2>Z^ 



NATURE 



[December 27, 191 7 



be taboo. The daily life of the natives is described, 

 first as to the individual (toilet, dress, ornaments, and 

 food), and then with regard to the community 

 (seasonal occupations, courtship and marriage, chil- 

 dren and their play, public law and the restrictions of 

 taboo, warfare, economics). The sections on agricul- 

 ture and hunting are illustrated by plans and diagrams. 

 Fishing, trade, and industries are similarly illustrated. 



In magic and religion a very prominent feature is 

 belief in the Bara'u, a living man who can make 

 himself invisible and prowls about in the night work- 

 ing evil magic. Some suppose him to be invisible in 

 front, though he can be seen from behind. He can be 

 heard, travels like the wind, and injures his 

 victim in various ways. The ghosts, or Bo'i, who 

 dwell in the preserved skulls of the dead, are not so 

 feared. Their spirits go to a distant place. 



The author deals fully with maleficent and beneficent 

 magic and with feasting and ceremonial, both in joy 

 and sorrow. He concludes with an account of burial 

 customs, art, and knowledge. 



Dr. Malinowski's long paper is a fine piece of work, 

 and an extremely valuable and interesting contribution 

 to the ethnography of New Guinea. Ij: is abundantly 

 illustrated by diagrams in the text, by thirty-four 

 pictures from the author's photographs, and by a map. 

 The paper is a credit to the society which has found 

 such ample space for it in its Transactions. 



Sidney H. Ray. 



OIL PROSPECTS IN THE BRITISH ISLES. 



MR. W. H. D ALTON read a paper upon the above 

 subject before the Institution of Petroleum Tech- 

 nologists on November 20, He deals in the paper with 

 actual liquid petroleum only, and not with the poten- 

 tialities of distillation from so-called oil shale, from 

 coal, peat, or any other carbonaceous solids. He re- 

 gards the widespread conception of a store of petroleum 

 of commercial value lying intact within the limits of 

 the British Isles as wholly untenable. Nature seems 

 at all times since the initiation of organic life to have 

 evolved hydrocarbons, in very variable quantity, some- 

 times for prolonged storage, often for rapid dissipation. 

 In a rap::! summary, in geological order, of all re- 

 corded appearances of oil or tar .within the kingdom, 

 the Carboniferous series receives most attention, chiefly 

 from the extensive mining operations, which have 

 revealed pockets of oil where none is seen at the sur- 

 face. Those occurring in the Scotch oil shales are 

 presumably due to natural distillation by the heat of 

 intruded igneous rock. Others, in the Yorkshire and 

 associated coalfields, are assigned to the alternations of 

 terrestrial with marine conditions. 



It must be borne in mind that the roof of a coal 

 seam ipso facto implies a change of conditions, frorn 

 terrestrial vegetation to subaqueous deposit of sedi- 

 ment, and this was in not a few cases brought about 

 bv subsidence, the sea often invading an area pre- 

 viously supporting terrestrial growth. In the Stafford- 

 shire coalfield many such marine invasions have been 

 detected, and several in Derbyshire and Nottingham- 

 shire. The coeval deposits of Yorkshire and Lan- 

 cashire would doubtless furnish similar evidence if 

 fullv studied in this respect. 



If petroleum is principally due to marine organisms, 

 whether vegetal, animal, or of the neutral character at 

 the bottom of either scale, such invasion furnishes at 

 once a wider area for occupation, and abundance of 

 dead vegetation as nutriment. Consequently, the roof 

 of a coal seam is a waterv paradise for the develop- 

 ment of oil-making organisms, and if the deposited 



NO. 2513, VOL. 100} 



sands or clays are of suitable character for storage and 

 cover, there is a chance for the formation of oil, but 

 in no case has there been found a store of high com- 

 mercial value. 



Besides abundant exposure at the surface, 4he 

 British geological series has for centuries been sub- 

 jected to penetration by mines and borings practically 

 throughout its thickness, and no extensive area has 

 escaped the test of drill or pick. 



It is much to be doubted whether in any part of 

 the Secondary rocks or of the subjacent Palaeozoic 

 series there exists any deposit of petroleum of a com- 

 mercial value commensurate with the cost of wild-cat 

 search (for such it must needs be) and subsequent 

 exploitation. Yet the Kelham and Norton instances, 

 in the Millstone Grit and Yoredale beds respectively, 

 demonstrate the possible occurrence of oil in deep- 

 seated portions of series of which the wide areas of 

 outcrop yield no similar indications. In view of out; 

 ignorance of the tectonic structure obtaining in these 

 older rocks to the eastward' of proved points, the term 

 wild-cat is not too strong ; for, although the overlying 

 rocks indicate various tectonic movements — presum- 

 ably influenced in depth by pre-existing structure — we 

 do not know the degree of that influence, still less the 

 extent to which the older rocks have been brought 

 within reach of denuding agencies to form the floor on 

 which rest the newer rocks ; an anticline in the 

 Secondaries may be "posthumously" along one of 

 older date — it may be oblique or directly transverse to 

 flexures that would control the accumulation of 

 Palaeozoic oil, if such exists. 



It is demonstrated, then, that in the British Isles — 

 as in other parts of the world — oil-forming conditions 

 have frequently recurred, but to a very limited extent; 

 and although conditions favouring its accumulation, 

 and tectonic structures capable of conserving it from 

 escape, are also of frequent occurrence, the conjunction 

 of the latter essentials with original formation has 

 generally failed. Our reservoir rocks are full of water, 

 demonstrating the absence of liquid hydrocarbons. The 

 curves of our anticlines and synclines' serve to enhance 

 the beauty of our landscapes, and their formation has, 

 under favourable conditions, resulted in ore-bearing 

 veins, but to reduce that ore, as generally for heat, 

 illumination, and motive-power, we must continue to 

 depend upon solid minerals of native source, and fluid 

 combustibles imported from abroad. 



The feeble and short-lived flows which our rocks 

 exhibit necessarily conform to the same hvdrostatic 

 laws as the vast bulks of other regions, but whether 

 from defect of original formation, of space accessible 

 for accumulation, or of adequate seal from escape, 

 the total result is, from a practical commercial point 

 of view, valueless, except possibly in the one or two 

 cases mentioned above. To geologists, negative evi- 

 dence in respect of petroleum would be accompanied 

 bv so much of interest and value in other directions 

 that their trivial share in the cost would be gladlv borne, 

 but owners who looked for rovalties would 'be less 

 complacent under their disappointment. Hope is more 

 easily excited than regrets are consoled. It is scarcely 

 necessary to say that the drill and pump constitute the 

 final court of appeal,, but the charge of hoarding 

 petroleum is not one at all likelv to be substantiated. 



EXPERIMENTS ON TRIBO-ELECTRICITY. 



TT is strange that tribo-electricity— that is, the subject 

 *■ which deals with the production of charges by 

 rubbing together unlike materials— has been so greatly 

 neglected by experimentalists during the last 

 century. A dozen branches of electricity have, during 



