482 



NATURE 



[December 8, 192 1 



and that the ancestor of the latter was a pelagic j 

 arthropod with few segments, the crawling habit | 

 being a modification. The carapace may have been \ 

 developed in consequence of this habit, and may at 

 first have been unsegmented. The numerous appen- 

 dages arose at this stage, but their presence broke up 

 the dorsal test into corresponding segments as swim- 

 ming and crawling activity developed. The elongate 

 worm-like character of some trilobites with manv i 

 segments, such as Robergia of the Middle Ordovician, ' 

 is thus held to be a secondary character (pp. 138 and I 

 151). Walcott's Marrella (p'. 115) from the Middle 

 Cambrian is here handsomely restored, and so far 

 no biramous appendages are known in connection 

 with its head-shield. It is regarded (p. 143) as an 

 already specialised link between the trilobites and 

 the higher Crustacea. Raymond's thoughtful and 

 stimulating work revives many memorable discus- 

 sions, and it reverses accepted ' opinions for reasons 

 that are simply stated. The details of Beecher's 

 observations receive their fullest exposition and illus- 

 tration from a pupil who has used them aptly as a 

 basis for independent thought. 



In the palaeontology of early vertebrates even a 

 footprint may count for much. ' Our minds are still 

 obsessed by the mysterious impressions in Devonian 

 strata to which Marsh assigned the name Thinopus. 

 R. S. Lull's traces of Dromopiis (?) Woodworthi, 

 n. so. (Amer. Journ. Sci., vol. 200, p. 234, 1920), frorn 

 an Upper Carboniferous shale in Massachusetts, are 

 regarded by the author as possibly reptilian. It is 

 oointed out that Williston's Isodectes Copei would 

 have made an impression much like that already 

 known as Dromopus agilis, Marsh; both these are 

 Carboniferous, and Isodectes is already held to be a 

 reptile. Chelonians are prominent in two recent papers. 

 Eduardo H. Pacheco (Iberica, vol. 15, p. 328, 1921) 

 gives photographs of the wonderful assemblage of 

 gigantic turtles in an Upper Miocene flood-deposit in 

 the Otero de Palencia. a hill rising from the tableland 

 of Old Castile. Similar forms are known from the 

 Miocene continental deposits of the neighbourhood, 

 but the examples at Palencia, a metres in diameter, 

 seem to have been brought together bv the sudden 

 overflow of a river that entombed them' in its sand. 

 They resemble the living, but distinctly smaller, tor- 

 . toises of the Galdpagos Islands ; the islands, bv the by, 

 received their name, from these quaint inhabitants. 

 Nine specimens have been uni^arfhed, and those in a 

 fair state of preservation are destined for the museum 

 in Madrid. C. W. Gilmore (U.S. Geol. Surv., Prof 



Paper 98-Q) describes well-preserved carapaces of 

 turtles in the Ojo Alamo (late Cretaceous) sandstone 

 of New Mexico. Associated with them are handsome 

 skulls of the dinosaurian Kritosaurus, a genus 

 described by B. Brown in 1910. The author in a 

 second paper (Prof. Paper 103) introduces a newly 

 found dinosaur, Brachyceratops, from beds of similar 

 age in north-western Montana. The modelled restora- 

 tion (pi. i) is founded on a skull and on the scattered 

 remains of five individuals (compare pi. 4). It is 

 represented with two stumpy horns, supraorbital and 

 nasal, and a conspicuous bony frill extending back- 

 wards, but by no means so deterrent as that of 

 Triceratops. The specimens are small, and may be 

 immature. The length of the skull is 565 mm. A 

 few other reptilian remains are noticed in the paper. 



The Marsh collection at Yale continues to supply 

 material for a number of researches on Cainozoic 

 yertebrata. R. S. Lull describes Oligocene camels 

 (Amer. Jotirn. Set., vol. 201, p. 392, 1921); E. L. 

 Troxell (ibid., vol. 200, pp. 243, 361, and 431, 1920) 

 examines the giant pigs styled entelodonts, and intro- 

 duces the new genera Megachcerus and Chaerodon. 

 The skull of the former has a length of 760 mm. and 

 singularly large plate-like dependent malar processes 

 (p. dii). The canines of Chaerodon are remarkably 

 recurved (p. 442). Both these genera are Oligocene. 

 The same author (ibid., vol. 202, p. 41, 1921) deals 

 with the origins of the rhinoceros. He points out 

 that in fossil forms the females are hornless, while 

 the males have horns, and that the term Acera- 

 therium, used for all hornless rhinoceroses, ceases to 

 be of value. Other characters than those of the nasal 

 bones indicate, however, that there is a group to 

 which the name may be restricted in the Old World, 

 Troxell lays much stress on Caenopus, of the American 

 Middle and Upper Oligocene, as the ancestor of all 

 later forms, including the modern genera of rhino- 

 ceroses. In connection with this point, the observations 

 of H. Matsumoto are of interest (Sci. Rep. T6hoku 

 Univ., Sendai, Geology, vol. 5, p. 75, 1921), since the 

 author suggests the migration of the Miocene rhino- 

 ceros Teleoceras (pp. 81 and 88) from Palaearctic Asia 

 to North America, together with other mammalian 

 forms. He describes a new species from Japan, which 

 he regards as more archetypal than the American 

 Teleoceras. Returning to the Marsh collection, M. R. 

 Thorpe proposes some new terms to facilitate the use 

 of skull-measurements in his review of the Oligocene 

 felidae (Amer. Journ. Sci., vol. 200, p. 207, 1920). 



G. A. J. C. 



The Tea Industry. 



'"yHE Production of Tea in the Empire and its 

 -*■ Relation to the Tea Trade of the World " 

 forms the subject of a comprehensive paper contributed 

 by Mr. A. S. Judge to the Bulletin of the Imperial 

 Institute (vol. 18, No. 4). The paper gives an 

 interesting survey of the spread of tea-drinking in 

 different countries, with particulars of the condition 

 of the industry in all tea-producing areas. 

 ^ Fifty years ago China and Japan produced prac- 

 tically all the tea consumed in the world ; twenty 

 years later, in 1890, India and Ceylon were seriously 

 challenging China's monopoly, until at the present 

 time they produce more than two-thirds of all the tea 

 which enters the world's commerce, while their most 

 serious competitor is Java, in which country tea can 

 be produced more cheaply than in either India or 

 Ceylon. At the beginning of 1919 prices in London 

 for all grades of tea were good and stocks in the 

 NO. 2719, VOL. 108] 



United Kingdom were not excessive, but apparently 

 trade had been disorganised by the war and by 

 Government control, and since none of the danger- 

 signals pointing to over-production were raised, the 

 plantations in the British and Dutch East Indies pro- 

 duced tea to their full capacity. The Russian market, 

 which had been taking 100,000,000 lb. of plantation 

 tea yearly, was lost, and large stocks began to accumu- 

 late,' until in the middle of 1920 the actual situation 

 was realised and there followed a break in prices for 

 all the lov.er grades, which have since been selling 

 below the economic value. There is no question re- 

 garding the soundness and ultimate prosperity of the 

 Indian and Ceylon tea industries, but the immediate 

 outlook for many estates is ver>- critical, particularly 

 those estates which produce mainly medium-grade teas. 

 It is to the common interests of both the producer 

 and the consumer that the tea industry should be 



