474 



NATURE 



[March i6, 1893 



College. Mr. Cozens- Hardy has already made some interesting 

 journeys in Montenegro and the neighbouring little-known parts 

 of the west coast of the Balkan Peninsula which he intends to 

 study further. 



The expedition of M. Delcommune by Lake Tanganyika 

 appears to have been the most successful of all those sent out by 

 the Katanga Company, as its leader has returned to Leopold- 

 ville, and will soon reach Europe to recount his experiences. 

 The expeditions of Captain Stairs and Captain Bia, although 

 successful in reaching their destination, were unfortunate in 

 losing their leaders, and all the parties suffered terribly from 

 sickness and famine. One oi the interesting circumstances of 

 these expeditions is the fact that a bronze tablet commemorat- 

 insj the death of Livingstone has been fixed to the tree at Old 

 Chitambo's, where the great traveller died. This tablet was 

 sent out in duplicate by Mr. A. L. Bruce of Edinburgh, son-in- 

 law of Dr. Livingstone, through Mr. Arnot, who being unable 

 to reach Chitambo's himself, entrusted one of the tablets to 

 Captain Bia, by whose party it was placed in position. 



Mr. Mackinder's educational lectures, of which the eighth 

 was delivered in the hall of the University of London on 

 Friday night, continue to be well attended. The subject of the 

 lecture was the Alps as a factor in European history, and the 

 series of fine maps specially prepared for projection by the 

 lantern enabled the development of the historical argument to 

 be followed from point to point. 



The March number of the Scottish Geographical Magazine 

 contains a valuable note by Prof. Mohn on the climate of Green- 

 land, in which he epitomises his discussion of Dr. Nansen's 

 results, published in a recent Erganzungsheft of Fetermann's 

 Mitteilungen, and corrects it by the record of Peary's work. The 

 isotherms (reduced to sea- level) run parallel to the coast, the 

 interior being coldest at all seasons ; 30° F. compared with 26° 

 on the coast for January, 30° as compared with 50° for July, and 

 on the average for the year the centre of the land is probably 

 about — 10°, while the coast has the temperature of 30°. 



THE CHATHAM ISLANDS AND AN 

 ANTARCTIC CONTINENT. 

 A T the last meeting of the Royal Geographical Society Mr. 

 H. O. Forbes discussed the question of the former 

 extension of an Antarctic continent in relation to certain 

 observations made during a recent visit to the Chatham 

 Islands. The whole surface of these islands, especially Whare- 

 kauri and Rangiauria, is covered with a bed ot peat in places 

 over forty feet in depth— deeper in the northern part than in the 

 southern — traversable in safety only by those acquainted with 

 the country ; for to the inexperienced eye there seems in most 

 places no difference in the surface which can carry with safety 

 both horse and rider, and that ,on which the lightest-footed 

 pedestrian cannot venture without being engulfed. The surface 

 of some of the larger and wetter depressions in the ground was 

 covered with a brilliant-colourtd carpet of luxuriant mosses, 

 emitting an aromatic fragrance, spread out in artless undesigned 

 parterres of rich commingled green, yellow, and purple, and 

 endless shades of these, warning the traveller of the existence of 

 dangerous bogs beneath, and brightening miles of treeless moor- 

 land, which, but for those lioating gardens, would be uninviting 

 and uninteresting. In many places all over the island this 

 great peat-moss is on fire, and has for years been smouldering 

 underground, or burning in the exposed faces of the great pits 

 which have now been burnt out. Dr. Dieffenbach mentions 

 these fires at his visit in 1840, and states that the combus- 

 tion had begun before 1834. They appear to have been burn- 

 ing in one part or another of the island ever since Dieflfenbach's 

 visit. A peculiarity in the main island that strikes the visitor 

 ■very early is the occurrence of many lakes and tarns. These 

 lakes are, for the most part, on the eastern side, at the back of 

 the low hills facing Petre Bay. The largest is fifteen miles 

 long, over forty miles in circumference, and about ten and a half 

 miles broad at its widest part. 



