December 3, 1891] 



NA TURE 



15 



same as ihat of the axes. The statuettes consist of copper 

 90-3, tin 7-4, iron 2i ; the axes, of copper 87-4, tin i2-o, lead 

 o'5, with traces of iron. 



In the new number of Fjie-inanns Mitteilungen Prof. 

 Vambery has a valuable paper on the geographical nomenclature 

 of Central Asia. He gives a list of names, his spelling of which 

 may safely be accepted as authoritative. The list is to be extended 

 on some future occasion. 



At a recent meeting of the Field Naturalists' Club, Victoria, 

 Mr. C. G. W. Officer read a paper on supposed human footprints 

 on^EoIianrocksat Warrnambool. In introducing the subject, Mr. 

 Officer described in detail ihe formation and nature of the sand 

 dunes, and their connection with the underlying strata, as shown, 

 by the similarity of the stone now being quarried there. From 

 an analysis of the stone made by Mr. Avery, of Queen's College, 

 it appears that it contains about 94 per cent, of carbonate of 

 lime. Last December a slab was discovered in one of the 

 quarries bearing impressions which suggested that they were 

 made by human beings. This slab was secured by Mr, Archi- 

 bald, and placed in the Warrnambool Museum. The deter- 

 mination of the age of the rocks is of importance, and from the 

 evidence of subsidence and elevation w hich have probably taken 

 place since the impressions were made, Mr. Officer is of opinion 

 that a considerable lapse of time has occurred since the rocks 

 were laid down, and he suggests that the impressions were made 

 by two individuals sitting close together and somewhat obliquely 

 to each other. Mr. J. Dennant, discussing the paper, pointed I 

 out that it was necessary to be very guarded in accepting any but 

 the strongest evidence on such questions as those relating to the 

 supposed footprints. Amongst limestone rocks it was well 

 known that mimetic forms were common. In the .Eollan rocks 

 of Cape Bridgewater occurred the so-called fossil forest, which 

 the casual observer could hardly be persuaded to believe was an 

 accidental resemblance, and nothing more. At the same time 

 Mr. Dennant coagratulated Mr. Officer on having produced an 

 interesting and highly suggestive paper. The rocks were well 

 described, and whether his conclusions concerning the im- 

 pressions were accepted or not, he had succeeded in drawing 

 renewed attention to one of the most striking formations in 

 Victoria. 



Mr. J. B. Tyrrell, Ottawa,, of the Canadian Geological 

 Survey, has spent the last two summers in examining the shores 

 of Lake Winnipeg, Winnipegosis, and Manitoba ; and he has 

 issued a few notes on his observations, in advance of a more 

 detailed report to the Survey. Speaking of striation, Mr, Tyrrell 

 refers to many distinct and characteristic glacial striaj which 

 show that during the Ice Age a great glacier, or lobe of the 

 Laurentide glacier, moved south-south-eastward across the 

 lacustral plains of Manitoba, along the valley of Red River to the 

 height of land, and onward to near Des Moines, Iowa, sending 

 off branches up the valleys of Swan and Red Deer rivers. The 

 total length of this glacier or lobe, from the north end of Lake 

 Winnipeg to its extreme southern limit in Iowa, would be about 

 850 miles. With reference to moraines, Mr. Tyrrell says the 

 highest at present known in Northern Manitoba are those capping 

 the summits of portions of the Duck and Riding Mountains, 

 with altitudes of 2500 to 2700 feet above the sea, or 1800 to 

 2000 feet above the surface of Lake Winnipeg. On the shores 

 and islands of Lake Winnipeg a distinct moraine has lately been 

 recognized. In a section on shore lines Mr. Tyrrell describes 

 Kettle Hill, on the south side of Swan Lake, as one of the 

 most interesting monuments of ancient shore phenomena in the 

 whole district. Swan Lake has an estimated elevation of 27 

 feet above Lake Winnipegosis, or 855 feet above the sea ; 

 and the hill, which appears to have been largely composed of 

 Dakota sandstone, rises 275 feet above it. On the face of this I 

 NO. II 53, VOL. 45] 



hill are five distinct terraces, representing six different shore lines^ 

 at elevations of 920, 955, 995, 1015, 1070 feet above the sea, 

 those at 955, 995, and 1070 bcng most strongly marked, the last 

 being the most distinct. 



