ss 



NA TURE 



\Nov. 23, 187 



506) says, " The Settle till is undoubtedly of the age of the ice- 

 sheet." Prof. Hughes said that although the boulder day 

 at the mouth of the cave had got rather underneath 

 the brow of tre hill, yet from intimate knowledge of the 

 physical nature and conditions of the district, which he had 

 himself mapped, he saw no impossibility in the idea of the 

 boulder clay having tumbled from the cliff above during the 

 process of wearing back. Very often the upper limestone was 

 so dissolved as to form pockets into which the boulder clay was 

 let down, and then when an escarpment vvas disintegrated, he 

 could quite conceive how such a pocket was thrown obliquely 

 against the mouth of the cave in post-glacial times. This had 

 ponded back the water that came into the cave, and necessarily 

 produced a stratified deposit, in which the remains in question 

 were found. With regard to the evidence brought forward by 

 Mr. Skertchley, of the occurrence of palaeolithic implements in 

 brick earth beneath the chalky boulder-clay at Thetford, near 

 Brandon, he had visited the locality, and his opinion was that in 

 each case there was a missing link in the proof that the clay 

 beneath which the implements were found was identical with 

 clay at no great distance which was indubitable boulder-clay. 

 In fact, there were many indications of the opposite. Local 

 conditions in denudation, solution of chalk, formation of the 

 valleys, &c., were abundantly present to mask the true state of 

 things. The proof in this case was certainly not cogent ; and it 

 must be cogent to be accepted. 



We are glad to be able to confirm the report which appeared 

 in our columns a short time ago that the Goldsmiths' Company 

 had promised to contribute 1,000/. to the Chemical Society's 

 Research Fund. This sum has now been handed over to the 

 society and raises the amount of the fund already received to 

 3,050/., a sum which we hope will be still further largely 

 increased. 



In a communication to the St. Petersburg Society of Na- 

 turalists, Prof. Fr. Schmidt sketches the Tertiary formations on 

 the northern shores of the Pacific as follows : — The formation 

 consists of two stages. The Lower is a continental Miocene 

 deposit with coal-seams and numerous plants, the complete de- 

 scription of which will soon appear by Dr. Oswald Heer. This 

 deposit has a very wide extent, having been found in the middle 

 parts of the Amoor basin, on the Sakhalin, in Kamtchatka, Alaska, 

 and on Vancouver Island ; and nearly the same rich flora which 

 it contains can be traced as far as the Mackenzie River, Green- 

 land, and Spitzbergen. An immense continent between North- 

 eastern Asia and North-western America must thus have existed 

 at this epoch, and its flora shows the prevalence of a far warmer 

 climate than now, probably like that which the middle parts ot 

 the United States now enjoy. The Upper Tertiary stage is a 

 marine Pliocene deposit with numerous remains of molluscs, and 

 it was observed on the Sakhalin Island (but wanting at the 

 same time on the closely-adjacent Siberian continent), in Kamt- 

 chatka, on the Aleutian Islands, in Oregon, U.S., and in Cali- 

 fornia. Notwithstanding their varied lithological characteristics, 

 these deposits contain a remarkably uniform fauna. The number 

 of species already described by Prof. Schmidt, on the basis of 

 large collections made during the last thirty years, is eighty, out 

 of which eighteen have no living representatives, six inhabit only 

 the Polar Sea and the Northern Atlantic, and the remaining 

 fifty-six still inhabit the Northern Pacific. Out of the eighteen 

 extinct forms six were already found in the Tertiary of Oregon 

 and California, and one of them {Nucula ermani, Girard) will 

 probably prove to be the same as the N. cobboldicE, Sow., of the 

 English Crag. Generally, during the Pliocene epoch, the faunas 

 of the northern parts of the Pacific and the Atlantic were far 

 more alike than now, and it must be supposed that the connec- 

 tion between both oceans through the Polar Sea was far closer 

 than now, a supposition supported also by the close likeness of 



some forms inhabiting the Pacific and the Atlantic shores 

 Northern America. Their close likeness, which appears 

 strange when we leatn that they do not now inhabit the Pol 

 Sea, is perfectly explained when we find them in a fossil state 

 the Pliocene deposits of the far north, as was the case with t' 

