672 



NATURE 



[February 19, 1920 



Calcutta Museum. Dr. Smith leaves many friinds, 

 to whom he was always ready to impart his wide 

 stores of learning, and the charm of his personality 

 will te to them a lasting memory. 



An account of the mammals collected in Eastern 

 Cuba during 1917 by Dr. H. E. Anthony appears in 

 the Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural 

 History (vol. xli., art. xx.). Though but a brief 

 preliminary survey of the material collected, this 

 contribution is one of very considerable interest. It 

 forms, indeed, the complement to Dr. .Anthony's recent 

 memoir on the indigenous mammals of Porto Rico, 

 living and extinct. Two species of that extinct and 

 extremelv primitive insectivore Nesophontes were 

 found, and one of these is new to science. This he 

 has named Nesophontes longirostris. The other 

 species, JV. micriis, bears a close resemblance to 

 .V. edithae of Porto Rico. Of the Hutias (Capromys), 

 which occur also in Jamaica and Porto Rico, two 

 species were obtained, and several species of bats. 

 All the remains found were from caves, and it 

 would seem that they were deposited in the 

 form of "castings" from the barn-owl. This is a 

 point of some interest, since it helps to explain the 

 great accumulations of small mammal bones found in 

 similar situations in other parts of the world. 



The .Archives of the Cambridge Forestry .Associa- 

 tion for 1919 is a brief pamphlet recording the pro- 

 gress of this society since its foundation in October 

 last. The members are mainly past and present 

 students of the School of Forestry, who meet together 

 to promote research and to render assistance in 

 various ways to this important teaching centre. The 

 secretary invites contributions of apparatus, speci- 

 mens, books, and periodicals to the museum, which 

 is worthy of support, as it already contains a remark- 

 ably fine collection of foreign and home timbers, as 

 well as many instructive objects and photographs, 

 illustrating the uses of wood and the diseases, defects, 

 and abnormalities of trees. The income of the school 

 is very meagre, amounting in 1919 to only 576L i3.'>., 

 a sum insufficient to pay salaries and incidental ex- 

 penses, there being an actual deficit of 123?. is. ^d. 

 From this it is evident that there are no funds avail- 

 able for the purchase of apparatus or specimens. The 

 lists of desiderata and of recent additions to the col- 

 lection given in the pamphlet ought to stimulate dona- 

 tions to the School of Forestry at Cambridge. The 

 other contents consist chiefly of short notes on various 

 objects in the museum, with an account at some 

 length of experiments on the swelling and shrinkage 

 of wood which have been carried out recently by Mr. 

 Herbert Stone. Forestry has lately attracted a great 

 number of students to the universities where the sub- 

 ject is taught, and societies similar to that at Cam- 

 bridge have been founded during the past year also 

 at Oxford and Edinburgh. 



The folding and faulting that characterise the Rockv 

 Mountain belt in Alberta are well shown in the small 

 coloured sections accompanying Memoir 112 of the 

 Geological Survey of Canada (1919) by Mr. J. S. 

 Stewart. The contrast between the region uplifted 

 NO. 2625, VOL. 104] 



in Early Eocene times by the " Laramide revolution " 

 and the level or undulating Cretaceous strata to thc 

 east is as marked as that between the Juras and the 

 Paris basin. The Oligocene beds in this eastern region 

 represent the river-outwash from the Laramide surface 

 of denudation, and subaerial action in succeeding 

 ages has dissected the country to depths of 2000 ft. 



Dr. Charles Schuchert (Bull. Geol. Soc. .America, 

 vol. xxix., p. 245, 1918) reviews the stratigraphica! 

 position of the .American Morrison and the East 

 African Tendaguru formations, which are rich in 

 Dinosaurs. He retains the former in the Jurassic, 

 while suggesting a break in the latter, the lower 

 Dinosaur zone in East Africa being Early Jurassic, 

 and the two main later zones bridging the time from 

 Jurassic to Cretaceous. The discovery of great 

 sauropod Dinosaurs in the south of the late German 

 colony in East .Africa dates only from Fraas's work 

 in 1907, and the importance of the deposits is greatly 

 enhanced by the evidence as to age given by the inter- 

 calation of strata with marine molluscs. A recent 

 communication to Dr. Schuchert from Prof. Branca in 

 Berlin is mentioned, and may be welcomed as one of 

 the signs of a rapprochement between scientitn 

 workers. 



Bulletin 688 of the United States Geological 

 Survey, on "The Oilfields of -Allen County, Ken- 

 tucky," contains a neat little coloured geological map 

 on the scale of 1/1,000,000 of a very much wider an 1 

 a very interesting area of oil-producing country in 

 Kentucky and Tennessee, west of the Alleghany rang. 

 The folded strata of the great range are includi 1 

 at the south-east angle. The authors, Messrs. Shaw 

 and Mather, describe the occurrences of what are 

 known as oil " sands "—that is, oil accumulations in 

 a variety of rocks in strata of Silurian, Devonian, 

 and Carboniferous age— and believe the original 

 source to h'ave been mainly decaying vegetation. 

 The country dealt with in detail is mainly a gentiv 

 undulating plainland, with lakelets in sink-hoi.- 

 caused bv the solution of the underlying St. Louis 

 limestone, an important stratum of Lower Car- 

 boniferous age. The prospector, whose zeal for the 

 discovery of anticlines is now known even on the 

 Stock Exchange, is warned of the occurrence of 

 "pseudo-anticlines" (which, by the way, are true anti- 

 clines for the geologist), due to local features of 

 surface-slip and solution. 



There is something fascinating in looking across 

 the Hudson from the higher platforms of New York 

 City, and seeing in the uplands of New Jersey the 

 foothills of a courtry that "needs no embellishment, 

 for in the woods, the streams, the waterfalls, and 

 mountain outlooks Nature has provided the best.' 

 We quote from the Report of the Department oi 

 Conservation and Development of New Jersey foi 

 iqi8 (published 1919), which presents a model recorc 

 of local government and local watchfulness. Th< 

 director, Mr. Alfred Gaskill, may well be proud a 

 his Department, which has, perhaps, its neares 

 counterpart in our islands in the Department of Agri 

 culture and Technical Instruction for Ireland. Oni 



