smart woman, Mrs. Auchinleck - where to win bread for my bairn," acknowledged Mrs. Rymer seriously. school!" Demean herself by doing what her "man" did! Her Andrew had said a lady's mission was to go up hill and down dale, refining the world; and she, if she had any pretensions to be a lady, would refine Auldacres parish school. Would she lose her grand friends? Let her lose them, if they could be so lost. Her Andrew and her mother were her best friends, and she wanted none if she had them. Cecy's dear mother must and did believe in her daughter's great good fortune and uncloudDemean herself by teaching in a parished happiness. But since Cecy was so happy as to be going to marry Andrew Auchinleck, all was plainest and smoothest sailing in delectable sunshine. A living was provided, Auldacres was next door, Mrs. Auchinleck was propitious. Then teaching was Cecy's business as well as Andrew's; she would help him as it had been projected she should help his father. 66 RAILROAD ACROSS THE ANDES. WE are glad | original projectors of a railway over the Andes to see that progress is being made with a scheme | had at least the latter among their objects. The for crossing the South American continent by a line, it is said, would take four years to execute, railway, which may rival if not surpass in ac- but the Argentine Republic will be surer of suctual utility the great Atlantic and Pacific line cess if they do not try to go even so fast as that, across the North American continent. An en- but gradually extend their railways to the West. gineer, Mr. Rossetti, was appointed by the GovEconomist. ernment of the Argentine Republic to survey the passes of the Andes, and his report appears to bring the undertaking within practicable compass. By the pass of the Planchon or Teno communication may be established between ex- A WEEK or two ago we announced a rumour isting lines on either side of the Andes by a con- to the effect that the Government had refused to necting line of about 1,000 miles (1,651 kilo-llow a ship to convey the eclipse observers to metres) in length. The highest elevation reached will be 3,300 metres, and apparently there will only be one very difficult section in the Vargara ravine, where there is a difference of level of 790 metres in a distance of 10 kilometres, which gives a grade of 70 in 1,000. Thus the undertaking will not be on the scale of the Atlantic and Pacific undertaking either for length or the number of the difficult engineering works. The whole cost is calculated at about 6,000,0001 sterling, that is about 6,000 per mile, of which the greater portion will be in the territory of the Argentine Republic, which has prosecuted the survey, about a fifth only of the expense or 1,200,000l falling to the Government of Chili. No doubt, small as the work comparatively is, it may still be too costly for any traffic that may come upon it; but there are many objects of public utility that would be served. The Argentine Republic, we believe, has great expectations, both from the emigration which is likely to flow into its great West, and the richness of the mining districts which will be opened up. There is a considerable trade besides between the Eastern and Western coasts, and the route would almost certainly command the mail and passenger traffic between Peru and Chili and Europe possibly would supply another practicable road to and from our Australian colonies. The Spain and Sicily next December. The rumour was too well founded; the Government has actually refused to tell off a ship for this purpose. This decision in the teeth of the plainest precedents requires no comment on our part; in fact, it is beyond all comment, it is astounding. We are enabled to announce, however, that the American Government, more enlightened than our own, are making extensive preparations: and upon the results of their labours and those of the Continental Governments Englishmen must therefore fall back, in a research which is eminently English. The Americans will send three corps of observation, to be stationed respectively at Malaga, Sicily, and some place in Turkey most available for making the best scientific records and views. One of these corps will be sent from the Naval Observatory, and the other two will be composed of the most scientific men in the country, including the professors from Harvard University. Before the war broke out it was arranged that Rear-Admiral Glisson should extend to the corps at Sicily all the aid and co-operation in his power. But the original plan has been spoiled for the present by the troubles in Europe, Admiral Glisson being obliged to move his squadron to the Baltic for the protection of American commerce in that vicinity. Nature. nary extent. FLINT CHIPS. From The Spectator. manner very full information is furnished PRE-HISTORIC, Or rather non-historic, archæology