May 25, 191 1] 



NATURE 



423 



elsewhere of the movement of ice over obstacles rising 

 1000 metres or more above the glaciated valley-floors. 

 W. von Seidlitz describes in the same number the adven- 

 turous excursion organised by Axel Hamberg for five 

 members of the International Geological Congress of 1910. 

 The six geologists, in visiting the Sarek Mountains in 

 Lapland, required a train of six Lapps and twenty-four 

 reindeer. The masses of crystalline rocks overthrust on 

 Silurian strata proved of special interest. In volume ii., 

 part ii. (May, 191 1), O. A. Welter notices seventy-three 

 recent papers on nephrite. 



The fourth annual meeting of the American Peat Society 

 was held in Ottawa in 1910, and the proceedings are re- 

 corded in full in the journal of the society issued for 

 January, 1911, and published at Toledo, Ohio. The 

 members look to the future rather than to the present ; 

 but the rapid consumption of coal-supplies gives a 

 patriotic importance to those who try to develop the use 

 of peat. Of course, the manufacture of ammonium 

 sulphate also comes under consideration. The Canadian 

 Department of Mines has issued a second edition, with 

 maps and engineering drawings, of Bulletin No. 4, on 

 the " Investigation of the Peat Bogs and Peat Industry of 

 Canada during the season 1909-10." The author is Mr. .'\. 

 Anrep, jun., peat expert, and valuable papers are translated 

 from foreign sources. That on the Ekelund process for 

 drying powdered peat at a high temperature is likely to 

 attract the most attention. 



Mr. C. D. Walcott has carried the history of the in- 

 dubitable Merostomata back into Middle Cambrian times 

 (Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, vol. Ivii., No. 2, 

 April 8). Two new genera, Sidneyia and Amiella, are 

 described by him from the Rocky Mountains near Field, 

 on the Canadian Pacific Railway, and are the result of a 

 laborious and systematic examination of the strata. Both 

 genera fall into a new sub-order of the Eurypterida, the 

 Limulava, with four pairs of cephalo-thoracic appendages 

 and simple antennae, in this resembling the trilobites. 

 Beltina, the fragmental pre-Cambrian form regarded as a 

 Merostome, receives further discussion and illustration, 

 but Redlichia, of the Lower Cambrian of Indo-China, is 

 styled "the oldest Merostome now known." 



Museums in America are in the fortunate and enviable 

 position of being able to draw, in addition to their regular 

 State grants, large pecuniary contributions from private 

 benefactors. In the report for 1910, the American Museum 

 of Natural History acknowledges its indebtedness to this 

 source of revenue, the president remarking that while the 

 " income from endowment has not materially increased, the 

 total gifts towards exploration and exhibition exceed those 

 of any previous year in the museum's history." Even so, 

 the financial resources appear unequal to the demands upon 

 them, for it is further stated that " the addition of three 

 new departments since 1907, namely, of Living F'ishes and 

 Reptiles, of Woods and Forestry, and of Public Health, 

 has made serious demands upon our income. . . . Thus 

 the increased endowment afforded by Mr. Jesup's bequest, 

 which cannot by its terms be used for any item of mainten- 

 ance, is offset by these increases." Among the additions 

 to the exhibited collection, mention may be made of a 

 group of Pribilow sea-bears, of which a photograph is 

 given in the report. A special feature of the year was the 

 unusual number of collecting expeditions, of which there 

 were ten to various parts of the United States and fourteen 

 to other territories. 



In The Field of May 13 Sir Ray Lankester gives, 

 under the title of " The Earliest Picture in the World," an 

 NO. 2169, VOL. 86] 



illustrated description of a cylinder of stag's antler found 

 in 1875 in the cavern of Lorthet, near Lourdes, Haute 

 Pyr^n^es, on which are incised figures of three red deer 

 and several salmon-like fish. The specimen belongs to the 

 Elaphotarandian epoch, when the Arctic fauna was being 

 replaced by the animals characteristic of modern Europe. 

 The author gives a flat picture printed off from the 

 cylinder, and adds two restorations of the missing portions 

 of the figures of the deer. In his opinion, the prehistoric 

 engraver worked from a similar flat picture, and it is 

 further suggested that incised cylinders of this type were 

 used by their makers as " blocks " from which to print 

 impressions on birch-bark and other suitable materials. 



To The Tunes of May 15 Dr. Shipley communicates a 

 letter on the so-called *' eale " or "yale," in which it is 

 pointed out that the original account was given by Pliny, 

 from whom Topsell seems to have derived the materials 

 for a fuller notice in 1607. These accounts present the 

 animal in a somewhat different guise from those previously 

 quoted. It is described as of the size of a hippopotamus, 

 with an elephant's tail, a black or tanny colour, the jaws 

 of a boar, and two horns, which could be moved independ- 

 ently of each other, of more than a cubit in length. Top- 

 sell adds that it was fond of . water. Its home was 

 Ethiopia. If the statement as to its size be trustworthy, 

 the only animal that would accord with the description 

 would be an African rhinoceros ; and we believe there are 

 legends as to the mobility of the horns of the latter. On 

 the other hand, rhinoceroses were known to the ancients. 

 Whatever be the truth on this matter, it seems impossible 

 to identify the antelope-like or goat-like animals in the 

 arms of Christ's College with Pliny's eale. 



According to the report for 19 10, the Natural History 

 and Polytechnic Society of Bootham School, York, con- 

 tinues to attract a satisfactory number of working members, 

 the natural history section including sixty-five scholars. 

 Meetings and excursions were held from time to time, and 

 the admirable practice of inducing the members to keep 

 diaries, based on actual observations, has been continued. 



The hon. secretary of the Selborne Society informs us 

 that the nesting boxes made from natural logs which 

 the society introduced at the beginning of the year have 

 been very successful. In some cases correspondents (who 

 number well over seven hundred) have had all the boxes 

 which they have put up tenanted, and a special experiment 

 made in the Brent Valley Bird Sanctuary has resulted in 

 possession being taken of all but one of the boxes con- 

 cerned. The committee of the society has arranged an 

 exhibition of the boxes in the science section of the Corona- 

 tion Exhibition, and photographs of the boxes, showing 

 the nests within and the birds sitting, will be published 

 in " The Country Home " for June. 



The report of the advisory committee for the Tropical 

 Diseases Research Fund for the year 1910 (Cd. 5514, 

 13S pp.) shows that the campaign against these diseases 

 is being prosecuted vigorously from the several aspects of 

 prophylaxis, treatment and research into the structure, 

 life-history, and modes of transmission of the causal 

 organisms. Prof. Ross and Dr. Thomson have shown 

 that, by the use of improved methods, malarial parasites 

 can be found in the blood in the apyrexial periods, occur- 

 ring in numbers so small as 20 per cubic mm. Relapses 

 are thus explicable as the result of the usual node of 

 increase in the number of such parasites ; the presence 

 of crescents reproducing parthenogenetically is. not essential 

 for the production of a relapse. Dr. Wenyon has given 



