July 28, 192 1] 



NATURE 



693 



of a series of stepped terraces with boundaries running 

 north-east and south-west. These terraces run parallel 

 with the eastern shore of the Weddell Sea, but at 

 right angles to the presumed west co^st. This ter- 

 raced structure suggests that the Antarctic continental 

 shelf is the result of earth-movements. The sound- 

 ings of the Endurance were taken far west to touch 

 the supposed deep in the Biscoe Sea, and they throw 

 no further light on the problem of the connection of 

 Antarctica with other southern continents. The rock- 

 fragments obtained in the dredge, which on account 

 of the movements of ice in the Weddell Sea probably 

 all came from the east, tend to confirm the idea 

 previously held that Coats Land belongs to the plateau 

 type of Antarctica. Their evidence, however, is in- 

 conclusive. 



The Royal Geographical Society has recently issued 

 two lists of place-names giving the spelling decided on 

 by its permanent committee on geographical names 

 for British official use. The first of these contains 

 about 300 European names, and the second some 200 

 Asiatic names. Other lists are to follow. The aim 

 has been to adopt so far as possible the native spell- 

 [ ing, but in a number of cases the conventional form 

 ' in use in this country has wisely been retained. The 

 ■difficulty is to find a dividing line between the two 

 systems. It is advocated, for instance, that the ter- 

 minal " s " should be dropped in Marseilles, but 

 retained in Lyons. Norwegian names beginning 

 with a "K," like Kristiania, are spelt with a "Ch" 

 in this list, for no apparent reason except usage. On 

 the other hand, Gothenburg, the anglified version of 

 Goteborg, is discarded, and Helsingor is given in 

 place of Elsinore. It is not clear why Arkhangel 

 should be spelt with "c " instead of "k "; the latter 

 may not be the more usual practice, but has the 

 advantage of expressing with least chance of am- 

 biguity the sound of the Russian letter. Similarly 

 Harbin, the form advocated in the list, gives the sound 

 less truly than Kharbin. According to the Royal 

 Geographical Society's own system of transliteration 

 (Geographical Journal, January, 1921), the sound is 

 equivalent to "kh." The correct transliteration is 

 used in Sakhalin. It may be correct, but it will 

 prove difficult in usage, to substitute such forms as 

 Bosporus or Bukhara for the more usual Bosphorus 

 or Bokhara. 



The Geological Survey has just issued the latest 

 volume of its Special Reports on the Mineral Re- 

 sources of Great Britain, dealing with rock-salt and 

 brine, by Dr. R. L. Sherlock. The report is clearly 

 written and very complete, reference being made to 

 many even of the smaller brine springs existing in 

 the country. It must be borne in mind that salt is 

 one of the most important minerals produced in 

 Britain, and that it forms the basis of an extremely 

 important section of our heavy chemical trade ; on 

 this account information as to the occurrence and 

 distribution of salt is of the greatest importance, and 

 the Survey has done a valuable piece of work in col- 

 lecting the information which has here been brought 

 together. 



NO. 2700, VOL. 107] 



Dr. H. S. Washington contributes a paper of 

 general interest on "The Chemistry of the Earth's 

 Crust " to the Journal of the Franklin Institute, 

 vol. cxc, p. 757, December, 1920, in which he 

 correlates the regions of mass-defect and mass-excess, 

 as shown by gravity-observations, with what Is known 

 of th? chemical composition of the underlying" rocks 

 throughout the globe. He uses the analyses collected 

 in the monumental Professional Paper 99 of the U.S. 

 Geological Survey, and he finds that the rock-densi- 

 ties calculated from these analyses correspond well 

 with the theorv of isostasy. There is "a complete 

 harmony between average specific gravity and average 

 elevation everywhere," the . rocks being less dense 

 under the areas of higher land. In Science for 

 March 4 C. K. Leith discusses the nature of 

 the movements by rock-fracture or rock-flowage that 

 occur in lower regions of the crust, and! concludes 

 that these are much like those that take place in the 

 zone accessible to observation. Hence we -need not 

 postulate any single zone of flowage, such as Barrell 's 

 asthenosphere, and we are led towards " the Cham- 

 berlin conception of a heterogeneous structural 

 behaviour of the earth." 



Diurnal variation in wind velocity and direction at 

 different heights is dealt with by Mr. J. Durward in 

 Professional Notes No. 15, published by the Meteoro- 

 logical Office. An attempt is made to discuss the 

 results of pilot-balloon ascents made on the British 

 Front in France at intervals of four hours. It is 

 shown that winds up to a height of 3000 ft. have a 

 minimum velocity at about noon, and the higher one 

 goes the later does this minimum occur. At 4000 to 

 6000 ft. observations are generally insufficient, but 

 there is evidence that west winds decrease by day and 

 east winds increase. In general, a decrease in velocity 

 is accompanied by a backing which may amount to as 

 much as 20°. Results obtained on the same subject 

 from pilot-balloons in Italy and in Batavia are referred 

 to, and are said to be in close agreement. 



Cloudiness in the United States is the subject of 

 an article in the Geographical Review for April-June, 

 1920, by Prof. R. de C. Ward, of Harvard University. 

 As a climatic element the amount of cloudiness is 

 recorded by eye on a scale o to 10, and from observa- 

 tions made two or three times a day the mean annual 

 and mean monthly amounts are calculated. In addi- 

 tion to this information the average number of clear, 

 partly cloudy, and cloudv days in eath month should 

 be given. Maps of monthly and annual cloudiness for 

 the United States have been available for the last. 

 thirty years or more, but the new maps drawn by the 

 author have the advantage of more complete data 

 collected and supplied by the Weather Bureau of the 

 United States. In all, igo stations are employed, and 

 of these 65 had mc«-e than forty years of observations. 

 The mean annual maps show that there are two dis- 

 tricts of maximum cloudiness, both more than 60 per 

 cent., one lying over most of the Great Lakes region 

 and extending northward over the St. Lawrence Valley 

 and northern New England, and the other on the 

 extreme north-western Pacific coast. Both these 



