224 NATURAL SCIENCE [October 



tinental boulder-clay is Pliocene ; and that it is a marine formation 

 deposited in a great sea which covered a large tract of Eussia and 

 Central Asia ; that the Siberian mammals migrated into Western 

 Europe to the south of this sea ; and that the British Pleistocene 

 fauna and flora do not indicate former Arctic conditions in this 

 country. The range of subjects discussed in this memoir is con- 

 siderable. The conclusions are startling, but only when considered 

 apart from the statements on which they are based. " The occur- 

 rence in almost all the English boulder-clays of marine shells " is an 

 example of Dr Scharff s sensational statements. The paper cannot 

 be discussed in a short notice. Our chief fear is that Dr Scharff' s 

 speculations will prejudice the use of zoological distribution in 

 geological investigation. 



Franz Josef Land 



Captain PlObertson, the enterprising commander of the whaler 

 Balacna, has given an interesting description of his voyage this 

 summer to Franz Josef Land. His geographical discoveries are 

 interesting. He found some new islands on the south coast, but his 

 most important achievement was returning westward from Franz 

 Josef Land along the 79 th parallel of latitude. He thus passed 

 over the site of the two famous islands reported by Johannesen and 

 Andreassen in 1884 ; but he found no trace of them. The Nor- 

 wegian seamen must, therefore, have been out in their reckoning. 

 The sea this summer was exceptionally free from ice, and the polar 

 pack had receded far to the north. Captain Eobertson thinks that 

 in such a ship as the Balacna the whole Franz Josef Land archi- 

 pelago could be charted in a single summer. This opinion renders 

 the results of the Jackson-Harmsworth expedition all the more dis- 

 appointing so far as can be judged from the accounts already pub- 

 lished. But now that the expedition has returned we may hope for 

 a final account of its work by the members themselves. Perhaps 

 this may remove the somewhat widespread prejudice roused by the 

 unjust publication of private letters and the injudicious advertise- 

 ment of the London agents. The expedition is said to have cost 

 some £49,000. We hope Mr Harmsworth is satisfied. 



Mimicry and Protective Colouration 



The questions of protective colouration and mimicry have a 

 perennial interest for naturalists and the general public. Now that 

 the conclusions of Trimen, Bates, and Wallace are being dogmatically 

 taught in magazine articles and popular books, it is only to be ex- 

 pected that they should begin to be discredited by some of the 

 younger school of biologists, and several of the works attacking the 



