July 19, 1888] 



NA TURE 



283 



It cannot, I think, be too clearly impressed on the student 

 that, when any quantity is expressed by a number, that number 

 is the ratio of the quantity to some standard of the same kind. 



To take the preceding example, /is the number of feet in the 

 height h. 



i.e. h =/feet, 



.-. f= —-— = the ratio of h to 1 foot. 

 1 foot 



Similarly m — ' - = the ratio of </ to I mile. 

 1 mile 



So that the full expression for the relation /= \m" is : — 



height _ „ f r distan ce T- 



I foot L 1 mile J 



My position, therefore, as regards numerical equations, is 

 this : That the numbers which appear are only short methods 

 of stating pure ratios, and that such short methods are eminently 

 useful in dealing with practical problems, but do not help ft 

 student to grasp the fundamental principles of a subject. 



There is another simple way in which numerical equations 

 can be deduced from the fundamental ones ; viz. by so choosing 

 the standards of measurement that every term may be expressed 

 in terms of the same standard, which may then be" omitted, 

 leaving only a relation among the numerical coefficients of that 

 standard. 



To enable this to be done, all the standards of subsidiary 

 quantities are so chosen that, when expressed in terms of certain 

 primary standards, their coefficients shall be unity. When this 

 is systematically done, all the standards are usually called units, 

 ■ apparently because if you arbitrarily put unity for each primary 

 standard, the subsidiary ones will become equal to unity also. 

 1 For example, if a foot and a second are chosen units of length 

 and time, a foot per second is the unit of velocity. For, the full ex- 

 pression for a foot per second is ; and if you put 1 foot 



1 sec. 



= I, and I sec. »* 1, the fraction becomes equal to I 



1 sec. 



also. . • 



This plan certainly enables the working numerical equations 



to be very easily deduced from the fundamental ones, with 



which indeed they thus become identical in form, but there is 



great danger lest this fact should, make us lose sight of the 



important fact that they are only special deductions from the 



higher kind of equation — from the true fundamental equations 



which exist among the quantities themselves. 



DISCOVERY OF ELEPHAS PRIMIGENIUS 



ASSOCIATED WITH FLINT IMPLEMENTS 



AT SOUTH ALL. 



A PAPER with the above title was latHy read by 

 •^ Mr. J. Allen Brown before the Geologists' Association. 

 It is of more than ordinary interest to 'geologists since an 

 attempt has lately been made to show that the mammoth 

 became suddenly extinct by the action of a vast flood seemingly 

 universal in its operation, due to some convulsion or cataclysm, 

 which also changed the climate of Northern Europe. 



During last year some important drainage works were carried 

 out at Southall, and sections were exposed in the Windmill Lane, 

 a road running from Greenford, through Hanwell, across the 

 Great Western Railway to Woodlake, skirting Osterley Park, 

 as well as in Norwood Lane, leading from Windmill Lane, 

 south-westward. 



The remains of the mammoth were discovered in Norwood 

 Lane at the 88 ; foot contour, about 550 yards from its junction 

 with the Windmill Lane. They were embedded in sandy loam, 

 underlying evenly stratified sandy gravel, with a thin deposit of 

 1ji ick earth, about 1 foot in thickness, surmounting the gravel — in 

 all, about 13 feet above the fossils. The tusks were found curving 

 across the shore or excavation, attached to the skull, parts of 

 which, with the leg-bones, teeth, &c. , were exhumed, other bones 

 being seen embedded in one side of the cutting. Probably the 

 entire skeleton might have been removed if the excavation could 

 have been extended, and if there had been appliances at hand 

 for removing the fossils, which were in a soft pulpy condition. 



The author obtained some of the bones in a fragmentary state, 



including parts of the fore-limbs and jaw, with portions of the 

 tusks as well as two of the three teeth found, which were much 

 better preserved. The remains were quite unrolled, and the 

 joints and articulations of the leg-bones and the teeth were 

 unabraded. There can hardly be a doubt, from the report of 

 the workmen, that the bones of the fore-part of the elephant, if 

 not of the entire skeleton, were in juxtaposition. 



