Such a method of stating the argument necessarily involves a considerable amount of repetition of statements and phrases, which is apt to irritate the reader and offend his sense of literary style. In extenuation of this admitted defect it must be remembered that the brochure was intended as a protest against the accusation of artificiality and improbability so often launched against the explanation suggested here: the cumulative effect of corroboration was deliberately aimed at, by showing that many investigators employing the most varied kinds of data had independently arrived at identical conclusions and often expressed them in similar phrases. Only a very small fraction of the evidence is set forth in the present work. Much of the most illuminating information has only come to the author’s knowledge since this memoir was in the press; and a vast amount of the data, especially that relating to Europe, India and China, is too intimately intertwined with the effects of other cultures to be discussed and dissociated from them in so limited a space as this. Nor has any attempt been made to discuss the times of the journeys, the duration of the intercourse, or the details of the goings and the comings of the ancient mariners who distributed so curious an assortment of varied cargoes to the coast-lines of the whole world—literally “from China to Peru.” They exerted an influence upon the history of civilization and achieved marvels of maritime daring that must be reckoned of greater account, as they were so many ages earlier, than those of the more notorious mediæval European adventurers and buccaneers who, impelled by similar motives, raided the Spanish Main and the East Indies. As the pages show, this book is reprinted from volume 59, part 2, of the “Memoirs and Proceedings of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society,” session 1914-15; and I am indebted to the Council of that body for their kind permission to re-issue it in its present form. G. ELLIOT SMITH. THE UNIVERSITY, MANCHESTER, _July, 1915_. _LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS._ Map 1. A rough chart of the geographical distribution of certain customs, practices and traditions Map 2. An attempt to represent roughly the areas more directly affected by the “heliolithic” culture-complex, with arrows to indicate the hypothetical routes taken in the migration of the culture-bearers who were responsible for its diffusion _Manchester Memoirs, Vol. lix. (1915), No. =10=._ X. On the Significance of the Geographical Distribution of the Practice of Mummification.—A Study of the Migrations of Peoples and the Spread of certain Customs and Beliefs. By Professor G. ELLIOT SMITH, M.A., M.D., F.R.S. (_Read February 23rd, 1915. Received for publication April 6th, 1915._)