has had many difficulties to contend with, but it is in a fair way to surmount them all. For a long while its materials were either scanty or suspicious, though its conclusions were large and dogA strange scene is opened to our view in matic. No sooner was it shown that the arrow-heads, celts, and curiously worked stones preserved in many a museum might Dr. Blackmore's account of the mammals be made to tell an intelligible and connected of the Drift. During that period our Engstory, than these venerable though some- lish Downs were the home of herds of reinwhat dowdy curiosities became the starting- deer, of shaggy-maned bisons, and of a race point for the wildest hypotheses. It seemed of small and hardy horses, not unlike the to be taken for granted that this branch of ponies of Exmoor. The mammoth, the archæology required but little learning or woolly rhinoceros, the lemming, and the A few musk sheep, animals peculiarly adapted for scientific accuracy of thought. earnest workers, however, went on collect- existence in an Arctic clime, were then living, comparing, and reasoning, but their ing in this country, while sheltering in the labours, even when known, were often dis- caverns or prowling in the forests were credited. This result was due to the prev- hyænas, bears, and a species of lion larger alence of fraud and forgery, and to the un- than any of those now found in Asia or fortunate impression produced by the rash Africa. Many of these animals must have conclusions of spurious archæologists, a been extremely abundant, evidence of the fungoid growth which the study of obscure existence of more than two hundred indiantiquities has developed to an extraordi- viduals of the hyæna having been obtained But at length, owing in a from the Kirkdale cave alone. Mammoth great measure to the labours of a goodly remains, too, have been frequently disinband of really philosophic workers, English terred in nearly all parts of England; still and Continental, pre-historic archæology is persons have not been wanting who venbeing rapidly consolidated into a satisfac- tured to attribute all these to the one One of the most important elephant imported by Cæsar (p. 21). We tory structure. recent steps in this direction was the foun- may here cite an instance of the unexpected dation of the Blackmore Museum at Salis- glimpses into the life of the past which the bury, another the production of a descrip-minute study of organic remains often affords. The second cervical vertebra, or axis, as it is named, of a bison, in the tive catalogue of its contents. alogue we now wish to direct our readers. Flint Chips, though a volume of 600 Blackmore collection shows necrosis of a refers almost exclusively to the small part of the boby of the vertebra, an inStone periods, and to the stone objects in jury which was most probably produced by a the Blackmore Museum; a second book re- violent shock to the animal in using its horns lating to the Bronze period, and to the ar- in a tilting-match with a brother bison, and ticles of "modern savagery," will complete which resulted in its death. In France more the undertaking. The mode of treating his especially a kind of evidence has been obsubject which our author adopts renders his tained from the animal remains of caves and volume a great deal more useful as well as rock-shelters which is of the deepest intermore interesting than a mere catalogue. Mr. est and importance, for it proves the conStevens duly enumerates and describes the temporaneity of man with many animals specimens, but he provides his readers in now extinct. Rude outlines of the mamaddition with a series of most instructive moth cave-bear and of man himself have essays. So, for instance, the list of mam- been found traced upon pieces of mammoth malian remains found associated with works ivory or fragments of reindeer antlers; atWe trust that the evidences of man is prefaced by a well-composed pic-tempts at sculptural figures have also been ture of the fauna of the Drift period. discovered. Again, before the individual specimens be- of cannibalism which some of the caves of longing to the later Stone age are enumer- France and Scotland seem to furnish will ated, a chapter on the methods of drilling be explained away; still we fear that hustone is given. In a similarly readable man bones carefully split for the extraction of the marrow show that the cave-dwellers' longing for marrow knew no bounds. pages, To this cat Flint Chips. By E. T. Stevens. London: Bell and Daldy. 