HARD WICKE ' S S CIE NCE- G SSIP. 



237 



by evolution was no longer disputed, nor the operation 

 •of natural selection upon organised form denied, the 

 absence of any general theory of variation was still 

 practically complete. For some writers the variations 

 were simply accidental, for others at least one of the 

 causes lay far beyond our present powers of analysis. 

 Any theory attempting to do this must answer at 

 once the widest and the most detailed questions- 

 must explain the structure of individual species, on 

 the one hand ; and, on the other, solve such problems 

 as (1) the origin of the flower from a shortened 

 vegetative branch ; (2) the origin of such shortened 

 inflorescences as those of the daisy from ordinary 

 elongated ones ; (3) the origin of perigynous and 

 epigynous flowers from hypogynous ones, and so on. 

 The general explanation was simply found in the 

 long-familiar antithesis of vegetation and reproduc- 

 tion. For just as the vegetative axis was shortened 

 into a flower, so was the inflorescence, and so, too, 

 was the axis of the flower itself. The forms of many 

 fungi, algre, &c, were similarly to be explained. In 

 all cases a vegetative surface outgrows these re- 

 productives, which becomes shortened, flattened, and 

 even concave. The same principle was further 

 applied to explain the subordination of the sexual 

 generation or prothallus of ferns, the comparative 

 failure of the mosses, the origin of the higher plants, 

 and so on ; and its applicability to the interpretation 

 of the details of a common plant was finally illustrated 

 by a comparison of the floral and leafy structures of 

 the common wild geranium. 



GEOLOGY, &c. 



British Petrography, by J. Harris Teall (Bir- 

 mingham : Watson Bros.). The seventh part of 

 this invaluable work has just appeared, in which 

 there is commenced a chapter on " Serpentine." The 

 colour-plates are fully up to the high artistic standard 

 of their predecessors in the series, and deal with 

 " Felspar- Augite-Hornblende Rock," " Enstatite- 

 Dolerite," and " Felspar- Augite " rocks. A key- 

 plate accompanies each coloured impression, so that 

 the student can easily pick out the characteristic 

 ■animals seen in microscopical sections. 



The Antiquity of Man. — In the Anthropological 

 section of the British Association, Dr. Hicks read a 

 paper on " Evidence of Pre-Glacial Man in North 

 Wales." He described the conditions under which 

 .some flint implements had been discovered during 

 researches carried on in the Litynnon Benho and 

 Caer Gwyn Caves in the Vale of Clwyd, in the years 

 1884-6. The caverns were explored by himself and 

 friends for the first time in 1884, and some of the 

 results were given by him in a paper at the last 

 meeting of the British Association. The facts then 

 obtained had led him to the conclusion, that pleis- 



tocene animals and man must have occupied the 

 caverns before the glacial beds which occur in the 

 area had been deposited, as it had been found that, 

 although the caverns are now four hundred feet above 

 the level of the sea, the materials within them had 

 been disturbed by marine action since the pleistocene 

 animals and man had occupied them. Moreover, 

 deposits with foreign pebbles similar to those in the 

 glacial beds were found in caverns overlying the 

 bones. The results obtained this year were highly 

 confirmatory of his views, and had an important 

 bearing on the antiquity of man in Britain. Stet 

 Cave had been blocked up by a considerable 

 thickness of glacial beds which must have been 

 deposited subsequently to the occupation of the cave 

 by the pleistocene mammals. A shaft was dug 

 through these beds in front of the entrance to a 

 depth of over twenty feet, and in the bone and earth 

 which extended outwards under the entrance, a small 

 well-worked flint flake was discovered, its position 

 being about eighteen inches beneath the lowest bed 

 of sand. It seemed clear that the contents of the 

 cavern must have been washed out by marine action 

 during the great submergences in mid-glacial times, 

 and then covered by marine sand and an upper 

 boulder clay. He believed that the flint implement, 

 lance heads, and scraper form in the caverns were 

 also the same age as the flint flake, hence that they 

 must all have been the work of pre-glacial man. 



The Ancient Cave-men. — MM. Marcel de 

 Paydt and Maximilian Lopest, of Liege, have made 

 the following discovery. In a cave at Spy, a few 

 miles from Namur, they have found in the sand- 

 stone two human skulls of extraordinary thickness, 

 resembling the celebrated Neanderthal skull. These 

 have the same projecting eyebrows, and the same low 

 sloping forehead of a decidedly simian character. It is 

 suggested that these are types of skulls of the primi- 

 tive race who dwelt on the Sambre. Among other 

 objects discovered in the cave were thousands of 

 flints carefully dressed on one side ; also specimens 

 of jasper and agate, minerals not found anywhere in 

 the neighbourhood ; ivory breast-pins, red ear- 

 pendants, and necklets of curious design. There 

 were no representations of animals. All were found 

 in sandstone, three layers of which were plainly 

 discernible. The remains of flint, &c, deposited in 

 each layer indicated different stages of skill in work- 

 manship. The lowest stratum was by far the poorest 

 in the number of the objects found and in the quality 

 of their workmanship ; but it was here that the skulls 

 were found. A careful drawing has been made of 

 the geological section of the cave, so as to mark 

 precisely the point where the skulls were found. 



The Glacial Formations of the Midlands. 

 ■ — Dr. Crosskey read a paper at the British Associa- 

 tion meeting on "The Glacial Formations of the 

 Birmingham District," with which he incorporated a 



