The Sun.
London, England, 1866-03-02 00:00:00

SCIENTIFIC AND ORNAMENTAL PRESENTS.

nRNAMENTS for the Drawing-room, Library,
anl Dining-room, consisting of a new and e.egant assort-
ment of VASES, Figures, Groupe, Candlesticks, obelisks, I nk-
,tands, ..eautilul inlaid Tables, Paper weights, &c., in Italian,
A.labaet .r, Parian, Marble, Bronze, Derbyshire Spar, &c.
j.nportedand manufactured by JAJiMS PENNANT, Mine.
ralo, ist to her 'Vlajesty, 149, Sti and, W.C., London.

Nis. Tennant arranges elementary collections of ROCKS,
tiI[NEitALS, and FOSSILS, to illustrate the new edition
of Lyell's Elements of Geology; they will greatly f wilitate
the Interesting study of MINERALOGY and GEOLOGY,
and can be had at 2, 6. 10, 20, 60, to 5)0 guineas each.
PRACTICAL INSTRUCTION in GM() LOGY and 'Km-
kLO(..4 gY is given by Mr.TENNAN r,P.G.S., at 149. Strand.

Parliamentary Oaths Amendment.

The bill to amend the law relating to Parliamen-
tary oaths has been issued. It is as follows:

" Whereas it is expedient to amend the law re-
lating to oaths to be taken by members of both
Houses of Parliament on taking their seats in every
Parliament. Be it therefore enacted by the Queen's
Most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice
and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal and
commons in the present Parliament assembled, and
by the authority of the same, as follows :

" 1. The oath to bemade andsubseribed by mem-
bs
ee
ar
ts s oifnbothr
yHroaurshe
as
mo
ef
nPt asrhl
ai al
lm ebne t
no n
tthaek
fine
rg m theirfel-
lowing :
" ' I, A. 8., do swear that I will be faithful and
bear true allegiance to her Majesty Queen Victoria,
and will defend her to the utmost of my power
against all conspiracies and attempts whatever
which shall be made against her power, crown, or
dignity. So help me God.
" 2. Where in the oath hereby appointed the
name of her present Majesty is expressed the name
of the Sovereign of this kingdom for the time being
by virtue of the act ' for the further limitation of
the Crown, and better securing the rights and liber-
ties of the subject,' shall be substituted from time
to time, with proper words of reference thereto.
" 3. The oath hereby appointed shall in every.
Parliament be solemnly and publicly made and sub-
scribed betwixt the hours of nine in the morning
and four in the afternoon by every member of the
House of Peers at the table in the middle of the
said house before he takes his place in the said
house, and whilst a full house of peers is there with
their Speaker in his place, and by every member of
the House of Commons at the table in the middle
of the said house, and whilst a full House of Com-
mons is there duly sitting, with their Speaker in his
chair, in such order or method as each house is
called over.

" 4. 'Every person of the persuasion of the people
called Quakers, and every other person for the time
being by law permitted to make a solemn affirma-
tion or declaration instead of taking an oath, may,
instead of taking and subscribing the oath hereby
appointed, make and subscribe a solemn affirmation
in the form of the oath hereby appointed, substi-
tuting the words ' solemnly, sincerely, and truly
declare and affirm,' for the words 'swear,' and omit-
ting the word ' So help me God ;' and the making
and subscribing such affirmation with such substi-
tute as aforesaid by a person hereby authorised to
make and subscribe the same, shall have the same
effect as the making and subscribing by other per-
splelraiosr
per-
sons of the oath hereby appointed.
" 5. If any member of the House of Peers vote
by himself or his proxy in the House of Peers, or
without having made or subscribed t
sits as a peer during any debate in
offence be subject
appointed, he shall for every such
be recovered by action in
to a penalty of £5OO, to
one of her Majesty's
House of Commons
—and if any member of the
beoceunrtscahtolslernes, twmiitnhsotuert
sits as such in the said h ,
debate after the Speaker .ou s e - o r votes t ibiee
duringos atioath
i house,
e r 1 hereby
and subscribed the oath hereby ap_
pointed,having nclhhaedoeSffheanliceb,eansdubinjecatdcutotioanitikoesupeehnaplteynaflotyr
every s
his seat shall be vacated in the same manner as if
he were dead.

6. There shall be repealed the several acts and
parts of acts specified in the schedule hereto to the
extent in the said schedule in that behalf men-
tioned.

