In thus venturing upon criticisms of Rivers’ great monograph I should like especially to emphasize the fact that these comments do not refer in any way to his attack on the “orthodox” ethnological position. On the contrary, the views that I am setting forth in this communication represent a further extension of Rivers’ own attitude that the Oceanic cultures have been derived mainly from contacts with other peoples. A series of practices which he has hesitated to recognise as having been introduced, but inclined to regard as local developments, I hold to be part of the immigrant culture. The use of boats for burial, the custom of regarding the head as an efficient representative of the whole body and the practice of “incision” as well as circumcision (=69=, p. 432) are examples of customs, which he regards as local developments in the Pacific: but all three are equally distinctive of Ancient Egypt and occur at widely separated localities along the great “heliolithic” track. The linking-up of sun-worship with all the other elements of the “heliolithic cult” also compels me to question his limitation of such worship to certain regions only in Oceania (=69=, p. 549); even though I fully admit that the data used by Rivers are not sufficient to justify any further inference than he has drawn from them. My aim is then, not an attempt to weaken Rivers’ general attitude, but enormously to strengthen it, by demonstrating that each culture-complex was brought into the Pacific in an even more complete form than he had postulated. Nor does my criticism affect his hypothesis of a series of cultural waves into Oceania. Here, again, I am prepared to go not only the whole way with him, but even further, and to seek for additional cultural influences which he has not yet defined. Most modern writers who refer in any way to the preserved bodies which have been found in vast numbers in Peru and in other parts of America assume that these bodies have been preserved not by embalming or any other artificial method or mode of treatment, but simply as the result of desiccation by the unaided forces of nature. Although in the great majority of cases there are no obvious signs of any artificial means having been employed to preserve the bodies, yet a not inconsiderable number of examples have come to light to demonstrate the reality of the practice of mummification in America (=3=; =37=; =58=; =63=; and =106=). Yarrow’s classical monograph (=106=) established the reality of the practice of embalming in America quite conclusively. Moreover the fact that practically every item of the multitude of curiously distinctive practices found widespread in other parts of the world, in the most intimate association with methods of embalming certainly inspired by Egypt, puts it beyond all reasonable doubt that the variety of American practices for preserving the body is also to be attributed to the same source.