 Pholas crispata and the Pectuncuhis pilosus, which were foui 

 fossil, the former on the Northern Dwina and Jenissei, and tl 

 second on the Kadiak Island. The fossil fauna of the Ard 

 regions thus explains the present distribution of forms. Pr< 

 Schmidt expresses the wish that the Pliocene deposits of the 

 regions were thoroughly explored as soon as possible. 



At the meeting of October 21 of the Geological Section of t 

 St. Petersburg Society of Naturalists, Prof. Friedrich Schmi 

 made an interesting communication on the Post-G!acial Peril 

 in Esthonia. Starting from the supposition — which he suppoi 

 in common with Swedish and Finnish geologists — that Esthoi 

 was covered during the Glacial period with an ice-sheet whi 

 concealed it with Scandinavia, Finland, Northern Russi 

 reacliing probably the southern slope of the Waldai plateau, Pn 

 Schmidt proved that after the melting of the ice the country w 

 covered with numerous immense laxes. The land was then su 

 merged by the sea, but only to a small extent, as notwithstandi 

 many years' careful researches, formations with marine foss 

 have not been found in Esthonia further than 30 kilometi 

 distant from the Gulf of Finland, nor on levels higher than 

 feet above the sea. They are Post-Glacial, containing a fau 

 which, with very few exceptions, inhabits now the Baltic. Aft 

 the submergence the land rose to its present height, but tl 

 elevation was probably accomplished during pre-historic tim< 

 At least, M. Schmidt states, contrary to the assertions of MI 

 Baer, Hofmann, and others as to the present rising of all t 

 islands of the Gulf of Finland, there was not in Esthonia e' 

 dences of the rising of the land during the last four centuri 

 which could be accepted as unmistakable. It may be remark 

 that the conclucions of Prof. Schmidt as to the small subm( 

 gence of Esthonia, however contradictory of current opinic 

 are also supported by the circumstance that marine formatio 

 were not found in Eastern Sweden above a level of 100-120 fee 

 and that in Finland the traces of marine clays (with Car din 

 edule and Tellina balthica) totally disappear at a level high 

 than 62 feet. These negative evidences have some weight, bo 

 countries having been well explored along some parts of th( 

 coasts. 



At the meeting of the Literary and Philosophical Society 

 Manchester, on October 17, Mr. Baxendell drew attention to \ 

 paper " On the Protection of Buildings from Lightning," re 

 by Prof J. Clerk Maxwell at the late meeting of the Briti 

 Association at Glasgow, and stated that the system of protectii 

 recommended by the professor, and which he appears to ha 

 regarded as new, was suggested, and its adoption strongly adv 

 cated, nearly forty years ago by the late Mr, Sturgeon, who 

 many valuable contributions to electrical and magnetical scienc 

 seem to have been strangely overlooked by recent investigato 

 and writers. The paper in which the system was first describi 

 was read before the London Electrical Society on March 7, 183 

 and an abstract of it was published in the second volume of t 

 "Annals of Electricity." There is, however, one important difff 

 ence between the two systems. Mr. Sturgeon considered it nece 

 sary that the copper sheathing or covering of a protected roo 

 or powder magazine should be well connected with the groun- 

 but Prof. Maxwell is reported to have stated that " there woi 

 be no need of any earth connection. They might even plac 

 layer of asphalte between the copper floor and the ground, sc 

 to insulate the building." It is obvious, however, Mr. Baxe 

 dell states, that if the magazine were struck by lightning, a di 

 ruptive discharge through the layer of asphalte would in a 

 probability take place, which might rupture the copper sheatl 



