.8,,. NOTES AND COMMENTS. 253 



Entomologists, as a rule, are apt to despise fossil insects, from 

 their ordinarily very fragmentary state of preservation ; but we 

 would commend to their special notice the latest discovery in the 

 English Lias described by Dr. Henry Woodward in the May 

 number of the Geological Magazine. This is an exquisite example of 

 a Termite {Palaotermes ellisii) discovered by Mr. Montagu Browne at 

 Barrow-on-Soar, Leicestershire, exhibiting even the patches of 

 pigment on the wings. 



It has long been a matter of astonishment that so few traces of 

 the siliceous skeletons of Radiolaria should be found in the geological 

 formations below those of the Tertiary period. At last, however, the 

 explanation of the mystery is forthcoming, and in the newly-issued 

 part of the Palaontographica (vol. xxxviii., pp. 107-200, pis. vi.-xxx., 

 1892), Dr. Riist shows how these fossils can be met with almost 

 anywhere, even in the Palaeozoic rocks, provided the correct siliceous 

 matrix (usually of only local occurrence) be examined. After a 

 detailed study of thousands of thin sections of hornstones, jaspers, 

 siliceous slates, &c.. Dr. Riist arrives at the conclusion that almost 

 all the Palaeozoic Radiolaria can be referred to the genera recognised 

 by Haeckel in the seas of to-day. They afford no insight whatever 

 into the evolution of the group ; and the only noteworthy distinctive 

 feature of the Palaeozoic Radiolarian fauna appears to consist in the 

 relative abundance of the complex Sphasridiidae and the comparative 

 absence of Cyrtidiidae. We may add that Dr. Riist has overlooked 

 the discovery of Radiolaria in the Lower Silurian (Ordovician) of 

 Scotland, investigated two years ago by Dr. G. J. Hinde. 



The remarkable irregular loose surface-deposit known as loess, 

 met within so many parts of Central Asia, is again attracting atten- 

 tion. In the Comptes Rendns for April 19, 1892, M. Guillaume Capus 

 records some observations on this formation, especially in Turkestan, 

 and thinks that the greater part of the deposit must have been formed 

 in water. The stratification, the variations in composition, and the 

 occasional intercalation of conglomerates seem to indicate this mode 

 of origin ; while it is probable that many local accumulations of 

 comparatively small extent are due to the re-arrangement and 

 re-distribution of the materials by the wind. 



The divining rod continues to be employed in this country for 

 the purposes of finding water. In the Daily Graphic for April 23 

 there is a picture of " A W'ater Wizard in the Isle of Wight "; while 

 on April 19, at Wells, in Somerset", a paper on the Divining Rod was 

 read by Mr. Hippisley before a joint meeting of the local branch of 

 the University Extension and the Wells Natural History Society, the 



