5o8 



NATURE 



[January 15, 1920 



during the evening of January ii. Inland the gusts 

 attained an hourly velocity of 50 to 55 miles. Thunder- 

 storms occurred in many parts of the country, and 

 heavy rain was general, whilst in the Shetlands snow 

 covered the ground to the depth of 6 in. On January 13 

 the Daily Weather Report of the Meteorological Office 

 showed that the wind in the south of England was 

 blowing at 12 miles an hour, whilst at 4000 ft. it had 

 increased to a rate of 54 miles an hour. During the 

 morning a storm area had its centre over Thorshavn, 

 where the barometer stood at 29-05 in. There were 

 indications of the approach of another disturbance 

 from the Atlantic. The storms have occasioned several 

 wrecks, resulting in serious loss of life. 



The death is announced of the well-known Argen- 

 tine geographer and naturalist. Dr. Francisco P. 

 Moreno. Dr. Moreno was born in Buenos Aires on 

 May 31, 1852, and doubtless inherited his love of 

 natural science from his mother, who was the 

 daughter of an English botanist. He spent his early 

 years in exploring Patagonia and various parts of the 

 Andes, and devoted himself especially to the making 

 of anthropological and ethnological collections. His 

 first contribution to science, on the prehistoric ceme- 

 teries of Patagonia, appeared in the Revue d'Anthro- 

 pologie so long ago as 1874. In 1877 Dr. Moreno 

 gave his collection to the Argentine Government to 

 form the beginning of the Anthropological and 

 Archaeological Museum of Buenos Aires. In 1880 

 Buenos Aires became the federal capital, and two 

 years later the city of La Plata was founded to re- 

 place it as the provincial capital. Dr. Moreno then 

 devoted his thoughts and energies to the planning and 

 foundation of a great museum at La Plata which 

 should illustrate the natural history of the Republic. 

 His scheme was realised in 1889, and the well-known 

 publications of the La Plata Museum under his direc- 

 tion began in the following year. In 1898 Dr. Moreno 

 came to London as representative of Argentina in the 

 dispute as to the Argentine-Chilean boundary, which 

 had been referred for settlement to the British Sove- 

 reign ; and in 1900 he produced his report in four 

 handsome volumes well illustrated with photographs. 

 At the same time he brought and exhibited to the 

 Zoological Society the famous piece of the skin of 

 an extinct ground-sloth which he had discovered in a 

 Patagonian cave. Dr. Moreno was an honorary corre- 

 sponding member of the Royal Geographical Society, 

 and received the Founder's medal in 1907. He was 

 also a foreign correspondent of the Geological Society 

 and a corresponding member of the Zoological Society 

 of London. 



Dispatches published in the daily papers last week 

 contain brief accounts of destructive earthquakes that 

 were felt over the greater part of Mexico during the 

 night of January 3-4. The first shock occurred at 

 9.45 p.m. on January 3 ; this was followed by a 

 second of great intensity at 10.25, and by a slighter 

 shock at II p.m. The epicentral area lies about fifty 

 miles west of the city of Vera Cruz, near the southern 

 end of the Gulf of Mexico, after-shocks being especially 

 frequent to the south of Jalapa. The principal damage, 

 NO. 2620, VOL. 104] 



so far as is yet known, is at Cordoba, Jalapa, Cos- 

 comatopec, Calcahualco, Teocelo, and Cosautlan. The 

 area within which injury to property occurred is, how- 

 ever, considerable. The city of Vera Cruz is deprived 

 of gas and water, owing to many breaks in the mains, 

 and, even so far west as Mexico City (150 miles from 

 the coast and nearly 200 miles from Vera Cruz), the 

 walls of large buildings were cracked. As in all 

 destructive shocks, the central area was completely 

 isolated, but the unusual violence of the principal 

 shock is also evident from the change in the course 

 of the River San I-'rancisco, the rupture of water-mains 

 at Vera Cruz, and the uprooting of thousands of trees 

 in a forest twenty-five miles from that city. The loss 

 of life is still unknown, but is sure to be considerable. 

 At Coscomatopec it was increased by the rush of 

 people to the church when the first shocks were felt. 

 According to the officials of the Mexican Government 

 Observatory, the centre of disturbance was situated in 

 the volcano of Orizaba, but the earthquake was clearly 

 tectonic, possessing none of the characteristic featuriis 

 of volcanic earthquakes, though the opening of a new 

 crater in the volcano may be connected with the same 

 movement which caused the earthquake. One point 

 of some interest is its occurrence near the north coast 

 of Mexico, the principal seismic regions lying on the 

 south or Pacific side. 



I.\' " Memoirs of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, 

 Honolulu," vol. v., part iii., for 1919, Mr. T. G. 

 Thrum publishes a long series of native documents 

 from the Fornander collection, giving the Hawaians' 

 account of the formation of their islands, the origin 

 of their race, and their migrations. The records now 

 printed in the original language, with English transla- 

 tions, include fifteen mythical tales, twenty-five tra- 

 ditionary stories, and the legend of Kawelo, which 

 extends to six chapters. The publication is of great 

 importance from the points of view of ethnology, folk- 

 lore, and linguistics. 



In the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 

 (vol. xlix., January-June, 1919) Mr. J. Reid Moir dis- 

 cusses the occurrence of humanly fashioned flints in 

 the Middle Glacial Gravel at Ipswich. These imple- 

 ments and flakes do not exhibit marked signs of 

 abrasion by water action, and the writer regards it as 

 a possibility that the place where these Middle Glacial 

 specimens are now found cannot be far removed from 

 the deposits in which they rested in an unabraded 

 state, and that the water which laid down the Middle 

 Glacial deposit did not flow at a turbulent rate. The 

 only dateable artefacts so far recovered from this gravel 

 are some small platessiform flint implements, which, 

 though small, otherwise resemble closely the well- 

 known early Chellean implements. " The occurrence 

 of flint implements of early Chellean form in a gravel 

 presumably more ancient than the Glacial Chalky 

 Boulder Clay will no doubt come as a surprise to 

 many archaeologists, but there does not seem to be 

 in this case any escape from such a conclusion." 



In the Public Health Journal for November (vol. x., 

 No. II, Toronto) Prof. Fraser Harris discusses the 

 medical and allied professions as a State service. 



