the lecture which
forms the first chapter of this book. This will explain why so many
matters are discussed in that chapter which have little or no
connexion either with "Incense and Libations" or with "The Evolution
of the Dragon".

The study of the development of the belief in water's life-giving
attributes, and their personification in the gods Osiris, Ea, Soma
[Haoma] and Varuna, prepared the way for the elucidation of the history
of "Dragons and Rain Gods" in my next lecture (Chapter II). What played
a large part in directing my thoughts dragon-wards was the discussion of
certain representations of the Indian Elephant upon Precolumbian
monuments in, and manuscripts from, Central America (_Nature_, 25 Nov.,
1915; 16 Dec., 1915; and 27 Jan., 1916). For in the course of
investigating the meaning of these remarkable designs I discovered that
the Elephant-headed rain-god of America had attributes identical with
those of the Indian Indra (and of Varuna and Soma) and the Chinese
dragon. The investigation of these identities established the fact
that the American rain-god was transmitted across the Pacific from India
via Cambodia.

The intensive study of dragons impressed upon me the importance of the
part played by the Great Mother, especially in her Babylonian _avatar_
as Tiamat, in the evolution of the famous wonder-beast. Under the
stimulus of Dr. Rendel Harris's Rylands Lecture on "The Cult of
Aphrodite," I therefore devoted my next address (14 November, 1917) to
the "Birth of Aphrodite" and a general discussion of the problems of
Olympian obstetrics.

Each of these addresses was delivered as an informal demonstration of
large series of lantern projections; and, as Mr. Guppy insisted upon the
publication of the lectures in the _Bulletin_, it became necessary,
as a rule, many months after the delivery of each address, to rearrange
my material and put into the form of a written narrative the story
which had previously been told mainly by pictures and verbal comments
upon them.

In making these elaborations additional facts were added and new points
of view emerged, so that the printed statements bear little resemblance
to the lectures of which they pretend to be reports. Such
transformations are inevitable when one attempts to make a written
report of what was essentially an ocular demonstration, unless every one
of the numerous pictures is reproduced.

Each of the first two lectures was printed before the succe