The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1866-12-04 00:00:00

Literature.

Mt. JANES HUNT'S WRITING&

Rremer OD Explorations Into the Archaic Anthre-
Hoar of the Islands of (lost, Hi-assay, and the
mainland of Zeeland, undertaken for the ftari of
Z timid and the Anthronolosimi Sosist7. by
James Hunt, Pb D., FAA., ha, he, all
This is • most interesting account of new ground
broken by the aiathropologista. Deviated with
metal ogee Dr. Bunt and Mr. Ralph Tate appear
to hare sighed and sought for a region of pure flint,
and to have found it (at least they found no metal)
in the ntiove Thule of Zeeland. After many die.
ncipoinements and days of small things at the Mackie
tinog and other places, where more ruthless explorers
nail been before them, Dr. Hunt made an iManDill
Snit of worked stone implements at and in the
neighbourhood of a subterranean hiding pleas or
med. (earth) bones of very contracted dimensions
called Safeeter. Of these he brought hems and ex-
hibited to b is society considerable quantities, as supply.
ing a missing link in the stone age, betwixt the rade
that implements found in the drift and the polished
stone "Celts" pervading all Europe. Whilst dwell-
in, upon and obscuring these by the light of similar
Fr nob discoveries at Preseigny Is Grand, which
bare no room to doubt that the philosophers in both
instances had come upon the sites of greet stone
invlrment manufactories, Dr. Hunt touches upon
many other interesting matters incidentally dile:o-
wed he him in opening the cairns or tumuli, and
even the fortified round houses or burghs of &Mend.
on the interpretatioa of some inscription. on stone
recently discovered in the Islands of Bressay and
&assail, by Dr. Hunt.

While engaged in removing • tumulus in Brame_
Pr. Hunt heard repaid some ooffins found buried
in the peat of the neighbourhood. Oa one of time
aortas he dieoovered inscribed stones, which led to a
tre. dikb.saion of the import of them inscriptions, by
vereepondence with Dr. Charlton. of Newcastle,
Priw.ipal Barclay, qf Glasgow, Professor Stephen.,
copenbagen, Dr. Pruner-Bey, of Paris, and other
Soots thought the inscriptions Runic,
others op more than mamas marks or seals ma
pottery. If Retie, the interpretation was the name
of Tate; amithh remarkable thing about it was the
preservation Of the coffins, which were wooden, in
'the peat, *kith led Professor Stephens to the eon-
elusion the the graves were Russian end not old;
still Priolikel Barclay assigned them an antiquity of
.700 year, at the least.
Ae the influenee of some kinds of peat In destroy-
ing the human body, as shewn by the disoovery
of hq,uanrrm.ine buried in the peat of the Zet-

land Wands, by Dr. Runt.
In this pamphlet Dr. Hunt describes minutely the
circumstances under which the wooden coffins above
alluded to were found in a state of preservation, '
whilst the bodies they bad contained were now.
pletely decomposed. Many instances of Owl pro-
servatirs power of peat are cited, but it is nually
certain from this was that it sometimes 000taina an
acid quite as powerful in ths oosite direction to it.
antiseptic properties, and which will &elm even
bone. The only thing that had smagoad destmotion
in these coffins was a logos nail, and that Mono
remained to allow that they were not merely empty
brines. Afterwards other boom, and in ono instance
almost an entire body fully oonfinned this fact.
On the application of the natural principal of selec-
tion to anthropology, in reply to view@ advocated
by some of Dr. Darwin's dimples. By Dr. Hunt.

In this brochure the President of Um Anthropolo-
gical Society has undertaken to re000cal• two con-
tlscting opinions. He disputes the origin of man-
kind from a single pair, and yet endeavours to refute
the unity advocated by Professor Huzley and Mr.
Wallace.