These stencillings are made by a sort of spatter work, something like that in vogue a generation ago in this country, using leaves, etc., as forms. The rocks at Wolgan Gap are a coarse sandstone stained almost black by an iron oxide derived from included bands of ironstone. These black surfaces were selected by the artists. Nearby in the rock is a band of shale which had disintegrated at its exposed edge to a white powder. The native artist put some of this white powder in his mouth, placed his hand or foot upon the rock, and blew the moistened powder upon and around his outstretched fingers or toes. When he removed them they were outlined on the rock. Since the sandstone is coarse and deeply pitted, the moist powder was blown into minute cavities where it has remained despite the erosive activities of some generations. The presence of the powder is shown on the photographs as a sort of halo around the object. The hands are either right or left, and, in some cases, both hands seem to have been stencilled at once. Sometimes the whole arm and hand are stencilled together, and in one of the photographs a boomerang is shown. The age of these stencils is not known. They were first discovered at Wolgan Gap about sixty years ago, but others have been known for a longer time, for instance, those at Greenwich, Parametta River, near Sydney. The significance of these stencillings has been the subject of some controversy. The natives may have been induced to make them as boys carve their names on benches or even rocks. The materials for making the stencillings were present and, the example once having been set, others would emulate it. It is interesting that similar stencillings of the hands were made by cave men on the walls of some of the European caves, as, for instance, those of Aurignac in southern France. Evidently spatter work is no modern pastime. THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE SUBSTITUTES FOR WAR THIS war, beyond measure disastrous to civilization, is a trial also of our democracy. We may hope that it is an old-world war and an old-men's war, repugnant to the genius of our newer life. The statements of some of our public men and the contents of some of our newspapers can not be read without discouragement. But it is also true that there has perhaps not appeared a cartoon in any American newspaper tending to glorify war, and no legislation has so far been enacted in preparation for war. There is good reason to believe that the people have not been infected by the contagion of blood. As Professor Patrick argued in a recent issue of the Monthly, man is by genetic inheritance a fighting and a playing animal, not an animal delighting in steady work. The ape and the tiger will be exterminated elsewhere in nature before they will be suppressed in man. It is a slow process, but surely proceeding.