456 SOME NE W BOOKS [decembeb 



A CARBONIFEROUS LANDSCAPE. 



Eine Landschaft der Stemkohlen-Zeit. Erlaiiterung zu der Wandtafel 

 bearbeitet und herausgegeben im auftrage der Direction der Konigl. 

 Preuss. geologischen Landesanstalt und Bergakademie zu Berlin. By 

 Dr. H. Potome. Pp. 40, with 30 figs, and a plate. Leipzig: Born- 

 traeger, 1899. Price with the "Tafel," 25 marks. 



To restore the past is one of the most hazardous of tasks, and many have 

 tried it with indifferent results. We have not as yet received the "Wandtafel" 

 referred to above, but if it is in proportion to its size as good as the plate 

 accompanying the pamphlet, it must be very good, for Dr. Potome has put 

 brains as well as artistic feeling into his picture. It is based upon plastic 

 reconstructions of carboniferous plants, and seems to us so successful that we 

 hope eagerly for more to follow. 



L. ANTHROPOLOGIE, Tome x. No. 4. 



L. Anthropologic for July and August contains some articles which will be of 

 more than passing interest to those who are following the successive discoveries 

 bearing on the prehistoric civilisation of Western Europe. 



(1) Boule and A. Verniere (L'Abri sous roche du Bond pres Saint-Arcons- 

 d'Allier (Haute Loire)) describe the exploration of the rock-shelter of 

 Rond, in the Auvergne district, which has yielded remains characteristic of the 

 Reindeer period. Hitherto no stations of this description have been found in 

 this part of France, at least that could be so dated from their relics. The 

 station of Rond was situated under an overlianiriiur cliff of the volcanic rock so 

 common in the locality. Part of the accumulated debris had been previously 

 removed, but sufficient remained to give an area of undisturbed strata of some 

 12 yards in length by 4 yards in breadth. At some depth in a talus of dis- 

 integrated rock and other materials the excavators came upon a black bed of 

 ashes and organic matters, 8 inches thick, in which they discovered several 

 hearths, some bone and flint implements, and osseous remains of various 

 animals, including cave-hyena, reindeer, horse, stag, etc. Both the relics and 

 the fauna are regarded by the authors as characteristic of the Reindeer period. 



(2) Dr. Verneau (Les nouvelles trouvailles de 31. Abbo dans la Burma- 

 Grande) recurs to the much debated age of the prehistoric men of Mentone, 

 whose skeletons have, from time to time, been disinterred in the Baousse- 

 Rousse caves, near that town. Since 1892, when three skeletons were dis- 

 covered in the Barma-Grande cave, two more have come to light in the same 

 cave (1894), both, however, being at a depth of 5 feet less than the former. 

 One of these skeletons — 1'75 in. (about 5 feet 8i in.) in height and strongly 

 dolichocephalic — had associated with it a few ornaments of perforated teeth 

 and shells. Thus in every respect it closely resembled the three burials dis- 

 covered in 1892. The second, though only a few feet distant, showed evidence 

 of having been subjected to great heat, as the bones were much carbonised. 

 Dr. Verneau observes that the heat was applied to the body in situ, and that 

 consequently it lay either on the surface of what was then the floor of the cave 

 or in a very superficial trench. In the deposits beneath these skeletons por- 

 tions of the lower jaw of a reindeer and some flint implements were found, 

 which he assigns to the same chronological horizon as the human remains of 

 the later Palaeolithic caves of France. The general conclusion arrived at is, 

 that the two groups were contemporary, the three skeletons having been interred 

 in deep pits in Palaeolithic debris, while the two upper ones were deposited at 

 or near what was then the floor of the cave. On the whole he regards these 



