Sept. 21, 1876] 



NATURE 



457 



Brangniart believed, forty years ago, that he had established 

 two types of the plant called calamite, one like our modern 

 equisetums, and the other (Calamodendron) allied to the pines. 

 Pro^ Williamson, in the first of his memoirs, announced that 

 this was an error, that there was only one generic type re- 

 presenting the modern equisetaceous plants, but gigantic. He 

 Jiad recently obtained a specimen of a calamite with the bark on, 

 exhibiting the following structure : — 



A nucleal cellular pith, surrounded by canals running length- 

 wise down the stem ; outside of these canals wedges of true vas- 

 cular structure ; and lastly, a cellular bark. 



Brongniart had further separated Lepidodendron from Sigil- 

 laria, being under the impression that a layer of exogenous 

 growth characterises Sigillaria and is absent in Lepidodendron. 

 But Prof. Williamson had obtained a series of young and old 

 specimens which clearly showed that the difference is not generic, 

 but is merely one of species, or of the age of individual plants. 



Prof. Williamson also explained that the separation of the genera 

 Asterophyllites and Sphenophyllum was uncalled for, the wedge- 

 shaped leaf of Sphenophyllum being merely the result of the 

 coalescence of several of the leaves of Asterophyllites. 



On Labyrinthodont Retnains from the Upper Carboniferous 

 {^Gas Coal) of Bohemia, by Dr. Anton Fritsch. — The gas coals 

 of Bohemia are unusually rich in remains of Labyrinthodonts, 

 fishes, and insects. They lie near the top of the Coal Measures, 

 and are regarded by Dr. Fritsch as passage-beds, the fauna being 

 of Permian and the plants of Carboniferous types. 



Dr. Fritsch exhibited a series of plates, as well as his original 

 specimens. In one Labyrinthodont the skeleton is completely 

 ossified. A Ctenodus has the bony part of the skull preserved. 

 A Diplodus has a perfect lower jaw, with teeth. 



Among insects, one new species has the seventh pair of feet 

 enlarged as in Pterygotus. 



A new species, named by Dr. Fritsch Ulus constans, is' inte- 

 resting as showing how little the genus has changed since Palteo- 

 zoic times. 



On the Strata and Fossils between the Borrowdale Series and 

 the Conistoft Flags of the North of England, by Prof. Harkness, 

 F.R.S., and Prof. A. H. Nicholson, M.D.— The authors had 

 found an unbroken succession of the strata on this horizon at 

 several places in the North of England, which, as exhibited in 

 Skellgill, they tabulated as follows : — 



Base of Coniston flags, with Monograftus, Retiolites Geiniizii, 



8cc. 

 Knock beds, "pale slates," with casts of a small orthis. 

 Graptolitic mudstones with a grey band full of brachiopods, 



&c. 

 Coniston liriiestone and shale — the shale highly fossiliferous. 

 Traps, the summit of Borrowdale Group, with ash beds 



containing rust cavities (" Stylend grassing beds"). 



These deposits must be for the most part Lower Silurian. 

 Below them are the Skiddaw slates, containing well-marked 

 graptolites. The Skiddaw slates are found neither in Scotland 

 nor Ireland. 



The Tarranon shales, which are 300 feet thick in South Wales, 

 develop in the North to a thickness of 1,500 feet, and the 

 Geological Survey has mapped them as conformable to the Bala 

 beds. 



South of Bala Lake, Lower Llandovery rocks get in between 

 the Tarranon shales and the underlying Bala beds. Still further 

 to the south the Upper Llandovery comes in. 



The authors conclude, therefore, that the Tarranon shales of 

 the North represent also the Upper and Lower Llandovery 

 rocks. They consider also that the Lower Llandeilo of the 

 Southern Uplands of Scotland, estimated by the Geological 

 Survey to have a thickne s of 20,000 feet, is represented in the 

 North of England by contemporaneous igneous rocks. 



Notes on the Drifts and Boulders of the Upper Part of the 

 Valley of the Wharf e, Yorkshire, by the Rev. E. Sewell, M.A., 

 F.G.S. — In this region there are two boulder clays, the lower 

 blue and hard, with many glaciated stones, and the upper, and 

 more generally diffused, yellow and looser, and with compara- 

 tively few glaciated stones. In the blue clay there are many 

 boulders from the north-west, while those of the yellow clay are 

 for the most part of the local Millstone Grit. 



In the upper part of the valley the clays are largely concealed 

 by gravel and sand, which attain a thickness of 150 feet. 

