December i, 1892] 



NATURE 



101 



whose parents can afford them an, in some places fancy, educa- 

 tion that can in the nature of things be only attainable by the 

 rich? 



In view of the discussion upon the proposed Teaching Uni- 

 versity for London it is to be hoped that these things will not 

 be overlooked amid the local questions and rival institutions. 

 It is to be hoped on the one hand that those who will have the 

 privilege of learning in the greatest city in the world will not 

 be deprived of the personal influence of its greatest men by 

 relegating these to some haven of laboratories where no bracing 

 breath of students shall interfere with the inmates. On the 

 other hand it is to be hoped thst London will so far honour 

 itself as not to be content until it sees its University a centre of 

 thought and investigation from which shall radiate new ideas 

 and discoveries to enlighten and benefit the whole nation. 

 Before I close there is a matter of great importance to 

 which I fear sufficient importance is not attached by those 

 who are directing this matter and that is the great 

 objections there are to mixing up Universities and Colleges with 

 examining boards. We here in Trinity College,: Dublin, suffer 

 very much from the fact that a considerable number jof our 

 students never reside here, but only come ,over for periodical 

 examinations. We only suffer in one way, while if London 

 adopted this abominable arrangement it would suffer in two 

 ways. We suffer because our degree is much less valued than 

 it would be if all our students were compelled to reside. AH 

 our students have not that education got by friction with their 

 fellows and by contact with trained intellects which no exami- 

 nation can test, and which is such a valuable training, and in 

 consequence our degrees are the less valuable. London would 

 suffer in this way, and it is a very serious way too. In addition 

 to this London would suffer from the inordinate importance that 

 would be attached to extern examiners if the University ex- 

 amined London and extern students. So far we have escaped this 

 danger, but it is inevitable in London because the extern element 

 there would be large, influential and organized, while with us it 

 is of little strength. The result would be to perpetuate and 

 intensify that horrible teaching for examinations which is so 

 necessary an evil in the case of the majority of students, but 

 from which the leaders of thought should be exempt. It matters 

 not that the syllabus nor even that the very questions are ap- 

 proved by the professor, if the examination is conducted to any 

 serious extent by an independent mind. The student will seek 

 a coach, who will probably teach him very well indeed, but 

 whose whole view of learning will be of the passing-an-ex- 

 amination type, and who will infect his pupil with this miserable 

 disease. Gradually the professor himself will be involved in 

 the vortex, and the whole University will gradually look upon 

 the passing of examinations as the end of life for students, and 

 this is the acme of coaching and the bathos of education. 



Geo. Eras. Fitzgerald. 



Trinity College, Dublin, November 25. 



The Stars and the Nile. 



After reading Mr. J. Norman Lockyer's papers on the 

 connection of the orientation of Egyptian temples with the 

 heliacal rising of certain stars, I was interested to find that a 

 custom still exists in the neighbourhood of the Second 

 Cataract having a strong resemblance to the old Egyptian 

 custom. 



The Nuba people of this part foretell the first rise of the 

 Nile by the heliacal rising of the Pleiades, or as they call it, 

 "Turdya." For Sirius they have no special name, calling it 

 merely "the driver" or "follower" of the three stars 

 (Orion). 



It must be remembered that the first sign of the rise at 

 Wady Haifa occurs at the beginning of June, reaching 

 Assouan about a week later, but for some days the increase is 

 very slow, and scarcely perceptible except in the readings of 

 the Nile gauges. 



These Nuba people still preserve in their language many 

 ancient Egyptian words, and possibly we may have here a trace 

 of the old custom, the Pleiades being taken instead of Sinus 

 on account of the earlier date of the rise in the district of the 

 Second Cataract than in Egypt itself. 



H. G. Lyons, Capt. R.E. 



Cairo, November 14. 



