CAUCASUS.
THE IRON AGE.--M. Ernest Ghautre has given a statement of his ideas on the iron age in the Caucasus and elsewhere in a pamphlet entitled, Origine et Ancienneté du premier age du fer au Caucase, Lyon, 1892. He says: "Necropoli of unequalled richness have been discovered in the Great Caucasus and on several points of Transcaucasia. These necropoli, in which inhumation appears to have been almost exclusively used, should be divided into two large groups. The most ancient corresponds to the Hallstatt period; the later to the Scythian period in the East and the Gallic period in the West. The Hallstatt type or that of the first iron age is met with especially in the most ancient tombs of the necropolis of Kobau, in Ossethia; those of the second iron age are to be found essentially in the necropolis of Kambylte in Digouria and certain localities of Armenia. The first iron age was introduced into the region of the Caucasus between the XX and XV century B.C. by a dolichocephalic population of Mongolo-Semitic or Semito-Kushite and not of Iranian origin. It was transformed toward the VII century by the invasion of a brachycephalic Scythian people of Ural-Altaic origin.
ANI.--The Russians are excavating at Ani, in Turkish Armenia, the ancient capital. They have found some ecclesiastical and other antiquities.--Athenæum, Sept. 3.