1870. The remarkable pit-dwellings at High skall has been removed; drying proceeds regularly, and a miniature head, preserving all the features, is the disagreeable result. field, near Salisbury, are described (p. 57) | Some Ecuador Indians prepare their idol as dome-shaped excavations in the chalk, human heads by introducing a hot stone possessing a strong resemblance to many into the prepared head from which the pits existing in various parts of England and France. Pit-dwellings vary a good deal in size, some being five feet, others fourteen in diameter. Sometimes they are As stone implements form the chief object solitary, sometimes in groups, with under- of the Blackmore collection, so the modes ground communications. The circular form of working them, their various uses, and of these pits remind one at once of the form their peculiarities of shape and material ocalways used by savages. The lodges and cupy a very considerable proportion of Mr. huts of many tribes both of North-American Stevens' volume. We cannot pretend to Indians and of the South-African races are give anything like a satisfactory account of round, and often sunk, partially at least, in our author's treatment of this part of his subthe ground. All the earliest habitations of ject, yet we hope to be able to select from pre-historic times have been observed to be his pages ample proofs of the fact that a in like manner either circular or oval. Un- remarkable amount of human interest atfortunately for the credit of archaeology, taches itself to the worked stones which numerous temporary shelters and cooking- have strayed down to us from remote places excavated on exposed hills and epochs. But we must guard our readers moors in this country have been set down against a common fallacy. The Stone age as pit-dwellings of ancient date, when they is often spoken of as a definite period, were in reality the temporary contrivances sharply defined both in time and space. of encamping soldiers at no very remote historic period. As a rule, nothing is found in them but a fire-marked stone, a little wood charcoal, some burnt seeds, a button or two, and a good deal of dirt. Had they been houses long inhabited, they would have furnished, as those of Highfield and other localities have, a less meagre catalogue of remains. Genuine pit-dwellings belong to what is called the neolithic period, and show both by their construction and contents a decided advance upon the civilization of the palaeolithic or cave period. We turn now for a moment to the consideration of an ancient method of cooking of which early dwellings afford evidence, and which the customs of some modern savages serve to illustrate. This plan is called " stone-boiling" (p. 50). Ahole is dug in the earth, dry wood is placed in it, and on that a number of stones. When the stones become red-hot the unconsumed fuel is removed, wet, green leaves placed upon the stones, and upon the leaves the food to be cooked. More leaves are placed on the food, and a mat over all. Then some water is poured on the mat, and finally earth as an outside coating; thus the food is cooked by a combined baking and steaming process. But a simpler method of stone-boiling than this of the New Zealanders, was probably practiced by the pit-dwellers. Stones made red-hot in the fire were thrown one after another into a vessel of water containing the food to be cooked. This is the plan adopted by certain North-American Indians, and traces of it still survive on the continent of Europe. One less pleasing use of stoneboiling is also described in Flint Chips. Such statements are not borne out by the study of the contents of the Blackmore Museum. The stone age of one country need on no account be contemporary with that of another; indeed, the Stone age lingers still in some parts of the world of to-day. Had this not been so, the stone remains of remote times, often the solitary records of past races, would have been far more difficult to interpret. The modern uses of tools of stone, shell, horn, and bone in many parts of the globe have enabled archæologists to classify numerous obscure objects, as adzes, hammers, knives, scrapers, netsinkers, &c. We indeed approach the study of many of these weapons and instruments under peculiar disadvantages. Doubtless, many of the stone tools were fixed in wooden handles, which have long since perished. Evidence that such was the case is afforded not only by the shape and markings of the objects themselves, but by modern examples of hafting adopted in the mounting of similar tools. The exact uses of many ancient stone implements remain, however, at present undiscovered; we only know that they are human handiwork, and that they have such strong family likenesses that arrangement in groups is quite easy. Here we stop to point out the chief methods of classifying ancient implements of stone. The main bases of arrangement are form and finish. The unrubbed and unpolished specimens are, as a rule, older than the rubbed and polished ones. Full details on this point, and on the varieties of form in flint implements; as to how they were flaked into shape, usually by percussion, sometimes by pressure