Dec. 15, 1887] 



NA TURE 



163 



arc. — History of the changes in the Mount Loa craters, by Jame^ 

 D. Dana. A recent visit of ten weeks to Hawaii has enabled 

 the author to carry out the purpose expressed in his com nunica- 

 tion of last August. Here are presented only such facts as bear 

 on the history of Kilauea since 1832, the general summary and 

 conclusions being reserved for future numbars of the journal. 

 The subject is illustrated with plates of Kilauea Crater, its 

 lava floor, and the Halema'uma'u basin. — Is there a Huronian 

 Group? (continued), by R. D. Irving: For the extensive region 

 stretching from the north side of Lake Huron to the Mississippi 

 it is here concluded that the succession of rocks in ascending 

 order is from the great complex of crystalline schists, gneiss, 

 and granite thrjugh the Huronian Group, mainly of detrital 

 rocks, to the Keweenaw, of interleaved detrital and eruptive beds 

 a:ul the Potsdam, or Upper Cambrian Sandstone, with great 

 structural breaks between the first and second, and second and 

 third groups. The Huronian series itself, traceable throughout 

 the Lake Superior province, is shown to be of claUic and sedi- 

 mentary nature, of great volume, and structurally and chrono- 

 logically separated from all other rock formations. The term 

 Agnotozoic, originally suggested by Chamberlain, is proposed to 

 cover the whole geological interval lying between the base of 

 the Cambrian and the summit of the Archaean crystallines. — 

 Description of an iron meteorite from St. Croix, County Wis- 

 consin, by Davenport Fisher. This specimen, discovered in 

 1884 on a farm in Hammond Township, weighed 53 pounds, 

 and yielded, on analysis : iron 8978, nickel 7'655, cobalt i'325, 

 phosphorus "512, silica "562, with traces of carbon, copper, and 

 tin. — The Rock wood meteorite, by J. Edward Whitfield. 

 Picked up in March 1887 in a field in Cumberland County, 

 Tennessee, this meteorite yielded, on analysis : iron 87*59, nickel 

 1209, with traces of cobalt and copper. — Principal characters 

 of American Jurassic Dinosaurs, by O. C. Marsh. Tnis paper, 

 forming Part 9 of the whole series, deals with the skull and 

 dermal armour of Stego aurus, a nearly complete skeleton of 

 which has lately been discovered. The specimen here de- 

 scribed constitutes a new and very distinct specie;, fjr which the 

 name of .5". duplex is proposed. 



The fournal of Botany for September com-n3nces with an 

 important paper, by Mr. Geo. Massee, on the growth and origin 

 of multicellular plants. He describes the structure an;l m^da 

 of formation of the gelatinous membrane exterior ti the true 

 cellulose-wall, and extending continuously over the whole plant, 

 which is not uncomm >\\ in Algse, and nearly universal in the 

 Florideas. It can be easily shown that the formation of the 

 cellulose-wall never precedes that of this mucilaginous sheath, 

 and its function is rather a support! ig than a protecting one. 

 The mucilaginous sheath is c imposed of protoplasm, or of a 

 substance very nearly allied to protoplasm. It is usually homo- 

 geneous, even after the appearance of the cell-wall ; but in 

 Pandorina the iimermost portion consists of parallel rods placed 

 end to end on the cell wall. The portion composed of rods 

 stains readily with methyl-violet and oiher aniline dyes, while 

 the homogeneous portion does n it. The remainder of the space 

 in this number, and in those for October and November, is 

 chiefly occupied by monographs or descriptive papers on new 

 exotic species, or to others mainly of interest to English botanists. 

 It is a remarkable evidence that the old-fashioned species-botany 

 is not altogether dead in this country, thit no fewer than three 

 species of fl jwering-plants have been added to the fl )ra of 

 these islands during the past year-— all in Scotland. 



We have received' the numbers of the Botanical Gazette, ])ub- 

 lished at Crawfordsville, Indiana, for August-November 1887. 

 They furnish satisfactory evidence of the activity of botanical 

 science in the Western States of North America. The articles 

 and shorter paragraph;, where they are origirial, chiefly concern 

 the flora of the district ; but we may mention as of more general 

 interest : — Vegetable j^arasites and evolution, by W. G. Farlow ; 

 development of the Umbellifer fruity by J. M. Coulter and J. N. 

 Rose; and plant oJoiirs, by A. J. Stace. The first of these 

 papers is the Pre>idential Address given by Prof. Farlow before 

 Sec.ion F of the American Association for the Advancement of 

 Science. In it he treats specially of the phenomenon of 

 "symbiosis" in lichens, and of " mycorrhiza." As to the 

 former he doubts whether there is any sufficient evidence of the 

 usual statement that the lichen-gonidia derive benefit from their 

 association with the fungus. 



