CORRESPONDENCE. 



Miocene Man in Burma. 



Many of us on reading Dr. Noetling's exceedingly modest paper on "Chipped (?) 

 Flints in the Upper Miocene of Burma" (Records Geol. Survey of India, vol. xxvii., 

 p. loi), felt that his case was probably rather understated than overstated. Nor did 

 Dr. Blanford's warning (Nature, vol. li., p. 608) in any way alter the importance of 

 the discovery. Mr. R. D. Oldham (Natural Science, vol. vii., p. 201) now gives 

 us a new reading of the observations made in the field ; but we have a right at once 

 to ask for an expansion of his statement that implements (presumably -similar) are 

 "scattered over the surface of the plateau above." Geologists will be glad to be 

 informed that these implements have been compared, as to form, material, and state 

 of preservation, with those from the weathered surface of the conglomerate ; and it 

 is of obvious importance that some portion of the conglomerate itself should be 

 quarried out on the chance of finding chipped flakes within it. Dr. Noetling's case 

 may, of course, prove to be entirely unsupported. All I would now urge is that no 

 authority should write of such a question " that the degree of proof required varies 

 inversely with the inherent probability of the proposition to be proved." Surely 

 the existence in the Pliocene period of a man-like animal capable of making imple- 

 ments is to many of us one of the highest probabilities. Geologists, above all, should 

 be especially careful lest the recording of traces of man in Pliocene or older periods 

 be rendered dangerous to the reputation of the observer, and a check be thus given 

 to discussion and research. The treatment of the magnificent series of skulls of the 

 Neanderthal type as mere sports of nature, of no especial import, has shown how 

 little even professed evolutionists care to admit the mental development of man. 

 The close of the Pliocene period has nothing mystic or magical about it, nor is 

 it likely that man sprang full-armed from glacial furrows. Let us ask ourselves 

 candidly on which side of the question does probability lie. 



Grenville a. J. Cole. 

 Royal College of Science for Ireland, Dublin, 

 August 27, 1895. 



Phosphate Nodules of the Red Crag. 



Mr. Reid, in his paper on the Geology of Ipswich and its Neighbourhood, 

 alludes to the " Coprolites " (Natural Science, vol. vii., p. 174). It may interest 

 your readers to know that an account of their discovery will be found in the 

 Technologist, vol. iv., p. iii, and in The Mediterranean Naturalist, vol. ii., p. 235. It was 

 in 1842-3, when the late Professor J. S. Henslow and myself were collecting fossils 

 from the Crag, that my father, who was a first-rate geologist, and, of course, well 

 acquainted with Buckland's Liassic " Coprolites," at first thought the dark brown 

 rolled nodules of the Crag might be of the same nature, and this was the origin of 

 the mistake in the name. He sent some to Mr. Potter of Lambeth to be analysed, 

 who reported that they contained upwards of 50 per cent, of phosphate of lime. 

 Hearing this, he at once communicated the fact to Mr. (now Sir) J. B. Lawes, who 

 asked for a ton to be sent him. This was soon collected from the fallen cliff and 

 beach. From that moment they became of great commercial value. In 1S48 the 

 Professor suggested to Mr. Deck, chemist, of Cambridge, to analy.se the nodules 

 from the Greensand of that neighbourhood. These proved to contain from 50 to 

 60 per cent. This, also, was the origin of the subsequent extensive workings in 

 Cambridgeshire. 



In Suffolk the phosphate nodule bed of the Crag was apparently deposited be/ore 



