December 8, 192 1] 



NATURE 



481 



Progress in Palaeontology. 



HYABE and S. Endo (Sci. Rep, Tohoku Uni., 

 Sendai, Geology, vol. 5, p. 93, 192 1) have re- 

 examined the specimen believed to be a Sigillarian 

 stem, found in Suruga Province by K. Fujii in 19 15. 

 While they suspend judgment on this specimen, they 

 are now able to record the discovery of stems of 

 Calamites by S. Makabe in the province of Iwami. 

 These are the first Palaeozoic land-plants recorded 

 from insular Japan. The Carboniferous beds with 

 which they are associated are marine, and it seems 

 unlikely that any considerable flora will be unearthed 

 comparable to that known from the adjacent con- 

 tinent. 



Zoning by Foraminifera received a new impetus 

 from the division of the well-known genus Orbitoides 

 into a restricted group and two other genera. When 

 cut horizontally, the equatorial layer in these discoidal 

 forms shows chambers of lozenge shape in Orbitoides, 

 which is Cretaceous, of rectangular shape in Ortho- 

 phragmina (Eocene), and of hexagonal shape in 

 Lepidocyclina (Upper Eocene and Oligocene). C. W. 

 Cooke and J. A. Cushman (•' Orbitoid Foraminifera 

 from Georgia and Florida," U.S. Geol. Surv., Prof. 

 Paper 108-G) in iqiy described forms of Orthophrag- 

 mina, usually stellate, from the Ocala Limestone of 

 the south-eastern . States, and thus assigned to this 

 horizon an Eocene age. In Prof. Paper 125-D, 1920, 

 J. A. Cushman investigates and illustrates bv bold 

 •photographs "The .American Species of Orthophrag- 

 mina and Lepidocyclina." Manv of these forms were 

 described by the author in IQ19 in Pub. 291 of the 

 Carnegie Institution ; but thirteen others are new, 

 and the whole group will be of interest for comparison 

 with those of India and other countries. From 

 Japan, for instance, we receive H. Yabe's "Notes on 

 two Foraminiferal Limestones from Borneo " (Sci. 

 Rep. T6hoku Univ., Geologv, vol. ^, p. 100), with 

 illustrations of flexed forms of Orthophragmina side 

 by side with Assilina and Nummulites. Yabe also 

 describes (p. 97) four species, representing three 

 genera, of arenaceous foraminifera that came to light 

 on cleaning Japanese nummulites to which thev were 

 adherent. This opens a suggestive line of research. 



T. W. Vaughan (U.S. Geol. Surv., Prof. Paper 98-T) 

 uses the reef-coral fauna of Carrizo Creek. California, 

 to show that in Pliocene times a renewed connection 

 took place between the Atlantic and the Gulf of Cali- 

 fornia across Central America. Owing to the forma- 

 tion of a land area from north to south. Pacific 

 elements disappeared from the Atlantic fauna after 

 the Upper Oligocene epoch. At Carrizo Creek, 

 however, Atlantic forms occur in Pliocene strata, 

 similar to those of Florida and the West Indies, and 

 there is, curiously enough, no admixture of Pacific 

 forms. The belt of Cainozoic limestone in Porto Rico, 

 with its curious " pepino " structure, has been men- 

 tioned recently in Nature (vol. 105, p. 147). The New 

 York Academy of Sciences now continues its scientific 

 survey by issuing Bela Hubbard's report on "Tertiarv 

 MoUusca from the Lares District"; these are mostly 

 of Middle and Upper Oligocene age. Among other 

 works on mollusca we may note the additions to our 

 knowledge of fossil Unionidae in the Indian region 

 made bv E. Vredenburg and B. Prashad (Rec. Geol. 

