April 27, 191 1] 



NATURE 



29; 



are complete in themselves, with colour-printed maps and 

 sections. The responsibility of one officer for each field 

 bulletin probably aids the rapid production of a series in 

 a single year. Mr. Talbot describes in No. 39 (1910) the 

 country traversed on a water-seeking expedition in the 

 interior, between Wiluna, Hall's Creek, and Tanami. 

 We npte the occurrence of obsidianites at one point (p. 29). 

 The descriptions and excellent photographs of the country 

 make the bulletin of geographical value (Fig. i). Four 



Fii,. 



-Jcllaljia Kuuk-holtf, east of t'.ardiiier Range, on the border of 

 West and South Australia, Devonian Sandstone. 



ributors furnish Bulletin 36 (1910), on palaeontology, 



being English specialists. Dr. G. J. Hinde describes 



;,'e-spicules, the silica of which remains uncrystalline, 



1 a post-Cretaceous rock in the Norseman district. 



Newell -Arber deals with certain plants, which would 



rmine strata at Mt. Hill and near Mingencw as 



Ksic; and Mr. R. Etheridge describes a number of 



-isic marine fossils from the Greenough River district. 



L. Glauert, of the Western Aus- 



an Survey, compares the jaw and 



I of a new diprotodont species, 



nurus occidentalis, found in stalag- 



, with the species known to Owen. 



then (p. 71) gives a useful syste- 



1: list of VVestern Australian fossils, 



h must not be overlooked by 



igraphers and students of distribu- 



He holds (p. iii) that the 



M rence of Devonian beds in his State 



onfirmed by a review of specimens 



1 the Napier Range, submitted to 



L): . Henry Woodward. 



Mr. H. Y. L. Brown reported to the 

 ^ Ml Australian Government in 1910 

 he country south and east of tho 

 lay River. The observations of 

 agists have here shown the exist- 

 of old river channels In a rock- 

 under marine Tertiary beds ; the 

 ! receive water inland at their junc- 

 vvith the older rocks, and provide 

 irtant reservoirs, through which 

 fresh water percolates gradually to 

 sea. Bores in the desert region 

 ' been successful. Mr. W. How- 

 , of the University of Adelaide, 

 ribes two very striking moraines of 

 "■■ Permo-Carboniferous Glacial epoch 

 at Rosotta Head and King's Point, 

 South Australia (Trans. Roy. Soc. South Australia, 

 vol. xxiv., 19 10). The great boulders of transported 

 \5ranite appear to weather out as if they were of modern 

 'in, just as they do in South Africa, where denudation 



attjcked the Dwyka beds (Fig. 2). 

 The Geological Survey of New South Wales has issued 



NO. 2165, VOL. 86] 



a well-illustrated account of the Murrumbidgee River dis- 

 trict, where a storage-reservoir is in progress (Records, 

 1909, price ys. 6d., with large coloured maps and sections). 

 Ihe author, Mr. L. F. Harper, keeps in view the geo- 

 logical history of the country, and is by no means con- 

 tent with mere description. Messrs. R. Etheridge and 

 W. S. Dun furnish a monograph on Eurydesma in New 

 South Wales (Mem. Geol. Surv. New South Wales, 1910, 

 price 75. 6d,). This large Permo-Carboniferous lamelli- 

 branch is known only from Australia and from the Indian 

 Salt Range. The authors support Morris, to whom the 

 generic name is due, and differ from Stoliczka, by placing 

 Eurydesma near Avicula. They regard Aucella as its 

 nearest fossil, and Meleagrina, the pearl oyster, as its 

 nearest modern representative. Its stratigraphical and 

 local restriction gives it special interest. Mr. A. R. 

 McCulloch has illustrated the genus by appropriately bold 

 and striking plates. 



In Victoria, Prof. Skeats describes the gneisses and 

 dacites of Dandenong, twenty-five miles from Melbourne 

 (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. London, 1910, p. 450). The 

 interest lies in the conclusion that the gneissic rocks 

 result from dynamic action on dacites, the product being 

 subsequently altered by contact with a mass of grano- 

 diorite. Mr. F. Chapman (Proc. Roy. Soc. Victoria, vol. 

 xxii., 1909, p. 263) has investigated the Batesford Lime- 

 stone, devoting particular attention to the foraminifera and 

 the ostracods. New species are described, and the rock is 

 regarded as of Middle Cainozoic age. Mr. Chapman, by 

 his continuous and patient work, is carrying out ably for 

 Australia the traditions of Prof. T. Rupert Jones. Mr. 

 R. W. Armitage iVictorian Naturalist, vol. xxvii., 1910, 

 p. 21) reviews known cases of the inclusion of plant- 

 remains in lavas, and records the discovery of charred 

 wood in Pliocene basalt near Melbourne. The basalt has 

 intruded minutely into the shrinkage-cracks of the timber, 

 ■' along the medullary rays and around the annual rings." 

 Mr. Armitage has also guided the Field Naturalists' Club 

 of Victoria to West Essendon (ibid., p. 83), and gives an 

 interesting account of Cainozoic sands converted by perco- 

 lating waters into quartzite. In discussing the literature 

 of similar cases, he would have been aided by a fuller 

 reference to the modern quartzites formed in arid regions 

 of South Africa. 



The Geological Survey of Queensland is naturally con- 



FiG. 2.— Granite erratic resting on Permo-Carboniferous Rlacial till, Palaeozoic moraine of King's 



Point, South Australia. 



cerned principally with mines. Mr. L. C. Ball describes 

 the Starcke Goldfield (Publication No. 223), where the 

 reefs are formed through the replacement of the slaty 

 country-rock by quartz and a triclinic felspar, the altera- 

 tion spreading inward from fissures due to earth-move- 

 ment. The occurrence of secondary felspars in similar 