"7. This act may be cited for all purposes as
The Parliamentary Oaths Act, 1866.'
The following petition is in circulation against
the bill :

" The humble petition of the undersigned inhabitants

of - (or others)

" Showeth,—That your petitioners regret to have
been informed that a bill, entitled the Parliamentary
Oaths Bill, has been introduced in Parliament.
" That your petitioners object to the said bill,
because the:present parliamentary oaths were settled
after long debate and mature consideration, and
after one or more conferences between the two
houses of Parliament, only eight years since.
" Because your petitioners do not believe that the

" Because your petitioners object to the abandon-
ment of the securities for the constitution which the
present law affords by requiring that members of
' Parliament shall publicly declare on oath that they
will resist the intrusion into this free and indepen
dent country of any foreign jurisdiction, power, of
authority, whether Papal or other.; that-they 101:1
defend and uphold the Protestant succession to the
throne; that they will defend the settlement of pre-
perty and the position and possessions of the Esta-
blished Church ; all of which legal obligations and
securities the said bill proposes to abrogate.
"Your petitioners further object to the abroga-
tion and abandonment of the public profession of
Christianity which the present law requires that the
vast majority of the members of both houses of Parr
liament shall make in their acceptance of the terms
and in the manner of takingJhe present parliamen-
tary oaths.

" Since your petitioners believe that this public
profession of Christianity on the part of the vast
majority of the members of Parliament has a salu-
tary effect upon the conduct of Parliament, and is
requisite, in order to justify legislation by Parlia-
ment in matters connected with and for the Chris-
tian Church, which is in union with the State—
" Your petitioners therefore pray that the Par-
liamentary Oaths Bills may not pass into law.
" And as in duty bound will ever pray, &c."

Archeological Society.—

An ordinary meeting of the members of this asso-
ciation was held on Wednesday evening, at their
rooms in Sackville-street---Mr. Godwin in the chair.
Mr. Syer Cuming exhibited, from the collection
of Mr. J. B. Greenshields, a disc-shaped perforated
cover of a small vase, turned on a lathe out of a
piece of deep-green pot stone, which had :been
found at Thebes ; also, from the same collection,
pieces of granular quartz, chipped from the colossal
statue at Thebes, called the vocal Memnon erected
B. c. 1692 1661. Pieces of brown and red granular
quartz from the base of the same statue were also
exhibited. In the course of a short discussion as to
the cause of the sounds that issued from the statue
of Memnon, Mr. Godwin took occasion to denounce
in strong terms the mutilation of the statue by
breaking from it the pieces that were on the table.
Javelin and arrow heads, of conchoidal hornstone,
from the ancient sepulchral mounds of Upper Ca-
nada, in the collection of Mr. Greenshields, were
exhibited, which bore the marks of more careful and
elaborate workmanship than the great majority of
what are considered flint arrow-heads. From the
same collection was exhibited a cleddyo, or leaf-
shaped sword of bronze, of very delicate outline
and fabric, recovered from the Thames in 1859
and a sketch of the hilt of a very large cleddyo of
bronze, in the Bateman collection, that was fe-ani
at Battersea, was exhibited by Mr. Cuming, who
made some remarks on the numbers of bronze
swords that have been found between London-
bridge and Battersea. He stated that the dis-
covery of these weapons on the banks of the
Thames eastwards cemmenced near London-
bridge, where a few only were found, and that,
proceeding up the river, the quantity increased
until at Battersea there had been found a large col-
lection. higher up the river, however, there were
scarcely any, from which circumstance it was in-
ferred that a great battle had been fought at Bat-
tersea, the commencement of the fight having been
near London-bridge, and that after the battle the
combatants attacked had been dispersed. A leaf-
shaped sword of steel, copied from an ancient one
of bronze, in the library of the Faculty of Advo-
cates at Edinburgh, was exhibited by Mr. G. Vere
Irving, who said his father wore it at the beginning.
of the present century as a captain of au Edin-
burgh corps of volunteer artillery. It was very
thick and heavy, but all the officers of the cogs
wore similar swords. The only recommendation
of such a clumsy weapon was that it was of the
true Roman shape.

