This paper has nothing to do with the Celtic, Roman, or Teutonic origins of the ancient field-systems of cultivation. Even if those controversies had not been decisively settled by air-photography and its latter-day discoveries, I possess no special competence for the task. I am here concerned with the form of the plots or fields themselves in which these cultivation-systems were carried on. And we possess abundant evidence that what are classed by competent investigators as ancient ‘ Celtic-fields ’—irrespective of whatever methods of cultivation or of crop-rotation prevailed within their borders—were quite frequently of the same irregular shapes as the later English fields ; of which countless numbers may still be seen.

The principal questions concerning the origin and chronology of Anglo-Saxon sculpture are still awaiting their final settlement. As there is so little external evidence for dating the monuments, it seems probable that only such a method as that so successfully adopted by Mlle. Henry in her book on Irish sculpture can offer a useful approach to the problems they raise. This method implies a separate analysis of each decorative element, research as to its origin, and a comparison wherever possible of its various evolutionary stages with better dated examples in other arts or other countries. The arrangement of the different motives in series can be collated by the evidence offered when they occur on the same monument, and by this means at least approximate dates for single monuments can be obtained.

‘Time’, wrote Sir Thomas Browne, ‘which antiquates antiquities, and hath an art to make dust of all things, hath yet spared these minor monuments’. The Nile Valley is full of major monuments—pyramids, tombs and temples; each expedition which goes into the Libyan Desert learns that it is well-filled with minor ones and remarkable among these are paintings and gravings on rocks.

The interaction between man and his environment, which is the basic principle of the science of Geography, is well-illustrated in a study of house-types in Wales. A detailed survey of Welsh house-types is being carried out by the Department of Folk Culture of the National Museum of Wales. It is felt that a study of the traditional types will not only throw much light on the history of culture but will also clarify some issues in the anthropological and archaeological field. This paper may be considered as a brief interim report of part of the survey, supplemented by some material already recorded.

The twin towers of Reculver, a far-seen monument on the northeast coast of Kent 3½ miles east of Herne Bay (PLATE I), have long been recognized as a sea-mark of great antiquity. They were for many years maintained solely for the benefit of mariners using the shoal-beset inshore channels on the southern side of the Thames Estuary, but with the general disuse of these channels during the last decade such a guide-mark is no longer required.

On a recent visit to Rye I had an opportunity to see what is now becoming of rare occurrence in England— the construction of a large fishing lugger on the clinker system of overlapping the upper edge of each plank or strake in the sides by the lower edge of the one above, the two being riveted together at short intervals.

If the description of the 6th century Massalian Periplus, preserved in the Ora Maritima of Rufus Festus Avienus,l does not refer to Tarragona, as almost all scholars agree with Professor Bosch Gimpera2 in believing, then one can only say that to no other city of the Spanish coast can that account of its walls be applied with greater appropriateness.

Seldom does it happen, as at Tarragona, that the ancient walls retain intact throughout the ages the embodiment of history amid the modern life of the city, and nowhere else with such charm and grandeur as that of Cesse with its true Iberian atmosphere. Usually the huge blocks of the primitive cyclopean wall are overlaid with reconstructions and refacings of the Roman, Visigothic and Medieval periods and of the modern Spanish fortifications.

Aconcession to excavate the site of Tell el Amarna was given to the Egypt Exploration Society in 1920, and with the exception of two seasons the Society has sent an expedition there every year since that date. Beginning with the central town site, at the point where the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft had left it before the war, the work of the first two seasons was confined to the southern half of the city, although it included several important outlying buildings of a nondomestic character and the ‘Eastern Village’ of workmen’s houses. The discovery of the North Palace in 1923 turned the attention of the excavators to the distant end of the site, leading them to the building of a new house from which to work and to the discovery of other official buildings at the extreme north of the bay, and a group of houses connected with them. These last have not yet been completely excavated.

Recent research has thrown considerable light on the history of the domestic sheep; and even though much still remains obscure, we now have a good general idea of the region in which sheep were first domesticated, besides extensive knowledge of the original wild breeds.