as well; all this, and Europe until about 1560. We are told that Fairbolt "considers the tradition of the Greek Church that Noah was intoxicated by tobacco to have sprung from the brain of some pious humourist. It is singular that the word tabaco appears to have been the native Haytian name for the pipe used in smoking the plant, which itself was termed mahiz. We will now refer to the remarkable Ohio mounds and to the Ohio pipes, merely mentioning in passing that numerous subjects relating to ancient North America will be found ably handled in the sections devoted to maize and mealingstones, Aztec mosaic work, and the pottery of Mexico. The Ohio mounds seem to have been places of sacrifice and worship rather than of sepulture. The sacrifice offered may indeed have formed part of the burial-rites, much more, will be found in Mr. Stevens' | if not "the weed," may have been, it does volume. Especially interesting are the not appear that tobacco was introduced into notes on the efficiency of the flint implements in executing the work for which it is presumed they were fashioned (p. 68); on the exquisite workmanship of some of the stemmed flint arrow-heads from Ireland (p. 85); on the primitive methods of drilling stone (p. 96); and on the general distribution throughout the world of stone implements (p. 112). In point of fact, this last subject introduces a difficulty. The vast quantity of stone implements real or reputed has induced many persons to regard it as impossible that they can be all human work. The still existent gun-flint works, to which we recently alluded in the Spectator, offer proofs of various kinds as to the authenticity of the ancient specimens. Besides the vast quantity of flint flakes thrown off by the hammer in breaking up and fashioning a native mass of flint, there are numbers of abortive attempts and numbers but though evidences of cremation are of nearly finished pieces broken on the eve of completion. The modern productions and the modern waste-heaps of the workers in flint render perfectly intelligible those of pre-historic times. Let us, for illustration, suppose for a moment an excavation made 1,000 years hence, on the site of the industrious town of Whitby. A doubt" Mound City," on the left bank of the might easily arise as to whether the millions of fragments of jet there found were of artificial origin. But we know that 1,200 workmen are engaged year after year in fashioning this mineral into ornaments, just as the Romans 1,500 years ago worked the Kimmeridge shale about the Dorsetshire coast, and left abundant evidence of their manufactories in those waste cores of this material which have been ignorantly termed coal-money. We have no space to do more than refer to the compact and most interesting account (p. 119) of the Swiss and Italian lakedwellings, with the curious evidence of the mode of life of their inhabitants which has been brought to light of late years. Nor can we linger amongst the shell-mounds of Denmark (p. 193), or the ancient and weird animal forms represented in the pottery of Peru (p. 269), or the gold images from the Huacas of Chiriqui (p. 281). There is, however, a most interesting chapter on tobacco (p. 315), which will probably commend itself to some of our readers, and will serve to introduce a brief notice of one of the most important and characteristic suites of specimens in the Blackmore collection, namely, the pipes from the Ohio burial-mounds. However ancient the custom of smoking some weeds, distinct, interments are rare, and occur in mounds destitute of the altars and other objects, probably offerings, which characterize most of these earth-works. In shape the Ohio mounds resemble some of our round barrows and tumuli, but are occasionally on a very large scale. In Scioto river, Ross county, Ohio, there are twenty-three mounds, the group being surrounded by a bank three or four feet high. One most singular point discovered in relation to the contents of the so-called altarmounds was the occurrence of vast numbers of one sort of object in particular mounds. In one would be found two hundred pipes, in another numerous fragments of lead ore, in a third a collection of spear-heads, and so on. This peculiarity has not yet been satisfactorily explained. The pipes just mentioned are well represented in the Salisbury series. Very faithful engravings of the most characteristic amongst them will be found on pp. 423 to 436. They are worked out of four different rock or mineral materials, none of them having been moulded or fashioned by pressure nor hardened by subsequent baking. In fact they are not pottery, though as such they are described by Sir J. Lubbock in his Pre-historic Man. Great skill has been shown in working the native materials into pipes, particularly in the case of those which have been made out of a peculiarly hard