A bronze vessel, of the form of two truncated
conesjoined together at their bases, was exhibited
by Mr. Gordon Hills, from the collection of Mr.
Davidson, which was supposed to be the standard
Roman measure of 101 b, of water, made by or-
der of Vespasian, and to have come from the Far-
nese Palace. Mr. Hills read a short descriptive
of thevessel, and exhibited a book printed in 1624
that contained an engraving resembling it of the
standard measure of Vespasian, which was described
to be then deposited in the Farnese Palace. The
importance of this vessel, if genuine, or if a correct
copy of the original, as indicating the real value of
the Roman pound, was noticed by several members.
Mr. Cuming was of opinion that the quality of the
metal was different from that of ancient bronze, and
he thought it was Kobably made in the 15th cen-
tury. The further consideration of the subject was
postponed until the next meeting, when the vessel
will be again exhibited.
An interesting paper by Mr. Lucas on " Cham-
bered Barrows" was then read, in continuation of a
paper read by him at the congress of the association
at Leeds. Mr. Lucas entertains the opinion that
all cromlechs were places of burial, and that they
were originally covered with mounds of earth, which
had since been swept away from various causes. In
his excavations in several barrows in Brittany he
discovered stone chambers in which the bodies had
been deposited in the centre, and in some of them
skeletons were found. These chambers consisted
of upright large stones, covered either with single
slabb of stone—which were the most ancient—or
with several smaller slabs overlapping each 'other.
Mr. Lucas conceives that all barrows were originally
round, and that long barrows have been formed by
additional burials adjoining the central one, so that
by these accumulations the round barrow has be-
come long or oval. In this manner he disposes of
the notion entertained by some archaeologists that
the long barrows were constructed by people who
had long skulls, and that the round barrows were
formed by round-headed people. The chambered
inv
lh
barrowsiwhich the dead
are
le tore interred
b e more
withoutrecent
being. thoseso

enclosed.
The meeting adjourned to the 14th inst.

R.N., have
PSa.loMonanSe'tealn Packet
The Rev. A. D. Campbell, 111:A.. of Gorleston,
joinedcSLolakn'tyl ae(nLBI
ionai
tredd Captain.o)f the

this institution
acshhaepludifty:srterday
ROYAL NATIONAL LIFEBOAT INSTITUTION.--A
at its house,
,mi
()client meeting
eoef,
7 M.S., P.P., in the
chair. The minutes of the previous meeting having been
read, rewards, amounting to £134,
were granted to the
crews of the lifeboats of the institution and those of shorn
boats, for their gallant services in saving the crews of
wrecked vessels during the gales. Rewards, amounting to
granted to the crews of different lifeboats
of the ins • • titutton for putting off in
mere lies to signa
• Is of dis-
tress, but the vessels had in the P • antime either got out
of danger, or their crews had been saved by other means.
The silver medal of the institution was ordered to be given
to Mr. W. Taylor, chief officer Of the coast guard at-Ro-
bert's Cove, County Cork; to Captain Moreno, of the Aus-
trian barque Eva, and to Private Robert Love, of the 611
Regiment, in appreciation of their bravo services in assis!ing
with others in saving the crews of several vessels. Various
other honorary amd pecuniary rewards were granted to
persons who had laudably exerted themselves during the
late gales to save life on our coasts. New lifeboats htsd
been sent by the institution during the past month to
Cullercoats, Bridlington, Ramsgate, Rye, Lizard, and to
Cahore, in Ireland. The cost of these lifeboats was the
gift-to the institution of various benevolent persons. Pay_
ments amounting to £2,120 were ordered to be made on
various lifeboat establishments. It was reported that the
late Mr. Travers Taylor, of Southport, had left a legacy of
£5OO to the institution ; the Goldsmiths' Company had
sent, through Alderman Copeland, an' additional Ilona-
lion of £lOO to its funds; the Merchant Taylors' Company
had also sent £26 ss. ; and a donation of £5 hail been for-
warded from Hamburg by "One saved, by God's
help,
by
British lifeboat from a wrecked steamer." The expenses of
lifebhats to be called the "Civil Service," the " Ama'.ga-
mator," the " Working-man," &c., were also being col-
lected by different benevolent persons. The annual meeting
of the institution ,was to be held on Tuesday, the 13th
inst., at the London Tavern, Earl Percy having promised
to preside on,the occasion.

lIIGII WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.

Tais DAL—M®rning, 2h. 50m.—Afternoon, 3h. Om.
T)-11oratow.-11orning, 3h. 24m.--Afternoon, 3h. 40m.