The commemoration in the Egyptian Calendar of the rising of the Dog Star is a subject that has excited the curiosity of historians and antiquaries from the time of Sir Isaac Newton to the present day. One of the most learned of modern Egyptologists, Herr Brugsch, who has himself written a work on the Egyptian Calendar, has admitted, in his latest book, that this great secular problem is as yet unsolved.

The extensive series of original documents exhibited on this occasion by favour of Sir John Lawson consists chiefly of ancient evidences of title to the manor and lands of Brough or Burgh, near Catterick, while in the hands of a family whose local surname during the three centuries of their possession passed through the forms of De Burgo, de Burgh, Burgh, Borough, or Borow.

Of all the discoveries of caves of Mithras none has equalled in interest the one recently made in the city of Spoleto; and it is fortunate for science that Professor Fabio Gori (so well known in Roman research in connexion with our Fellow, J. H. Parker, C.B.) was immediately on the spot personally to note the status quo, and to perpetuate its details by photography and drawing.

A discovery was made this afternoon in part of the monastic buildings of Westminster Abbey, which appears to me to be of sufficient interest to be worth laying before the Society of Antiquaries.

The little MS. volume, which has been laid before the Society by Mr. Aucher Taylor, is “a short treatise concerning things needful for this present state,” by John Mountgomery, of London, 1562. It is a good specimen of the political pamphlet of the time, and contains much that commends itself to us as sound common sense, while some of the writer's views bring with them more amusement than conviction. As a scheme for the better defence of the realm it serves to illustrate the popular ideas upon internal military matters at a time when standing armies were unheard of, and when the long-bow was still a rival of the new “fiery weapons ”; while there are many remarks in its pages, pointing to shortcomings in national character, which might be as truly applied to us at the present time as they were to our forefathers in the days of Elizabeth.

It is now twenty-three years since Mr. John Mitchell Kemble, in an address delivered before the Royal Irish Academy, drew attention to a small bronze object of unknown use in the museum of Dr. Petrie in Dublin. I have to acknowledge with much regret that so long a time has been allowed to elapse, and yet no illustration or complete description of this object has yet appeared; and I beg to offer the Society my sincere thanks for the opportunity now afforded of submitting to your consideration such drawings and photographs as I have been able to obtain of this interesting relic.

In a note to the communication of Dr. Gustav Oppert, on the Origin of the Æra Dionysiana (Archaeologia, vol. XLIV. p. 347), you paid me the compliment of mentioning a suggestion I had made for the correction of the Latin note to the year A.D. 625, which is found in the MS. of the Saxon Chronicle in the Bodleian MS. Laud, 636, and which, as it stands, is, as you observed, unintelligible. It runs thus: “Hic Cyclus Dionysii quinque decennovenalibus constans, hoc est, xcv. annis: sumitque exordium a xxx. anno Incarnationis Domini, et desinit in DCXXVI. anno.”

When some time ago I was describing the figures in Henry the Seventh's Chapel to the Society, there was one which I was unable to explain, but which had so many distinguishing marks that I suggested that it must be the image of All Hallows which the people of South Cave, in Yorkshire, wanted in 1495. The suggestion was not then made seriously, and was not printed with the description. I now, however, venture to repeat it, with a few remarks intended to show that this may after all be the true explanation of the figure.