April 7, 1910] 



NATURE 



157 



which is not soluble in water (or at least not in the 

 quantity of water from which it was extracted). 



It therefore appears probable that the effect of toluene 

 on the soil is to render insoluble and innocuous this toxic 

 substance. Similarly with the other antiseptics mentioned ; 

 ether apparently does not convert the substance into an 

 insoluble form, and its method of acting is being investi- 

 gated. 



The writer has also found that heating to dryness on a 

 water-bath decomposes this substance, and it is probable 

 when in the soil that a lower temperature will suffice. It 

 seems probable, therefore, that the fertilising effect of sun- 

 light will be found to be due to the decomposition of this 

 toxic substance. F. Fletcher. 



School of Agriculture, Gizeh, Egypt. 



silts, in the form of sands, moved more slowly along 

 th»; surface of the plains, where they formed great seas 

 of sand-dunes, heaped up in places to a height of 

 more than a hundred feet. We may note that to the 

 shifting of such sand-deserts in historic times we owe 

 the burial of cities in the Khotan region, which have 

 been so successfully excavated by Dr. Stein for the 

 Indian Government. With regard to the geological 

 side of his work, we certainly think that ^Ir. Pum- 

 pelly's researches on the spot tend to confirm Richt- 

 hofen's theor\- of the wind-borne origin of loess, and 

 he has succeeded in obtaining further evidence of his 

 own modification of the theory as to the important 

 part plaj-ed by river silts, and the chemical action 

 of vegetation, in furnishing the constituents of loess. 

 As a deduction from his archaeological researches, 

 Mr. Pumpelly would regard the Central Asian oases 

 as the fountain-head of Western Asiatic culture. 

 According to his theory, their inhabitants were isolated 

 from Africa and Europe from the Glacial period on- 

 ward, and their cultural requirements were conse- 

 quently evolved in complete independence. Changes 

 in climatic conditions, however, took place, under 



TRAXSCASPLAS ARCH.^OLOGY.' 



T X the two volumes referred to below are incor- 

 ■■■ porated the results of the American expedition 

 which visited Russian Turkestan under the direction 

 of Mr. Raphael Pumpelly, the well-known geologist, 

 in 1904, and, besides conducting excavations at Anau, 

 near Askhabad, collected material bearing on the 

 physiography of the Central Asian 

 deserts and oases. Thus the work 

 of the expedition w^as two- fold. On 

 one hand, we are presented with 

 geological and physiographical ob- 

 servations, illustrating changes 

 which have taken place in the 

 character of Central Asia ; on the 

 other, we have a full and able pre- 

 sentment of the archaeological 

 material obtained from the excava- 

 tions at Anau, including a very com- 

 plete ceramic record. We should 

 add that the excavations were 

 directed by Dr. Hubert Schmidt, of 

 Berlin, who joined the staff of the 

 expedition for that purpose. 



On the physical side, Mr. 

 Pumpelly, assisted by Messrs. 

 Davis, Huntington, and R. W. 

 Pumpelly, who were also members 

 of the expedition, found traces in 

 High Asia of several great glacial 

 expansions during the Glacial 

 period. According to the picture 

 which he gives us, there existed a 

 cap of continental ice, thousands of 

 feet thick, which spread over nearly 

 the whole of European Russia; and Central Asia | which the early civilisations in these regions tended 

 was covered by a huge inland sea, larger than the ! to disappear, and these gave rise to extensive migra- 

 Mediterranean, and fed by rivers flowing from the tions, which eventually reacted on the outside world, 

 snow and ice. The sub-Glacial period was marked In support of his theory, Mr. Pumpelly would trace 

 by a general trend towards desolation, accom- the early appearance of wheat and barley in Babv- 

 panied by the disappearance of the ice-cap from Ionia and Egypt, and the presence of certain breeds 

 Russia and a diminution of the great glaciers on the of domestic animals, to their first establishment in the 

 southern mountains. As evaporation became more Transcaspian oases. Moreover, he would place the 

 rapid than the inflow of water, the inland sea shrunk original home of the Sumerians in Central Asia, 

 and broke up into smaller basins, and the dried silts where, before their arrival in Babylonia and their 

 of seas and rivers were carried by the wind in great I subsequent fusion with Semitic nomads, he pictures 

 columns of dust across the earth. The lightest ' them as having already acquired the elements of their 



Fig. I. — (i) The North Kurgan at Anau, in Ruvuan Turkestan, with the Camp of the Pumpelly 

 Kxpediiicn in the foreground. (2) The South Kurgan at Anau, showing excavations in progress. 



material was carried farthest, and deposited in beds 

 of loess, the extraordinarily fine and fertile soil which 

 covers a great part of the surface of Northern China 

 and Turkestan, and extends in a continuous zone 

 from north of the Caspian to Austria. 



racial culture and organisation under the stern dis- 

 cipline of a struggle with nature. The absence of 

 any form of writing in the mounds of Anau may be 

 cited as negative evidence against any racial, or even 

 The heavier j cultural, connection with the Sumerians, though, as 

 we shall see later, a study of the ceramic points to 



1 Explorations in Turkestan : Expedition of 1904. Prehistoric Civilisations | SOme influence having been CXertcd from thlt quarter 



o A"^"? D °"s;,"'. G?^''"' ^""^ Influence of Environment. Edited by j on the earlv Cultures of Susa in Elam. 



Kaphael Pumpelly. Vol. 1., pp. xxxvi+24o+vi ; vol. 11., pp. x+(24i-4g4)4-x ; j ... • t- -^ • • j j . , , 



with 97 plates and 548 illustrations, including maps and plans. (Washington: 1" this connection it IS indeed a moot point whether 



Carnegie Institution, 1908.) I the parent civilisation was not that of Elam herself. 



NO. 2II0, VOL. 83] 



