Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, February 1899: Volume LIV, No. 4, February 1899Various
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, February 1899: Volume LIV, No. 4, February 1899
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
Cupules are sometimes cut on the surface of rocks in place. Engravings
similarly cut have been designated sculptures on rocks, and are found
almost everywhere. Those which have been most studied and afford the
most features of interest for us are on the Scandinavian coasts, and
these have been largely utilized by Adrien de Mortillet for the
determination of the figures of megaliths. We cite only one example
from Gaul, the sculptures in the rocks of the Lago dei Maraviglie, in
a lateral valley on the left, going from San Dalmazo to Tende, in
Piedmont. Some of the walls of the rock there and large surfaces of
detached blocks are covered with extremely rude figures formed by the
accumulation of dints resulting from frequently repeated blows. Among
these figures, which are without order in the grouping, and in which
no regard is paid to proportions, are stags, rams, human figurines,
hatchets, pikes, baskets, and lance points. These sculptures have been
ascribed to the neolithic or the bronze age; but the existence of
figures of similar style on the walls of a lead mine near Valauri has
suggested that they may be more recent. Human figurines are numerous,
but heads of horned animals are more so. Some are perhaps stags and
rams, while bulls and cows are abundant. The shepherds are accustomed
to take their herds and keep them for two or three months every year
in this valley, which is so lonely and melancholy in aspect that it
has been called Vallée d'Enfer, or Hell Valley. It would not be
strange if these herdsmen, for want of something better to do, should
have amused themselves delineating the things that were before their
eyes--the cattle, the miners, and things appertaining to the mine. As
to special traits, the representations are so badly executed as to
leave a wide range open for interpretation.--_Translated for the
Popular Science Monthly from the Book Formation de la Nation
française_ (Paris: Félix Alcan).
FOOTNOTE:
[34] Ch. Letourneau. Alphabet Forms in Megalithic Inscriptions.
Bulletin of the Society of Anthropology, 1893.
* * * * *
An old Newcomen steam engine at North Ashton, near Bristol,
England, as described by Mr. W.H. Pearson in the British
Association, is still doing practical work after an active
career of nearly one hundred and fifty years, it having been
erected in 1750 at a cost of seventy pounds. The piston is
packed with rope, and has a covering of water on the top to
make it steam tight. The working of the engine is aided by
the vacuum formed by the injection of water into the
cylinder. The old man now engaged in working this engine has
held his post since he was a lad, and his father and
grandfather occupied the same position.
* * * * *
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