Mr. D. Morris, Assistant Director of the Royal Gardens, 

 Kew, lately sent to the Entoinologisi's Monthly Magazine 

 for identification specimens of a Coccid, supposed by him 

 to be /cerya[iPurchasi, received from St. Helena. They 

 were found there on some rose bushes which had been imported 

 from the Cape of Good Hope. In a note in the new number 

 of the Entomologist^ s Monthly Magazine, Mr. J. W. Douglas 

 says there is not the least doubt that the specimens received are 

 females of Icerya Purchasi ; and he adds that if the brood of 

 which they are samples be not extirpated at once by burning 

 all the plants on which they exist, so as to destroy all eggs and 

 young larvae, they will form the beginning of a pest that must 

 be intensely serious in such a small island. The probability is 

 that they were introduced as eggs or larvje, and so escaped 

 observation. 



The fourth volume of the entomological publication issued 

 by the Russian Grand-Duke Nicholas, under the title of 

 " Memoires sur les Lepidopteres, rediges par N. M. Romanoff,' * 

 contains a very valuable work by M.-Gr. Grum-Grshimailo— 

 "Le Pamir et sa Faune lepidopterologique," with twenty-one 

 coloured plates and a map of the Pamir. Besides its special 

 entomological part, the work contains some interesting deduc- 

 tions concerning the geological history of the Pamir, The 

 author came to the conclusion, confirmed afterwards on ge )logi- 

 cal grounds by Prof, Mushketoff, that during the Miocene period 

 the Pamir plateau and Tibet formed a contineat which rose 

 isolated above the great Tertiary sea. It was separated at that 

 time from the Tian-Shan Mountains, but seems to have been 

 connected with the Altai Mountains, probably through the Bei- 

 Shan highlands. The hypothesis seems probable on orographi- 

 cal grounds as well— the Pamir and the Altai* Mountains belong- 

 ing to the great'plateau of Asia of which the Great Altai is one 

 of the border ridges, while the Tian-Shan belongs to the series 

 of ridges 'parallel to the border ridges, and is separated from 

 them by deep valleys, which must have been filled by the waters 

 of a Tertiary sea. The same structure may be observed in East 

 Siberia also. 



Lists of the Macro- Lepidoptera and birds of Winchester and 

 the vicinity have been compiled by members of the Winchester 

 College Natural History Society, and have now been published 

 together in the form of a pamphlet. The compilers have 

 evidently taken great care to be accurate, and their wo'k 

 cannot fail to be of service to students of natural history in the 

 locality. Mr. A. W, S, Fisher, who signs the preface to the 

 list of Lepidoptera, points out that it contains 425 species, which 

 have all occurred within six miles of Winchester College. Mr. 

 S. A. Davies, in the list of birds, indicates by an asterisk the 

 cases in which the birds recorded have been bred within a radius 

 of a quarter of a mile of the College, In most cases, Mr, 

 Davies himself has found the nest within the last three 

 years. 



According to Hering's views, the optical stimulation-value, 

 or "valence," of a coloured radiation, is made up of one white 

 and one or two colour valences (the greater the former, the less 

 the saturation). And he has sought to measure the white 

 valences ; one useful means lying in the fact that to an eye kept 

 long in the dark all coloured rays of a certain low intensity 

 seem colourless, but of very different brightness, Hering has 

 lately had an opportunity of taking measurements on a person 

 having sight, but totally blind to colours (a very rare case). 

 This was a music-teacher, twenty years of age. The experi- 

 ments (described in PJliiger's Arcltiv) brought out the fact that 