Several implements were found in Norwood Lane, in close 

 proximity to the remains, and a well-formed spear-head, nearly 

 5 inches in length, of exactly the same shape as the spear-heads 

 of obsidian until recently in use among the natives of the 

 Admiralty Islands, and other savages, was discovered in actual 

 contact with the bones ; smaller spear-head flakes, less 

 symmetrically worked, were also found at this spot. They are 

 formed for easy insertion into the shafts by thinning out the butt 

 ends, similar to those found abundantly by the author at the 

 workshop floor, Acton, and described by him in his recently 

 published work, " Palaeolithic Man in North- West Middlesex.'' 

 Among the implements found at this spot are an unusually fine 

 specimen of the St. Acheul or pointed type, 8 inches long, of 

 rich ochreous colour and unabraded, and a well formed lustrous 

 thick oval implement pointed at one extremity, rounded at the 

 other, about 5 inches in length, also unrolled. 



From the adjacent excavations in the Windmill Road several 

 good specimens of Palaeolithic work were also obtained, includ- 

 ing two dagger implements, with heavy unworked butts, and 

 incurved sides converging to a long point ; these were 

 evidently intended to be used in the hand without hafting. 

 Also an instrument characteristic of the older river drift, convex 

 on one side, and slightly concave on the other near the point, 

 and partly worked at the butt. W T ith these were two rude 

 choppers or axes, two points of implements with old surfaces 

 of fracture, a shaft-smoother or spoke-shave, and several flakes. 



It is remarkable that most of the principal types of flint 

 implements which characterize the oldest river-drift deposits are 

 represented in this collection from the vicinity of the remains of 

 the elephant. 



Mr. J. Allen Brown accounts for the deposit of fossils and 

 associated human relics at this locality by the fact that the 

 underlying Eocene bed rises to within 2 or 3 feet of the surface a 

 few yards west of the spot where the bones and implements 

 were found, while towards the Uxbridge Road and upper part 

 of the Windmill Lane the drift deposits thicken, until at no 

 great distance they have a thickness of 14 to 17 feet. Thus the 

 river drift rapidly thins out, and the upward slope of the London 

 Clay reaches nearly to the surface at about the 90-foot contour. 

 As the level at which the fossils were found (13 feet from the 

 surface) would represent the extent of the erosion and in-filling 

 of the valley which had taken place, it is probable that 

 the higher ground formed by the up-slope of the London Clay 

 then formed the banks of the ancient river ; or if another thick 

 bed of drift should be found still further west in a depression of 

 the Tertiary bed such as often occurs, the intervening higher 

 ground would form an island in the stream. In either case a 

 habitable land surface would be formed with shallow tranquil 

 water near the banks, not impinged upon by the current, which 

 afterwards set in the direction of this spot as shown by the 

 coarser slatified gravel above the loamy bed and remains. 



The author is thus led to the conclusion either that the carcass 

 of the elephant drifted into the shallow tranquil water near 

 the bank, or else, as seems more probable from the presence of 

 so many weapons near the spot, including the spear-head 

 found with the remains, that the animal was pursued into the 

 shallow water by the Palaeolithic hunters and there became 

 bogged. Whatever hypothesis may be accepted, there is no 

 evidence of any greater flood or inundation than would often 

 occur, under the severe climatal conditions which prevailed 

 during the long period that intervened between the formation 

 of the higher brenches of river drift and that of the mid 

 terrace, only 25 to 30 feet above the present river, in which the 

 remains of the mammoth and the extinct Quaternary Mammalia 

 are more frequently met with under similar conditions. Nor 

 does there appear to be any more reason for ascribing the 

 extinction of the great Quaternary Pachyderms to a sudden 

 catastrophe or cataclysm than there is for the extinction of some 

 other Pleistocene animals, such as the great Irish elk, which 

 lived on into, or nearly into, historic times. The difficulty 

 involved in this hypothesis is still further increased by the fact 

 that other animals, such as the reindeer and others of northern 

 habit, as well as southern forms like the hippopotamus, werenot 