 This deposit appears to graduate into, and alternate with, the 

 underlying yellow boulder-clay. It rises here and there into 

 crooked etkar-moui d?. It contains pebbles and boulders mostly 



of the local Millstone Grit, but there are also some of Carboni- 

 ferous Limestone. 



The Valley of the Wharfe must have been filled up with 

 gravelly drift to a certain height, and then (in post-glacial times) 

 must have commenced the excavation of the present valley. 



The author thinks that the theory of a marine origin for the 

 gravel best accounts for the phenomena it presents. The boulders 

 may have been dropped from floating ice. 



Above the valley, on the hills of Millstone Grit, there occur 

 boulders of limestone which must have come from the north- 

 west, crossing intervening valleys and ridges. The boulders 

 reach the height of 1,200 feet. There are no erratics on the 

 eastern side of the Pennine Hills above 1,250 feet, but on the 

 western slope they occur at greater heights. 



On Ridgy Structure in Coal, with Suggestions towards ac- 

 counting for its Origiti, by Prof. James Thomson, F.R.S.E. — 

 The coal in question was exhibited by the author, and was 

 derived from South Wales. It presented the appearance in 

 miniature of a number of sharp, serrated, labyrinthine moun- 

 tain ridges. Prof. Thomson suggested that the coal-seam might 

 have diminished in weight owing to the escape of fire-damp, and 

 that thereupon the pressure of the overlying strata might have 

 reduced its bulk, a double series of oblique fissures allowing the 

 upper half of the seam to interlock with the lower half. Ex- 

 periments on the behaviour of cast-iron columns under pres- 

 sure had demonstrated the possibility of such fissures. 



Further Illustration of the Jointed Prismatic Structure in 

 Basalts and other Igneous Rocks, by Prof. James Thomson, 

 F.R.S.E. — Prof. Thomson sugt^ested that the structure in ques- 

 tion might have been induced by the accidental presence of 

 foreign substances in the molten rock. The paper was illus- 

 trated by specimens of ochreous clay, and of bricks and fire-clay 

 used in melting gold in the Royal Mint, 



SECTION D.— Biology. 



After the delivery of the President's Address, Dr. Hooker, in 

 proposing a vote of thanks to him, said that the President 

 should not have termed his address an excursion into the bye- 

 paths of biology, but rather a discovery and exposition of the 

 true value of many small facts hitherto considered trivial, Mr. 

 Darwin and Mr. Wallace were the men who were utilising the 

 " waste observations of biology." He entirely agreed with Mr. 

 Wallace as to the great imporcance of animal life to the colour- 

 ation of flowers, but perhaps a broader aspect still was to be 

 thought of in that connection — the influence of climate, the 

 chemical rays of the sun, and cloudy weather. Thus brightly- 

 coloured flowers were much more numerous in the eastern than 

 in the western districts of Great Britain. Again, the further 

 islands were from great continents, the less conspicuous colour- 

 ation was possessed by their flowers, as a rule. 



Department of Anthropology, 



Several papers were read bearing upon the Highland race and 

 language. Mr. Hector McLem was of opinion that there was 

 not sufficient basis for the view that the primitive continental 

 Celts were divided into two branches, Gaelic and Cymric. It 

 was perhaps more reasonable to consider the ancient Celtic lan- 

 guage as possessing several dialects, varying gradually from the 

 Baltic to the Mediterranean and from the Alps to the West of 

 Ireland. Mr. McLean thought there was a tendency to con- 

 sider the Celtic languages more Aryan than they really were, 

 and he gave a list of words from non- Aryan languages having 

 a close resemblance in form to Celtic words. The Gaelic lan- 

 guage now fringed the whole west of the British Isles, with con- 

 siderable though gradual dialectical differences. South Kintyre 

 was nearer in language to Antrim than to Skye. He believed 

 that Kerry men and Sutherlanders would not require long inter- 

 course in order to be able to understand each other. Mr. 

 McLean also noticed a number of the physical characteristics of 

 the Western Highlanders, from which he inferred that they had 

 been materially influenced as a race by the Norwegian occupa- 

 tion from the eighth to the thirteenth century. He had looked 

 at Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian sailors side by side with 

 Western Highlanders, and had been surprised at the resem- 

 blances between the former and the fair individuals of the latter. 

 Local names of Norse origin were found in all the isles and all 

 along the coast line. His general conclusions were that the 

 Highlanders of the present day were derived from a commixture 

 of several races, pre-Celtic, Celtic, and Scandinavian, and it 



