836 



NATURE 



[August 26, 1920 



originated in the beginning of the Siwalik epoch, 

 when the depression at the foot of the Himalayas 

 ceased to be the scene of conflicting lagoon and 

 terrestrial conditions, and became finally silted up. 

 The great river was guided along this depression 

 westward, while a contemporaneous river ran on the 

 Tibetan side of the range, of which the alluvium re- 

 mains from Pemakoi, north-east of the Bay of Bengal, 

 to Gilgit, north of the great Indus bend. This river 

 joined the Oxus, or reached the Arabian Sea by an 

 independent course. It is urged that the Indobrahm 

 captured the upper waters of the northern river by 

 cutting back into them along its tributaries at suc- 

 cessive points in the recesses of the range from 

 which the Indus now runs south-westward. The 

 speakers in the discussion of the paper, including Mr. 

 R. D. Oldham, approved the main geographical con- 

 tentions, but laid more stress than the author on 

 earth-movements in determining the diversions and 

 the courses of the tributaries through the hills. 



Simultaneously with the investigations of Dr. 

 Pascoe, Dr. G. E. Pilgrim, of the Geological Survev of 

 India, put forward his suggestion of a great Pliocene 

 river running on the south side of the Himalayas from 

 Assam to the Indus course. Dr. Pilgrim's paper 

 and maps (Journ. Asiatic Soc. of Bengal, vol. xv., 

 p. 81, 1919) appeared, indeed, before the printing of 

 Dr. Pascoe's work, and, as that author points out, 

 the argument based on the direction from which the 

 tributaries meet their primaries in the mountain-belt 

 originated with Dr. Pilgrim. The two papers should 

 be read together, and they form a great addition to 

 our conceptions of the past geography of India. Dr. 

 Pilgrim gives prominence to earth-movements as 

 promoting the dislocation of the Assam-Punjab or 

 Siwalik River. His maps of Western Asia in Eocene, 

 Miocene, and Pliocene times are highly useful. 



The " Fossils from the Miura Peninsula and its 

 Immediate North " form the subject of an important 

 memoir by Prof. M. Yokoyama (Journ. Coll. Sci., 

 Tokyo Imp. Univ., vol. xxxix., art. 6, pp. 193, 20 pis.). 

 The geological formations of the peninsula are in part 

 undoubtedly Pliocene, and in part either Pliocene or 

 Pleistocene; those of the plain are divisible into an 

 upper, sub-aerial, and a lower marine series several 

 hundred feet in thickness. The sub-aerial series is 

 made up of a brown loam, an altered volcanic ash, 

 wholly devoid of stratification and organic remains. 

 The marine series, which the author names the 

 Musashino formation, is divisible into an upper and 

 a lower series. In the upper, remains of Elephas 

 namadicus, Falc. and Caut., are not uncomrnon, and 

 are perhaps the most important of the fossil contents. 

 The Lower Musashino beds are provisionally divided 

 by the author into six zones. From the whole series, 

 232 species of Mollusca and 6 of Brachiopoda ' are 

 recorded, 91 of the former and -2 of the latter being 

 described as new ; the whole are well illustrated, but 

 the nomenclature, as, alas! too generally the ca^e in 

 papers of this class, lags behind, the times. The 

 hurhber of forms not known to be living is 88, or about 

 NO. 2652, VOL. 105] 



37 per cent, of the whole fauna, and 7 species have 

 not yet been found in Japanese waters. The author 

 therefore classes these Musashino beds as Pliocene of 

 about the same age as the English Red Crag of New- 

 bourne =Austelien of the Netherlands. 



The Geologische Reichsansia.lt of Vienna, which 

 was able in Imperial times to spread the influence 

 of a great school of geology over Polish, Transyl- 

 vanian, and Dalmatian lands, has been forced to 

 adopt, from the opening of 1920, the restricted title of 

 Geologische Staatsanstalt. Dr. Emil Tietze, the 

 director, retires after long and honourable service, 

 recognising in the " geschickte Diplomatic des Konigs 

 Eduard von England " the prime cause of the 

 restriction of his official field. The Verhandlungen 

 for 19 19 indicate many changes on the staff, some 

 workers whose names are famiHar having become 

 aliens through territorial readjustments. We must 

 hope that their common science will maintain the 

 federal spirit shown in the last publications of the 

 Reichsanstalt. Many of the papers deal with moun- 

 tain structure. Dr. F. Heritsch claims that the dis- 

 covery of tabulate corals in the supposed Mesozoic 

 mantle of the Hohe Tauern disposes of the idea that 

 the mass has been imported by overfolding, and we 

 may be prepared for continued criticism in Austria 

 of the theory of recumbent folds in general. Dr. O. 

 Ampferer, who becomes one of the Chefgeologen and 

 also a Bergrat, contributes a paper in his lucid and 

 systematic manner on the very considerable influence 

 that deep notches (Kerben) cut by erosion may have 

 on tectonic features when a region comes under pro- 

 cesses of crust-folding. 



Chemical as well as geological workers will wel- 

 come a new and enlarged edition of W. F. Hille- 

 brand's "Analysis of Silicate and Carbonate Rocks" 

 (Bull. 700, U.S. Geological Survey, 1919). The 

 accurate methods described are obviously of service 

 in the analysis of potassium silicates and refractories 

 for commercial use, as well as in the refined dis- 

 crirr\ination of types of natural rock. The importance 

 of the estimation of small quantities of unusual or 

 commonly overlooked constituents is here pointed 

 out. At the same time this may be quite unnecessary 

 in many cases of ordinary practice, and for these a 

 system of "condensed analysis" is charitably 

 described in the concluding pages. 



An interesting example of the applications of zonal 

 palaeontology is afforded by Messrs. F. L. Kitchin 

 and J. Pringle, who show {Geol. Magazine, vol. Ivii., 

 pp. 4, 52, and 100, 1920) that a mass of Gault and 

 Cenomanian strata at Shenley, near Leighton Buz- 

 zard, 250 yards long and 150 yards wide, has been 

 inverted on Lower Greensand. The fossils provide 

 the clue, being in inverse succession to those in the 

 undisturbed beds of the neighbourhood. As a boulder 

 pushed by ice, this presents some parallel with the 

 famous block described by Mr. R. G. Carruthers in 

 the h^art of Caithness (Nature, vol. Ixxxix., p. 229), 

 in which a quarry has been opened 160 yards in 

 length. 