A Palaeozoic Ice-Age, 

 The account by Dr. Wallace in Nature (p. 55) of glacial 

 deposits recently discovered in Australia is a most important and 

 welcome addition to our knowledge. But to us the surprising 

 circumstance is that Dr. Wallace appears quite unaware of the 

 fact that this is only an addition to a great series of discoveries, 

 by no means confined to Australia, affording evidence of a Pal- 

 eozoic ice-age. That the deposits near Sandhurst are Palaeozoic 

 may, in the absence of any indication to the contrary, be as- 

 sumed, since they are clearly similar in position and character 

 to the well-known boulder beds of Bacchus Marsh, and these 

 have been correlated with the strata containing ice-borne frag- 

 ments, amongst the marine beds west of Sydney and also at 

 Wollongong to the southward, and in Queensland to the north- 

 ward. All these beds have been shown to be upper carbonifer- 

 ous. A good account of the facts known up to 1886 maybe 

 found in Mr. R. D. Oldham's paper on the Indian and Aus- 

 tralian coal-bearing beds (Rec. Geo. Surv. Ind. xix. p. 39). 



It is scarcely necessary to refer to the fact that extensive 

 Palaeozoic glacial deposits, of the same age as those of Australia, 

 have been found in several parts of India, some as far within 

 the tropic as lat. 18° N., others in the Salt Range of the Pun- 

 jab, that the famous Dwyka conglomerates of South Africa are 

 similar and in all probability contemporaneous, and that boulder 

 beds of very possibly the same geological date have been ob- 

 served in Brazil. We should not have mentioned these but for 

 the fact that the idea of a Palaeozoic ice-age is apparently novel 

 to Dr. Wallace. We do not think, however, that the reason 

 why so well-informed a naturalist is unacquainted with geological 

 data long known to many is any mystery. It has become an 

 accepted article of faith amongst most European geologists 

 (there are, of course, exceptions) that no ice-age occurred before 

 the last glacial epoch, just as it is part of the geological creed 

 that the carboniferous flora was of world-wide extension, and as 

 it has become the prevailing belief that the deep oceans have 

 been the same since the consolidation of the earth's crust. Now 

 the discoverers of glacial evidence in the carboniferous beds of 

 India and Australia also assert that the carboniferous flora of 

 those countries differed in toto from that of Europe and re- 

 sembled the Jurassic flora of European regions, and some of 

 them add that the great southern flora of South Africa, India, 

 and Australia must have inhabited a vast continent, part 

 of the area of which is now beneath the depths of the Indian 

 Ocean. Partly from Indian and Australian geologists being re- 

 garded as heretics geologically, partly from other causes, the 

 evidence of ice-action in India and Australia has been generally 

 ignored. No better proof could be afforded of the fact that 

 European geologists in general have omitted to notice the 

 series of discoveries in the southern hemisphere and in India 

 than the publication of Dr. Wallace's paper. 



The glacial evidence as it now stands is extremely interesting 

 and perhaps transcends in importance that of the Pleistocene 

 glacial epoch. For as the effects " of the carboniferous ice-age 

 were felt within the present tropics, either the earth's axis of 

 rotation must have shifted considerably, or else the refrigera- 

 tion of the surface must have been due to a cause distinct 

 from that supplied by the late Mr. Croll's theory, even when 

 supplemented by Sir R. Ball's amendment. 



Our own interest in the whole subject is chiefly due to the 

 circumstance that we happened in 1856 to be the first who met 

 with the ancient boulder-bed in India, and suggested that it 

 might be explained by the action of ice. The discoveries m 

 Australia and South Africa were of course quite independent 

 of those in India, but were, we believe, slightly later in date. 



November 20. W. T. Blanford. 



Henry F. Blanford. 



Geology of Scotland. 



May I supplement Prof. Green's history of geological map- 

 ping in Scotland (Nature, vol. xlvii. p. 49) by pointing out 

 that Mr. Cruchley published, on March 23, 1840, " A Geologi- 

 cal Map of Scotland by Dr. MacCulloch, F.R.S., &c., published 

 by order of the Lords of the Treasury by S. Arrowsmith, Hydro- 

 graphertotheKing." This fine map is on the scale of four 

 miles to an inch. From the omission of " the late before 

 MacCulloch's name, it seems possible that the plates were m 

 course of engraving before his death in 1835. 



Grenville A. J. Cole. 



Royal College of Science for Ireland, Dublin. 



NO. 1205, VOL. 4.7] 



