This may have been partly due to the influence of the neighbouring civilisation of Egypt, and also to the fact that the people of the Ægean area mixed freely in their roving life with one another and with outside peoples, so that there was a free-trade in ideas, and the seed which they planted grew and multiplied. But it must also have been due to something inherent in the race itself. What the race was has not been determined. So far, the examination of skulls and bones in Cretan tombs has established only the fact that the race, while showing signs of mixture, belonged on the whole to the dark, long-haired “Mediterranean race,” whose probable origin lay in Mid-Eastern Africa. The main interest of this is to discredit an Asiatic source for Minoan civilisation. It is apparent from its achievements in engineering and the arts and industries that it was a race of great intelligence, with an active interest in life that led it to strive for the beauty as well as the conveniences of living. =Palace of Cnossus.=--The palace of Cnossus occupies an area of about six acres, surmounting the debris of human settlements, which go back, it has been estimated, to a distance of from 12,000 to 14,000 years before the Christian era. The remains show that the palace formed a hollow square, constructed around a central court. The principal entrance was upon the north, though what appears to have been the royal entrance was upon the west, opening on to a paved court. The west wing contained a small council chamber, or office, in which was found a throne, made of gypsum in a design curiously Gothic, around which were lower stone benches. The walls of this chamber were decorated with sacred dragons represented in a Nile landscape. They were executed, like the other paintings found in these Cretan palaces, in fresco; that is to say, in water colours mixed with some gelatinous medium, laid on the still damp plaster, so that as the latter dried the colour became incorporated in the actual material of the walls. To this council chamber was attached a bathroom, probably for ritual purposes. Near it was also discovered a small shrine, containing figures and reliefs, exquisitely fashioned in faience, one of which shows a snake goddess and her votaries; this being one of the aspects of the chief divinity. The walls and pillars of these chambers are repeatedly decorated with the sign of the Double Axe, while miniature frescoes on the walls exhibit pillared shrines, with double axes stuck into some of the wooden pillars. For the remains of the palace itself show that the pillars used in this construction were of wood, rounded like posts. The circular sockets still remain in the stonework and a comparison of the top and bottom ones shows that the pillar tapered downward, the diameter at the bottom being six-sevenths of the top one.