ound, or any object for that matter,
where there was considerable internal bulk or projections, a core of
sand was used as a base and the wax and clay respectively placed over
this. This method, aside from insuring lightness, also saved
considerable metal. Ling Roth, in this connection, points out that
"the ancient Etruscans and Greeks made their castings solid without
any sand core, while the Beni were evidently adept in the superior
method practiced by the ancient Egyptians."[51] Read and Dalton
likewise conclude that "this _cere perdue_ process is that by which
many of the finest Italian bronzes of the best period were
produced."[52] Thus it is that we find the Negroes of West Africa, as
Dalton concludes, "using with familiarity and success a complicated
method which satisfied the fastidious eye of the best artists of the
Italian Rennaissance."[53]

Such, then, is an abbreviated account of the arts and crafts which
have been discovered in a restricted part of West Africa during the
last generation. Whether the results be considered large or small, it
should be remembered that they represent the outcome of but a small
amount of scientific investigation, only one expedition of scientific
qualifications having so far operated in these parts. What the future
holds or may bring forth yet remains to be seen.

There has been, and still is, considerable difference of opinion
regarding the origin and antiquity of the culture which these objects
represent. Some hold it to be of great age and of a more or less
indigenous origin, while others are of the opinion that it is
comparatively modern and that it was introduced, some say, by the
Arabs and Mohammedans, while others believe it was brought by the
Portuguese, at varying dates down to and including the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries.

Dealing with the latter view first, one hardly considers it unfair to
say that there has never been any serious evidence for such opinion.
The main reason for ascribing this culture to the Arab or Portuguese
origin was due, on the one hand, to a failure to study seriously the
culture itself, and, on the other hand, a kind of _a priori_
conception of the very limited potentialities of Negro peoples. Basing
their opinion upon the popular conception that the Negro represented
the lowest form of human development, it was thought by early critics
of the culture that the Negro could not have produced objects of art
capable of holding their own