The Ntiovo Giomile BHanico Italiano for October ontains 

 two papers only — on the Muscinece of the Island Giglio, off the 



coast of Tuscany, by Signor .\. Bntini ; and an enumeration of 

 plants gathered in the Balearic Is'ands in 1885, by Signor P. 

 Porta. To the latter is prefixed an account of the physical 

 geography and natural pro:luctions of the islands, and a rhnme 

 of previous botanical explorations. 



Re7)uc d'AnthropologU', troisieme scrie, tome ii., sixieme fasc, 

 1887 (Paris). — On the stature of the ancient inhabitants of the 

 Canary Islands, by Dr. R. Verneau. The writer draws attention 

 to the discrepancies to be found in the narratives of older 

 chroniclers and travellers as to the stature of the islanders at the 

 time of the discovery of the Canarian Archipelago. Thus while 

 the Portuguese explorers sent out by Alphonso IV. of Portugal in 

 1341 described the natives as of the same melium height as the 

 Portuguese, some of the Spaniards who took part in the con- 

 cjuest of the islands 203 years later maintained that they had seen 

 the skeleton of a man 24 feet long, and spoke of living men who 

 were re-pectively 9 and 14 feet in height. Setting aside the 

 obvious absurdity of such estimates, Dr. Verneau is of opinion that 

 in regard to some of the islands, as Lancerotte and Fortavente, it 

 may be fairly assumed that the Guancho natives of pre-Spanish 

 times were a tall, well-developed race, since such is still the 

 character of the people in isolated villages in those islands which 

 have been the least exposed to contact with strangers and invaders, 

 while he found that the bones recovered fr jm ancient local 

 burying-grounds of the latter island indicated a mean height of 

 1-84 metre for men, and i'6o for women. Ama'gamation with 

 invading races of lower stature seems to have lowered the mean 

 height of the people, more especially in the south-east of the 

 archipelago. Dr. Verneau finds that in regarvl to cephalic 

 characteristics, the ancient Guanchos closely resembled the Cro- 

 Magnon type, and he believes he has fnind incontrovertible 

 proof that Numidian, Semitic, and other North African races 

 were aming the earliest invaders of the Canaries. — On 

 criminal anthropology, by M. Topinard. This is virtually a 

 review of the Italian writer C. Lombroso's work on "Criminal 

 Man," to whose theory of the physical and atavic character 

 of criminality he is strongly opposed. Signor Lombroso 

 believes that the criminal is born with irrepressible tendencies 

 to crime, and that certain physical anomalies charac- 

 terize the born malefactor. M. Topinard disputes not merely 

 his mode of reasoning, but the facts which he adduces in support 

 of his theories, and the accuracy, or applicability, of his 

 numerous statistical tables. In conclusion, he not only shows 

 the unscientific methods of inquiry followed by Lombroso, but 

 he attacks' the use of the denomination of "criminal anthro- 

 pology," since the term implies the possibility of grouping 

 together as fixed characteristics a number of phenomena which 

 depend upon endless complications of psychical and social causes 

 whose varied action on physical conditions does not admit of 

 strict scientific determination. — Contributions to the sociology 

 of the Australians, by M. Elisee Reclus. In this continuation 

 of a series of papers which appeared in this journal last year, 

 M. Reclus treats of spirits and sorcerers. The author uses his 

 materials dexterously, and has compiled a highly interesting 

 memoir en the superstitions and mythological fancies of these- 

 races, but as the greiter part of the narrative has been derived 

 from English sources it has little novelty or interest for English 

 readers, who will find few facts in it with which they are not 

 already familiar through the w ritings of Taplin, Woods, Grey, &c. 

 — On lacustrine and lake-villages and pile-dwellings, by M. 

 Pompeo Castelfranco. After a general consideration of the 

 subject, more especially in regard to Italy, and the references 

 bearing on it i \ the writings of Italians from the middle of the 

 sixteenth century to the present times, the author gives the history 

 of the discovery of lacustrine dwellings in Northern Italy 

 which was made in 1862. Since that period almost all the lakes 

 of that region have supplied rich yields of flints and pottery 

 and bionzes, although none more so than Lake La Garda. The 

 most interesting of these pile stations is that of La Lagozza, 

 whose area of 2400 square metres was not wholly revealed till 

 1880. On examining the various piles which he had caused to 

 be extracted from the superincumbent peat, Signor Castelfranco 

 recognized that some were of birch (Be'iila alba) and others of 

 fir and pine {Pinus picea, P. silveslris). Various flint and 

 polished stone implements were found, but with the exception of 

 a bronze fibula, which probably belongs to a later age than the 

 original pile dwellings, not a vestige of meral has been dis- 

 covered at Lagozza. Potsherds and shreds of linen fabric have 

 been found, but the most remarkable thing is the complete 

 absence of bones, or any other animal remains ; and while the 



