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 Russia 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 ROBERTSON, the enterprismg commander of the whaler 
Balaena, 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 79th 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 Robertson thinks that 
in such a ship as the Balaena 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 
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