered was one of an ox to which the author found no exact parallel. He had therefore felt disposed to classify it as a member of a distinct species, to which he gave the name of Bos Creticus. Another skull, in some respects varying from all existing specimens, he inferred to be that of a domestic boar. The preservation of these skulls, apparently for ornamental purposes, was a singular note of modernity in prehistoric times. Prof. Dawkins could not state the precise or approximate date of any of the specimens sent him by Mr. Hogarth. Describing the human skulls, he said that the teeth were wonderfully small, and some of them decayed, and these and other circumstances led to the inference that they belonged to a highly developed civilization. Decayed teeth were, unhappily, a mark of an advanced culture. The skulls found in Crete seemed to correspond with the oldest skulls of Attica and Asia Minor. The people interred in this case were, the author thought, cognate with the Iberian race, longheaded, probably of small stature, dark-haired, non-Aryan, and stretching back to the Neolithic age. Prof. Petrie noted correspondences from Egypt, as in the hanging of skulls as ornaments, with what had been said of Crete.

Bosnia. Very fruitful excavations have been made among the remains of prehistoric lakedwellings on the River Save, near Dolina, northern Bosnia. Four dwelling-houses built on piles have been laid bare and the burial-place belonging to the settlement has been examined. In it were found a number of bronzes and urns. Among the articles recovered are objects of pottery, utensils of staghorn, weapons of bronze and iron, ornaments of bronze, silver, gold, and amber, seeds and bones. It has been possible, by the aid of these houses, to determine the architectural construction of the pile-dwellings with a hitherto unusual accuracy. A boat 5 meters long was found lying 9 meters below the platform of a pile-dwelling. The pile-dwellings of Dolina are assigned to two different periods, of dates included in the first millennium before Christ.

Palestine and Syria. The first report of the new American school in Palestine, Novem

ber, 1901, describes the establishment of the institution, and the beginning of excavations at Sidon, under the first director, Prof. C. C. Torrey, of Yale. A Greek necropolis was explored, and yielded results of importance. At Jerusalem students of the school will have free access to several valuable libraries, including the Greek Patriarchal Library, with a great store of manuscripts, the Dominican Library, and the Franciscan, Augustinian, and Latin Patriarchate libraries. The Roman Catholics were doing much in Jerusalem to encourage archeological and linguistic studies. Three museums had lately been opened, one of them by the Turkish Government, containing the finds of Dr. Bliss in his excavations for the Palestine Exploration Fund.

Excavation was actively pursued in Palestine and the East in 1902, under English and German auspices. The operations included work begun by the English Palestine Exploration Fund, under Mr. McAllister, at Abu Shusheh, which has been identified by M. Clermont-Ganneau as the site of the Biblical Gezer, near Rambleh, on the edge of the plain of Sharon; explorations by Austrians at Ta'anuk, the Biblical Taanach, on the southwestern edge of the plain of Esdrælon; excavations to be begun by Germans at the ancient Megiddo; the exploration and restoration by Germans of the great temple of Jupiter Heliopolitanus at Baalbek, and the neighboring smaller temples, which has been going on for two years and will require a year longer; excavation by the same expedition of some smaller but interesting ruins in the Lebanon, on the edge of the Beka, in the same general region. The same expedition was also exploring the ruins of Palmyra, Gerash, Amman, and other comparatively little known sites east of the Jordan, for the purpose of a more thorough study and comparison of Syrian and Roman architecture and antiquities. The Germans have also been excavating at Miletus, at Pergamos, and at Babylon, and contemplate the excavation of a little know Babylonian ruin mound, apparently of great antiquity, south of Nippur, between the Tigris and the Euphrates.

At the annual general meeting of the Palestine Exploration Fund, June 17, Major-Gen. Sir Charles Wilson delivered an address on The Recent and Proposed Excavations of the Fund. The work of the past year, he said, had been mainly the excavation of grounds in the Valley of Judah, and had thrown light on many ancient sites. The excavations revealed remains of preIsraelitish times from 1700 B. C., and the successive periods down to Byzantine times. Painted ware and Mycenæan pottery were found in this region, and specimens of early Greek ware as well as Assyrian and Babylonian objects. The chief site was probably to be identified with Gath. Remains were also found of a town which had been abandoned in prehistoric times; and relics of subsequent periods were discovered there. Statues were found of Demeter and Berenice, and pottery and other fragments of the third and fourth centuries B. C., which had been imported into Palestine. Two inscriptions in Greek characters were discovered, one of them divided into 7 columns, and a translation from Hebrew into Greek, the Greek characters of which were read from right to left. Many tablets were commemorative of important events, as of birth or marriage; and these were symbolical references. Few of the caves examined by Mr. McAllister seemed to be earlier than the Seleucid period. Some of them contained remains of a population distinct from that of the towns.

