June i6, 192 i] 



NATURE 



501 



completed he will still further modify his conception 

 as to the ancestral position of this animal, when the 

 system of proboscidean classification proposed in this 

 ^ essay will be materially changed. 



T The annual report of the Smithsonian Institution 

 for the year ending June, 1918, contains as usual, in 

 addition to the secretary's report, a valuable general 

 appendix consisting of twenty-seven papers illustrat- 

 ing the more important developments in physical and 

 biological science, among them being translations of 

 contributions by foreign men of science. In one of 

 these, "On the Law of Irreversible Evolution," Dr. 

 Branislav Petronievics sets forth an exposition based 

 on Lewis Dollo's own works of the principle that 

 "an organism cannot return even in part to a 

 previous condition already passed through in the 

 series of its ancestors." Another translation is "The 

 Fundamental Factor of Insect Evolution," bv S. S. 

 Chetverikov— a paper which was first published -in 

 Russian. The opposite direction of the paths of 

 evolution of vertebrates and invertebrates is accounted 

 for by assuming that the chitinous skeleton of insects 

 enabled them to diminish continuously the size of the 

 body and so to obtain for themselves an independent 

 place among terrestrial animals while increasing in 

 «ndless variations of form. The third translation 

 included in the volume is "The Psychic Life of 

 Insects," by E. L. Bouvier— a paper in which the 

 author attempts to show that the predominance of 

 instinctive activity among insects is due to the multi- 

 plicity of appendages, and that, in consequence, their 

 main psychical task consists in engraving on their 

 memory and in repeating instinctively the acts to 

 which these organs are adaptable. 



Excellent photographs of the skull, mandible, 

 cervical vertebrae, and fore and hind feet of the giant 

 extinct marsupial Nototherium, found last year at 

 Smithton, Tasmania, are published bv Messrs. H. H. 

 Scott and CHve E. Lord in their account of the speci- 

 men, which is now in the Tasmanian Museum, 

 Hobart (Proc. Roy. Soc. Tasmania, 1920). Noto- 

 therium seems to have borne a dermal horn on the 

 nose, and may have played the part of a rhinoceros 

 in the marsupial fauna of the Australian region. Its 

 feet, however, are peculiar, and closely resemble those 

 already known in Diprotodon. Messrs. Scott and 

 Lord discuss these features specially, but their use 

 of English words and their style of composition are 

 so unfamiliar that it is difficult to grasp their 

 meaning. 



In the Brooklyn Museum Quarterly for Januarys 

 Mr. R. C. Murphy, the curator of natural history, 

 continues his account of "The Sea-coast and Islands 

 of Peru," dealing here with the Chincha Islands, 

 and including- a narrative by Dr. F. A. Lucas, who 

 spent three months there on a guano ship in 1869. 



Part 2 of the Quarterly Journal of the Geological 

 Society for 1920 (vol. Ixxvi.) is occupied by palaeonto- 

 logical papers. Mrs. Eleanor Mary Reid describes 

 two pre-Glacial floras from beneath the Boulder Clay 

 of Castle Eden, on the Durham coast. By a careful 

 comparison with French and Dutch deposits, the 

 NO- 2694, VOL. 107] 



author assigns one to the Middle and the other to 

 the Upper Pliocene. She follows with "A Compara- 

 tive Review of Pliocene Floras based on the Study of 

 Fossil Seeds," the inspiration for which came from 

 the work carried on by herself and her husband, the 

 late Mr. Clement Reid, between 1904 and 1915. The 

 general conclusion is that at the opening of Pliocene 

 times a f^ora existed in western Europe which was 

 closely allied to the living floras of far-eastern Asia 

 and of North America ; but this gradually disappeared, 

 until, in the Upper Pliocene bed of Cromer, it was 

 represented by only 074 per cent, of the plants 

 examined. The succession of the floras is Pont de 

 Gail (Cantal), which is practically Miocene ; Reuverian 

 (from Reuver, north-east of Roermond, Holland); 

 Castle Eden (Durham); Teglian (from Tegelen, on 

 the Meuse, south of Venlo, and north-east of Reuver, 

 in Holland); and Cromerian (Norfolk). In the same 

 issue of the journal Dr. F. J. North publishes a de- 

 tailed study of the brachiopod genera Syringothyris 

 and Spiriferina, which he finds to be unrelated. He 

 establishes a new genus, Tylothyris, for McCoy's 

 Spirifera laminosa. 



In a paper on "The Nature ot Palaeozoic Crustal 

 Instability in Eastern North America " (Amer. Journ. 

 Sci., vol. 1., p. 410, 1920) Dr. C. Schuchert connects 

 considerable epochs of diastrophism with the close of 

 geological periods. He urges that the latter are deter- 

 mined by changes of fauna, and the "quickened evolu- 

 tion of the earth's plants and animals " is a response 

 to altered conditions of the surface. Hence the un- 

 conformities after epochs of disturbance, such as the 

 " Nevadian " epoch of mountain-building at the close 

 of the Jurassic period, which affected the whole region 

 from Lower California to Alaska, may fairly be taken 

 as stratigraphical boundaries. It may be remembered 

 that similar reasoning was put forward by Prof. T. C. 

 Chamberlin in the Journal of Geology for 1909. Dr. 

 Schuchert hesitates, however, at closing the Mesozoic 

 era in America with the top of the Jurassic, and it 

 is obvious that a review of the contemporary faunas 

 throughout the world is necessary for a reasonable de- 

 limitation of the groups and systems. 



The utilisation of the artesian water resources of 

 Western Australia is making progress. An article on 

 the subject by Mr. A. G. Maitland appears in the 

 Mining Handbook (Geological Survey Memoir, No. i) 

 issued by the Minister of Mines. Mr. Maitland maps 

 the location of five artesian basins in Western Aus- 

 tralia which vary much in size and importance. 

 Most significant, as bearing on the pastoral possi- 

 bilities of the State, is the so-called desert basin in 

 the north-west covering the area usually known as 

 the great sandy desert. The disposition of the rocks 

 gives ideal artesian conditions, the water being, in 

 the main, derived from the rainfall of the Kimberley 

 district. The six or seven bores which have been 

 sunk in this desert area have been sufficiently suc- 

 cessful to give high promise for further operations. 

 North of the Great Australian Bight artesian condi- 

 tions seem to be favourable in the Eucla basin, but 

 more investigation is required. In five out of thirteen 

 b6res the water rose freely. 