kind of slate, a sort of whetstone. The various specimens of pipes, though exhibiting considerable diversity in their ornamental details are all formed on the same type of construction. The bowl of the pipe is massacre them all, and afterwards put their | foe, and upon the evacuation of Verdun by town to the sack -no unlikely contingency the Prussians after Valmy and Jemmapes, as times went. In the midst of the confu- the eight "Virgins of Verdun," their mothsion, while everybody was wringing his or ers, Mme. de Lalance, and twenty-one old her hands, and uttering lamentations, a gentlemen who had subscribed for the bonlady stepped forward and suggested that, as bons, were arraigned before the revolutiona means of mollifying the King, a deputation ary tribunal on the charge of having "deof the prettiest girls of Verdun should be livered the town of Verdun to the Prussians, chosen to offer a corbeille of bonbons to his aided and abetted the success of their arms Majesty. The idea of presenting a basket on French territory, and conspired with of sweetmeats to a tough, grimy old soldier them to destroy liberty, to dissolve the nawas not, perhaps, the most appropriate tional representation, and to restore despotthing that could have been devised, but it ism." It may be mentioned incidentally was accepted by the Verdunites with enthu- that the surrender of Verdun was one of the siasm, and eight young ladies were immedi- principal causes that sent Louis XVI. to ately designated as legates - their names the scaffold. Then, as now, it was pretty were Suzanne, Gabrielle, and Barbe Henry, much the way with the French to believe daughters of M. Henry, President du Bail- that whenever they were beaten it was their liage de Verdun; Anne, Henriette, and king's fault, not their own; so that when Helene Watrin, daughters of a retired the ill-starred monarch pleaded that he officer; Marguerite-Angélique La Girori- really could not help it if the bourgeois of sière, daughter of the Keeper of Woods and Verdun had failed in endurance, this anForests of the province; and Claire_Ta-swer was treated as flippant, derisive, and bouillot, daughter of a magistrate. They an insult to the sovereign people. The were all of radiant beauty," say the Crown same system of argument was adopted Prince's memoirs; the eldest of them was towards the Virgins of Verdun. After being not more than three-and-twenty, and the two carted about from prison to prison for two youngest were only sixteen. A subscription years, they were at last put upon their trial was raised on the spot to buy a handsome in Paris in 1794. Their beauty, their gencasket, the Baroness de Lalance, aunt of tleness, and their resignation were such that the sisters Henry, offered herself as cha- a thrill of sympathy went through the audiperon, and the nine ladies were soon on ence, and upon Fouquier-Tinville, the Pubtheir way to the camp in the Baroness's lic Accuser, rising to ask that they might be coach a fact which, by-the-by, speaks well sentenced to death, one of the soldiers on for the capacity of vehicles in those days. duty, who had been kind to them throughOne would scarcely imagine that in such a out the trial, fell heavily forward and rolled simple proceeding as this bonbon embassy on the floor senseless. Naturally they were to the King of Prussia lurked all the elements found guilty guilty of being in league of a future indictment for treason; and yet with the Prussians; and they were all conso it was, and the unfortunate box of sweet- demned to be bebeaded. As a particular meats was fated to cost three-and-thirty mark of Republican clemency, however, the persons their heads. The King refused the two youngest of the virgins, Barbe Henry present, but there is very little doubt that and Claire Tabouillot, saw their sentence it saved Verdun from pillage; for, although commuted to twenty years' penal servitude Frederick William II. showed himself cold, and one day of pillory. Barbe Henry was and even harsh, to the deputation, there is released after the fall of Robespierre, and his son's authority for believing that he was subsequently married a Colonel Meslier; very much struck with the beauty of the but both her sisters, her mother, and her young girls, and had not the heart to con- aunt were executed, along with the other sign them to the fate which would inevitably young girls who had carried the sweetmeats have been theirs had Verdun been aban- to Frederick William, and the twenty old doned to his soldiery. The French, how-gentlemen who had subscribed to the gift, ever, were then even fuller of the Prussian five of whom were over seventy. Of course spy mania than they are now. Everybody the mayor and the vestryman Cordier eswho was not a sans-culotte in those blessed caped; those sort of men always do. days of freedom was accounted sold to the |