The pottery began with the pre-Israelite or Amorite period, and furnished specimens similar to those discovered by Prof. Petrie in Egypt. The painted pottery or sherds presented Mycenæan features, though they were not supposed to be Mycenæan work. In the Jewish period the Phoenician and Mycenæan influences seemed to have disappeared. The names of the potters-all of a tribal character-were found on many of the pieces of Jewish pottery. After the Jewish period a distinct growth of beauty in form and design is shown. Few completed statues of later times were found; but some of these were of fine workmanship and form. One of the great caves had been used as a columbarium after its original purpose had been abandoned.

Under the auspices of the Vienna Academy of Sciences, Dr. Sellin, professor in the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Vienna, began excavations in March, 1902, in a mound near the village of Tanaak, one day's journey from Jaffa, and three days from Jerusalem. His report relates the discovery of four castles or fortesses. In the middle were the ruins of an Arabian castle. On the east was a castle of the period of King Solomon, on the northwest a castle of a late Israelite period, while on the west was found a castle of pre-Israelite or Canaanite date. All the castles had been plundered before they were destroyed, so that no valuables were found, but objects of stone and clay and weapons were recovered by the aid of which the dates of the various buildings were approximately fixed. The

Canaanite castle, the oldest of the number, was built of unhewn blocks of stone, which showed no marks of the chisel. Inside of it lay fragments of images, such as are mentioned in the Bible, and also a number of small ornaments made of stone and earthenware, mostly representing beetles, scarabs, and other insects, and hearing inscriptions. There were, too, some rude weapons. The second building in date had suffered considerably, but enough remained to show that it belongs to the class called Solomon castles. In both buildings, idols, vessels, and other objects appertaining to religious rites were found, such as a sacrificial pillar of stone, with an opening for libations, a stone altar, and an earthenware altar in the form of a throne, adorned with cherubim and lions. The cherubim, of which these are the only existing representations of that date, appear as human heads with the bodies of lions, and wings. The late Israelitish castle appears to have been a fortress only. The Arabian castle displays more architectural skill than the other. Vessels and lamps were

found in it, and inscriptions of a religious character. Human remains buried with vessels bearing inscriptions were found beneath the ruins of all the castles. A cemetery for children seems to have existed close to the Solomon castle. Prof. Sellin attaches most importance to the excavation of this Canaanitish castle.

A stone, belonging to a gentleman residing in Syria, and bearing Hittite inscriptions, has only recently been first made known to Europeans. An illustration of the inscriptions is given in the figure on page 29.

Babylonia. The German Oriental Society reports of the results of the latest expedition sent out by it to the East the discovery of 400 inscribed clay slabs in the center of the ruins of Babylon. Two of these have been deciphered -one comprising a large part of a Babylonian compendium, or dictionary, of the cuneiform characters; the second tablet contains a litany which was chanted by the singers of the temple of Esagila on the return of the god Marduk to his sanctuary.

The discovery of a square courtyard surrounded by walls in the south quarter of the city of Babylon is reported by Dr. Kaltenay. The southernmost wall is described as being remarkable for its architecture and its elegance. It is faced with glazed tiles, ornamented with flowers and tracery. When the tiles that had fallen to the ground were replaced, a beautiful design was revealed. Bricks composed of enamels and glass-raised work, which were apparently part of a mosaic pavement, were found in the courtyard, together with coins, fragments of inscriptions on stone, and a broad slab bearing a picture of the Babylonian idea of hell. From the great elegance of this courtyard Dr. Kaltenay believes that it was a part of the palace of Nebuchadnezzar. A building about 60 feet wide and 160 feet long is supposed by the discoverer to have been the throne room of Nebuchadnezzar. Exactly opposite the door is the niche in which the royal throne stood. On both

sides and on the northern front of the hall were richly colored ornaments in good preservation. No inscriptions of special significance are mentioned.

Egypt. Besides the review of the work of the society, the report of the Egypt Exploration Fund for 1901 gives a conspectus of the work done by other scholars and explorers and those of other nationalities. Among these is the discovery at Elephantine or Assouan, reported by Prof. Sayce, of an Aramaic papyrus, with two ostraka, relating to loans of money contracted by Jews settled in that district during the Persian epoch. The Aramaic texts are said to contain some fresh words and to throw light on Biblical Aramaic. The discovery by Mr. Evans at Knossos, in Crete, of an alabaster lid inscribed with the name of the Hyksos King Khyan, coupled with the occurrence of the same name on a lion of Bagdad now in the British Museum, seems to show that that ruler was a personage of great importance. The monuments of no other Pharaoh have so wide a range. Some examples of a curious kind of lamp, discovered in two places, have been placed in the Cairo Museum. It consists of a small bowl pegged into a saucer, and provided with an extinguisher. It was fed by scented fat, which was burned by means of a wick. A Berlin papyrus, published by a German professor, contains a Hesiodic fragment about the wooing of Helen, of whose suitors Ulysses is said to have been one.