Mr. Forbes's object in visiting the islands was to look for 

 the remains of a fossil bird, fragments of which had been sent 

 to him in New Zealand. These he discovered in considerable 

 numbers, and found that the bird was no other than a species of 

 Aphanhpteryx, a. large and remarkable member of the rail 

 family, which lived contemporary with the celebrated dodo in 



VO. 1220, VOL. 47] 



the Island of Mauritius, and was very similar to one of the 

 extinct flightless birds of that island. Here was the only place 

 in the world where it was known to exist, and where it had 

 with the dodo preserved its fading race down to about two 

 hundred years ago, when both of them passed away and 

 perished for ever from among living things. In the Chatham 

 Islands the remains of the Aphanapteryx were found in kitchen 

 middens of the Morioris, showing that in this region of the 

 world also it had survived down to comparatively recent date, 

 just as the moa had in New Zealand. 



In the Chatham Islands there still live several types of 

 flightless birds scarcely represented elsewhere, except in widely 

 separated oceanic islands. To account for their distribution it 

 is necessary to reason backwards to former distributions of land 

 and sea. The occurrence of similar forms in the three southern 

 continents and in the islands which lie between them is most easily 

 explained by a former Austral continent of considerable northern 

 extension. The outlines of this continent it is of course impossible 

 to trace with anything approaching to accuracy till we are in 

 possession of a larger number of soundings. But it is not unlikely 

 that the great meridional masses of land— or world ridges — which 

 are probably of primeval antiquity extended to meet prolong- 

 ations northward of the Antarctic continent. 'Ihere is some 

 evidence that the direct union of South Africa with the other 

 continents was not for so prolonged a period as the others. 

 The presence of the Aphanapteryx and other ocydromine birds 

 both in the Mascarene and in the New Zealand continental 

 Islands supports other evidence pointing to an extension of that 

 area south by Marion and Kerguelen Islands, and of New Zea- 

 land south, or of the Antarctic land north, by way of theMac- 

 quarrie, Auckland, and Antipodes Islands. It is interesting to 

 observe that the great Pacific trough to the east of the longitude 

 of New Zealand extends far south into the Antarctic region. 



It is not necessary to suppose that all the southerly 

 extending arms were connected contemporaneously with an 

 Antarctic contment. It is impossible to account for the presence, 

 for instance, of some South American forms in Australia and 

 not in New Zealand ; of Mascarene forms in the New Zealand 

 region and not in Australia, or in Africa, or elsewhere, while we 

 are unacquainted with the orography, the rivers and mountain 

 barriers, of the submerged southern continent ; and its various 

 commissures may have been open at one time and closed at 

 another. As there are, moreover, abundant evidences of great 

 volcanic action over all the region, in New Zealand, South 

 America, Mascarenia, and the Antarctic Islands, the permuta- 

 tions and combinations of the ups and downs of these lands, the 

 openings and closings of the gates, paths, or stepping-stones, are 

 beyond our computation. 



The deductions as to an Antarctic continent, made on biologi- 

 cal grounds, are supported by the depth of the circumpolar sea, 

 so far as it is known. The submarine plateau of the Austral land 

 slopes northward all round the shores of the known lands more 

 gently than is the case along any other coast, and this would 

 seem to indicate that, if elevated, the land would form in great 

 extent a continuation of the three primal ridges of the globe 

 southward, coalesced and spread out round the Pole, with, be- 

 tween these arms, the terminations of the great and permanent 

 ocean troughs. How far these hypotheses — which are but a re- 

 statement, in great measure, of the investigations and conclusions 

 of many distinguished naturalists, geologists, and geographers 

 may be substantiated or refuted by future discoveries it is difficult 

 to say ; but the discovery of these interesting Aphanapteryx 

 bones on the Chatham Islands must always remain an important 

 factor in the solution of this question. 



There was an animated discussion. 



ARCHJLOLOGICAL WORK IN AMERICA. 

 TN his report, just issued, on the Peabody Museum of American 

 Archaeology and Ethnology, Prof. Putnam is able to record 

 the results of a very exceptional amount of useful work. This is 

 due to the fact that while the officers of the Museum have dis- 

 charged their usual duties many special archaeological and 

 ethnological researches have also been carried on with a view to 

 the collection of material for the Chicago Exhibition. Prof. 

 Putnam says : — 



Never before hns such an extensive field of anthropological 

 research been covered in two years' time, and it is desirable to 

 place on record what has been accomplished. In the north, 