 Surv. India, vol. :;i, pp. ;^68 and 371, 1921), since 

 members of this familv have hitherto been known 

 only from the late Cretaceous intertrappean beds in 

 thp Peninsula and from the Lower Miocene of Balu- 

 chistan. Prashad's LamelUdeus Vredenburgi is from 

 the intertrappean beds of Narbada ; it is the oldest 



NO. 2719^ VOL. 108] 



known representative of this genus, which is one of 

 the dominant members of the Unionidae in the 

 modern Indian fauna, and it is thus probably very 

 near the point at which Lamellidens branched from 

 Unio. In another recent part of the Records (vol. 51, 

 pp. 66-152) E. Vredenburg reviews the whole family 

 of the Cypraeidae, the earliest known members of 

 which are the strongly differentiated genera Gisortia 

 and Eocypraea in the Albian stage. He emphasises 

 d'Orbigny's separation of Ovula, a delicate shell that 

 probably existed before Eocene times, and would 

 (p. 82) ally it to the Strombidae rather than the 

 Cvpraeidae. 



'The Yorkshire Geological Society (Proc, 1919-20, 

 p. 359) publishes the last work of the late Lt.-Col. 

 Wheetton Hind, who was equally devoted to Car- 

 boniferous fossils and to his artiller}- in the field. 

 Goniatites are here described from a zone lower 

 than any previously known in the British Car- 

 boniferous series, the' Upper C Beds of Vaughan, and 

 this record from Kniveton, Derbyshire, is worth 

 making, though the species are not new. S. S. 

 Buckman's fine work on "Type Ammonites" has 

 been recently referred to in Nature (vol. 106, p 103), 

 and has now reached its twenty-eighth part. New 

 names seem abundant and inevitable, but there is 

 something magniloquent in the passage of Ammonites 

 giganteus into Titanites titan. J. W. Tutcher's 

 beautiful illustrations will console and guide curators 

 who have the courage to start afresh on their col- 

 lections. 



P. E. Raymond's "Contribution to the Description 

 of the Fauna of the Trenton Group " (Canada Geol. 

 Surv., Museum Bull. 31, 192 1) contains a number of 

 observations on cystidea. The photograph of four 

 discoidal specimens of Isorophus in their natural posi- 

 tion on the sea-floor is a pleasing picture of Ordo- 

 vician times. The species figured, which is common 

 at Ottawa, has hitherto been regarded as Agelacrinites 

 Billingsi. Prof. Raymond has undertaken a far more 

 ambitious piece of work in his monograph on " The 

 Appendages, Anatomy, and Relationships of Trilo- 

 bites " (Mem. Connecticut Acad. Arts and Sciences, 

 vol. 7, 1920, Newhaven, Conn., 6 dollars). This is 

 dedicated to the memor\' of C. E. Beecher, whose 

 numerous photographs of specimens showing appen- 

 dages are here for the first time reproduced. Dr. 

 Elvira Wood has rendered great assistance in her re- 

 constructions of trilobites in their habit as they lived. 

 We wish that Miss Woodward's sombre drawings of 

 marine life in Palaeozoic times could have found a 

 place in the bibliography ; Prof. Raymond, however, 

 attributes to most trilobites a power of swimming 

 that lifts them well above the level of H. M. Bernard's 

 " browsing annelids " (Quart. Joum. Geol. Soc., 

 vol. 51, p. 358). When we regard Burmeister's 

 "View of an Asaphus cornigertis from below" (Ray 

 Soc. ed., pi. 6, Fig. 8), with its attempt at the restora- 

 tion of parts that were believed to be irrecoverable, we 

 can imagine how this pioneer would have hailed the 

 delicate drawings of Ceraurus (pi. 11), Triarthrus, and 

 Neolenus in the present memoir. Burmeister em- 

 phasised the relationship of the trilobites to the phyllo- 

 pod Branchipus ; Bernard found their nearest ally in 

 Apus ; Ra>Tnond (p. 127) now observes that " the 

 thoracic limbs of Apus must be looked upon as highly 

 specialised instead of primitive," since the ancestral 

 Branchipoda of Middle Cambrian times had simple 

 b'rnmous appendages. He believes (p. 146") that the 

 higher Crustacea are all derived from the trilobita. 