The work of Prof. Petrie in Egypt in the sea

son of 1901-'02 extended over every historical period, and its most important result was the connection of the prehistoric with the historic period. On the site of an early town was discovered an unbroken stratified series of deposits ranging over four or five centuries of the earliest kingdom. It has been calculated that the deposits of the town dwellers increased at the rate of 20 inches to each century, and thus, by a process of leveling, the relative ages of the pottery, flints, and other objects were estimated. Further comparison with the final prehistorie stages and with the remains from the royal tombs established a continuity between the known and the hitherto unknown or undefined. lt seems to have been made clear that the great settlement at Abydos began with the founding of the kingdom there, and the large tombs of the first dynasty show a continuance of the type of prehistoric burials. Much sculpture was found in the ruins of the Temple of Osiris of the sixth, eleventh, twelfth, eighteenth, nineteenth, and twenty-sixth dynasties, but of the twelfth much had to be left until the next season, and in particular a tomb which is pronounced to be the largest in Egypt awaits a complete clearance. Two gigantic sarcophagi of granite have been seen within it. The researches of Dr. Grenfell and Dr. A. S. Hunt in the Fayoum, under the auspices, like those of Prof. Petrie, of the Egypt Exploration Fund, were pursued more with reference to the Græco-Roman period, mainly in searching for papyri in the Ptolemaic cemeteries. Many Greek and denotic papyri were obtained, partly from early Ptolemaic mummies and partly from the mummies of crocodiles of a rather later period. These have yet to be prepared and examined. Another work of exploration was prosecuted on the account of the Egypt Research Fund, at the site of the Temple of the Kings (Seti I) by Mr. A. St. G. Caulfield, while Mr. L. Chrystie copied the sculptures.

The second part of the collection of the Amherst papyri, edited by Messrs. B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt and published by the Oxford University Press, has to do with classical fragments, documents of the Ptolemaic, Roman, and Byzantine periods, and theological fragments, chiefly from the "Shepherd" of Hermes. Among the fragments are fifteen broken lines of an unknown tragedy: a commentary by Aristarchus on the first book of Herodotus, preserving a short quotation from the Ioéves of Sophocles; a papyrus of the fourth century, A. D., containing three fables of Babrius in Latin; and miscellaneous documents supplementing our information about the administration of Egypt. In these are found notices of conflicts between the Egyptians and the Greek settlers under the later Ptolemies, in which the Egyptians complain that they are overreached by the Greeks in the apportionment of lands, and, revolting, destroy title deeds. Evidences are also afforded of the exactness of the enforcement of law and the collection of the taxes. The prominent position of women in business and the prevalence of the custom of marriage of brother and sister, among Greeks as well as Egyptians, are amply illustrated in these documents.

In illustration of the thoroughness with which investigation of prehistoric relics is now carried on may be cited the method by which P. J. Petrie has established a succession of remains of pottery. Having to deal in his latest season's work with a site which contained, in successive layers, the remains, easily distinguished, of successive kings of the first Egyptian dynasty, and

below these the remains of several continuous prehistoric periods, he devised a plan of classify ing the whole mass by a card catalogue. He then tabulated his results, and obtained a sort of chronological scheme by means of which the development in the fashioning of pots may be followed from a period far anterior to Menes through successive prehistoric strata into the continuous line of kings of the first dynasty.

A description and translation are published by Jules Nicole, of Geneva, in the Archiv für Papyruskunde of a fragment of a papyrus on which are written questions and answers concerning surgical operations, showing how surgical examinations were conducted in Egypt eighteen centuries ago. Its contents, so far as they have been preserved, indicate that a fair knowledge of anatomy existed; and the subject is treated from very like a modern point of view. The questions are such as might be properly asked in a medical school of the present day. Another article by Prof. Otto Gradenwitz, of Königsberg, cites two documents from the Berlin papyri, giving evidence that banks existed in Egypt, and issued and accepted checks and bills of exchange. The form of these drafts is more complicated than present forms; but "they amounted simply to orders to pay a certain sum of money to a certain person clearly specified and to charge the same to the account of the undersigned."

