March 9, 1905J 



NA TURE 



445 



deposited in Lough Foyle about the beginning of the 

 Christian era, the spot where the objects were sunk 

 having since become dry land, owing to upheaval of 

 the coast-line. The claim of the British Museum was, 

 however, not sustained. 



In connection with this contention, Messrs. George 

 Coffey and R. Lloyd Praeger made special investiga- 

 tions into the evidence of recent geological changes, 

 and these they have brought forward in an essay on 

 " The Larne Raised Beach : a Contribution to the 

 Neolithic History of the North of Ireland " {Proc. 

 R. Irish Acad., vol. xxv., December, 1904). To this 

 essay we are indebted for the preceding statement. 

 After dealing generally with the phenomena indicative 

 of changes of level in Glacial and post-Glacial times, 

 the authors treat particularly of the post-Glacial his- 

 tory, which began with a long period of emergence, 

 and a land-level at least 30 feet higher than at present. 

 The evidence obtaiiied near Larne and Belfast tells of 

 subsequent submergence, re-elevation (the amount of 

 which increased northward), and of a final slight 

 movement of submergence in recent times that has 

 left the surface as we now find it. The raised beach 

 of the Curran at Larne was accumulated over estuarine 

 muds during the period of submergence, and it is of 

 peculiar interest owing to the occurrence in it from 

 top to base of worked flints of Neolithic type. A 

 detailed account, with figures of the flints, is given. 

 The evidence is taken to indicate that man was on the 

 ground during the submergence that allowed of the 

 continued laying idown of 20 feet of gravels in shallow 

 water or between tides. Moreover, the abundance of 

 flint flakes in the surface-layers renders it probable 

 that Neolithic man persisted after that movement of 

 elevation had set in which made the top of the gravels 

 a land-surface. Attention is directed to further evidence 

 at Whitepark Bay, east of the Giant's Causeway, and 

 again in the neighbourhood of Portstewart, which lies 

 only 1^ miles E.N.E. of Broighter. At Whitepark 

 Bay, Neolithic " black layers " or land-surfaces occur 

 at various levels among the sand-dunes, while near 

 Portstewart old surfaces with Neolithic remains are 

 found in deep wind-excavated hollows in the dunes, 

 (see Fig. i). This evidence proves conclusively that 

 the ground on which the gold ornaments were found 

 has been a land-surface, with an elevation at least as 

 great as at present, since Neolithic times, the whole 

 of the movement of elevation, which formed the post- 

 Glacial raised beach of the north-east of Ireland, 

 having been accomplished during Neolithic times. 



NOTES. 



The president of the Royal Society, and Lord Rayleigh, 

 chairman of the gfeneral board of the National Physical 

 Laboratory, have issued invitations to a visitation of the 

 laboratory on Friday, March 17, when the various depart- 

 ments will be on view and apparatus will be exhibited. 



The thirteenth " James Forrest " lecture of the Institution 

 of Civil Engineers will be delivered by Colonel R. E. B. 

 Crompton on Monday, April 10, upon the subject of " Un- 

 solved Problems in Electrical Engineering." 



Prof. W. J. Sollas, F.R.S., has been elected a member 

 of the AthenEeum Club under the rule which empowers 

 the annual election by the committee of nine persons " of 

 distinguished eminence in science, literature, the arts, or 

 for public services." 



Mr. J. E. S. Moore has been appointed director of the 

 Cancer Research, which is carried out in connection with 

 the Royal Infirmary. 



NO. 1845, ■VOI- 71] 



It is stated that the Madras Government has sanctioned 

 the establishment of an experimental garden in Malabar for 

 the investigation of pepper vine disease. 



The second annual dinner of old students of the Royal 

 College of Science, Ireland, will be held on St. Patrick's 

 Day, Friday, March 17, at the Holborn Restaurant, London. 



Prof. K. Mobil's has retired from the directorship of the 

 Berlin Museum of Natural History. The position has been 

 offered to Prof. H. H. Schauinsland, director of the museum 

 at Bremen. 



Sir William Broadbent will preside at a medical con- 

 ference on the teaching of hygiene and temperance, to be 

 held at the Examination Hall, Victoria Embankment, on 

 Friday, March 24. 



The British Medical Journal states that Prof. E. A. 

 Minchin, F.R.S., has undertaken to conduct — on the spbt — 

 further investigations, under the auspices of the Royal 

 Society's Committee, into the causation of sleeping sickness 

 in the Uganda Protectorate. 



The fifteenth German Geographentag will be held at 

 Danzig on June 13-15. The chief subjects of papers and 

 discussions will be south polar exploration, vulcanology, 

 coast morphology and formation of dunes, and school 

 geography. 



After a pause of many years France has again entered 

 the list of gold-producing countries. In December, 1904, 

 the first gold mill in France was started at the La Lucette 

 antimony mine, near Laval. A lo-stamp mill is running 

 steadily, the daily production amounting to about i kilo- 

 grain of gold in the form of a rich concentrate. 



We learn from the Cliemist and Druggist that two prizes, 

 one of 5000 francs (200!.) and the other of 3000 francs (120I.), 

 have been offered by Dr. Henri de Rothschild to the Scientific 

 Society of Alimentary Hygiene, Paris, for the best treatises 

 written in French on the rational food for man. The prizes 

 will be awarded in 1906, and the papers must be sent in by 

 December 31, 1905. 



The experiments with wireless telegraphy between 

 Diamond Island and the Andamans are, says the Pioneer Mail, 

 giving most satisfactory results. A recent message transmitted 

 froni Port Blair reached Calcutta in nineteen minutes, though 

 it had to come over the land-lines after being received at 

 Diamond Island. 



The Paris correspondent of the Times reports that a 

 telegram has been received from M. Jean Charcot, the 

 explorer in command of the French Antarctic expedition, 

 dated Puerto Madryn, March 4. It is stated that scientific 

 work was carried on under good conditions while wintering 

 on Wandel Island. Several parts of Graham Land hitherto 

 unknown have been explored, and by following the coast 

 continuously its outline has been determined. 



The Tillies states that the French Ministry of Public 

 Works has commissioned M. Jacquier to project plans for a 

 railway between Chamonix and Aosta. It is considered that 

 the difficulty would not be so great as with the Simplon 

 tunnel; the tunnel would be 4i miles shorter, and the rock 

 gives no indication of subterranean reservoirs of water. The 

 tunnel would commence at Chamonix, 3415 feet above sea 

 level, and end at Entr^ves (4550 feet), a distance of 8i miles. 

 The Dora Baltea would give ample water power for the 

 boring work, and afterwards for locomotion. 