Carthaginia.-The excavations made during the past twenty-five years on the site of ancient Carthage by Father A. L. Delattre have restored most of the outline of the city, and furnished much light upon its life and antiquities. The work has consisted largely of exploration of tombs, of which more than 1,100 of the oldest period, between the sixth and eighth centuries B. C., have been excavated. The finds illustrate the political and business relations of Carthage at that period, and the prevalence of Egyptian and Phoenician influences in earlier, of Greek and Roman in later times. They include armlets, rings, chains, and coins, in gold, silver, bronze, glass, terra-cotta, etc. The specimens have been deposited in a special museum established by the White Mission Brotherhood of Northern Africa. A full account of the discoveries, by Albert Mayr, was published in the Beilage of the Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 130.

Africa. Results of six years' systematic explorations among the prehistoric remains between the Zambesi and Linepopo rivers, South Africa, are given in the book of R. A. Hall and W. G. Neal, entitled The Ancient Ruins of Rhodesia. Nearly 200 ruins were investigated by the authors and Mr. George Johnson, under grants from the chartered company. More than 500 temples, citadels, enclosures, chains of forts, gold workings, and terraced slopes are reported from various districts covering a total area of at least 115,000 square miles, not one-tenth part of which has as yet been thoroughly explored. Structures are found among these ruins of earlier and of later dates, and the authors have classified them under four categories, of which the periods range from 1000 or possibly 2000 B. C. down to the advent of the Mohammedan Arabs and the Portuguese. The buildings of the first period, as at the Great Zimbabwe, are marked by great solidity and superior workmanship. The massive walls of dry masonry rest upon the bed-rock, and are often 15 or 17 feet thick at the base. They are skilfully built, and are ornamented with various decorative patterns. These are ascribed to the South Arabian Himyarites by Theodore Bent, Dr. Schachter, and Mr. A. H. Keane. The structures

of the second period are less substantial than these, and are inferior to them in other respects, and are assigned to the Phoenicians. They are built upon the other monuments or constitute extensions to them, and also occur by themselves. in the districts farther removed from the eastern coast. One class of structures are recognized as slave pits. Extensive terraced slopes in the Inyanze and Mount Fura districts resemble those of the Yemen uplands. Other finds are represented in quartz crushers, gold-smelting works, gold crucibles showing gold in the flux, and massive gold objects, beads, bangles, plates, wire, pegs, nails, ferules, etc., which have characteristics of the monuments of the first period. the branches of the goldsmith's art were practised by them," the authors say, "including gold wire-drawing, beating gold into thin sheets, plating iron and bronze with gold, and burnishing." The conditions all go to indicate that the South Arabian Himyarite occupation of this region was a settled one.

All

A brief general account of Christian antiquities in the Soudan awaiting exploration has been published by Mr. John Ward, F. S. A. The site of Soba, on the Blue Nile, contains the ruins of several Christian temples. It was visited by Col. Stanton, governor of Khartoum, who began preparations for having the ruins cleared and photographed. At Naga, 80 miles north of Soba, are extensive ruins, including 5 temples of Roman architecture with avenues of figures of paschal lambs leading up to them. Hieroglyphic inscriptions were found, and the composite capitals at both places bore the figure of the cross. The natives say that similar ruins are spread all over the country. Sculptured rocks and temples are to be found 80 miles east of Khartoum, and temples are said to be known as far away as Darfur.

Central Asia. A number of manuscripts. said to have been found in Chinese Turkestan, in the desert north of a caravan route between Gūma and Khotan, which were offered to the attention of archeologists several years ago, have been a subject of investigation by M. A. Stein, and have been found by him to be fraudulent. Mr. Stein, who is engaged in archeological explorations in Chinese Turkestan, met the alleged discoverer of the manuscripts--Islām Akhum-and obtained a confession of the fraud from him. Mr. Stein made many, and some important, discoveries, particularly in the Dandan Uilig ruins and in the remains on the Niya river. Some Chinese manuscripts of the eighth century found at Dandan Uilig are of interest as being descriptive of the social conditions existing at that period. One of them is a bond given in exchange for a loan of money, and another is a document of a similar kind relating to grain. In both cases the lender is a Buddhist priest, and the terms of the loan are very strict. At the Niya ruins Mr. Stein found wooden tablets bearing Kharoshthi writing, which is assigned to the time of the Khurshana or Indo-Scythian kings of the first two centuries of the Christian era.

ARGENTINE REPUBLIC, a federal republie in South America. The legislative power is vested in the Congress, consisting of a Senate of 30 members, 2 from each province and 2 from the federal district, and a House of Representatives, numbering 86, 1 to every 20,000 inhabitants. One-third of the Senators and one-half of the Representatives are replaced every two years. The President and Vice-President are elected by direct popular vote for six years. The President of the republic, inaugurated on Oct. 12, 1898, is Gen.