306 
NATURE 
[JANUARY 24, 1907 
happily, in connection with the description of the rock- 
masses in the field. An outlier of gravel (p. 15), “* largely 
composed of Chalk-flints and Greensand-chert,’’ forms a 
cap on the eastern promontory of St. Martin’s, and may 
be a relic of a river-gravel, spread from Dartmoor over a 
continuous land-surface in Eocene times. The old _pre- 
Glacial beach, now near sea-level, has been raised at least 
4o feet, and again lowered by that amount, since its form- 
ation (p. 33); the evidence of this comes from the main- 
land, but is sufficiently conclusive. The warping in the 
beach itself may be brought to the attention of those who 
are captivated by the theory of fluctuations in the volume 
of the sea rather than by that of recent movements of 
the land. 
Part iv. of the Administration Reports of Ceylon for 
1905 includes one on the Mineralogical Survey, by the 
director, Dr. A. K. Coomaraswamy. This raises a number 
of points of great interest to the petrographer as well as 
the mineralogist. The graphite of Ceylon is regarded as 
a product of vein-filling processes, following the reasoning 
of Weinschenk—here styled, as so often happens, 
Weinschenck. If, however (p. E3), the crystalline lime- 
stones of the district are organic, the graphite may possibly 
have had ‘an indirect organic origin.’’ The similarity 
of the deposits in Ceylon to those of Quebec, which are 
directly associated with limestone, is 
The authors have no doubt as to the excavating power 
of the glaciers in the past, and quote the forms of the 
lake-bottoms in support of their conclusions. The petro- 
logy is illustrated by a striking series of enlargements from 
rock-slices, reminding one, on a still bolder scale, of the 
pioneer work of the late Sir R. Daintree. Nephrite 
(p. 69) is found occurring as segregations in tale-rock or 
talc-serpentine-rock, the lumps being from about 1 inch 
to 2 feet across; these are pointed out (p. 99) as of 
economic value. On p. 93 we have the interesting sug- 
gestion that boulders of ‘‘ grauwacke ’’ in Butcher’s Creek 
supply sufficient ferrous carbonate to act, when they de- 
compose, as precipitants of gold in the solutions per- 
meating the surrounding gravels. These boulders were 
examined chemically, owing to the greater richness of the 
gravel round them as compared with that round boulders 
of other rocks. Another remarkable record is the discovery 
of platinum in quartz-veins (p. 96). The whole bulletin, 
with its introduction on the botany, soil, climate, and 
communications of the area, shows that the survey has a 
high conception of its duties in carrying on the scientific 
investigation of New Zealand. 
The Annual Report of the State Geologist of New Jersey 
for 1905 shows the local survey in cooperation with that 
of the United States, and even competing with it in the 
not so great as Osann has recently 
suggested. The discovery of thoria- 
nite by the director has led to in- 
vestigations in a number of valleys 
(p. E6); but, knowing the country 
intimately, Dr. Coomaraswamy does 
not believe that it would be prac- 
ticable to divert the courses of the 
streams to facilitate the raising of 
the material. An illustrated account 
is given of the native method of 
dredging for gems, and there is a 
fine plate showing the weathered 
surface of limestone associated with 
bands and lumps of granulite. A. 
parallel to this ‘‘ interstreaking ’’ of 
the two rocks can surely be found 
in the west of our own islands, 
where the ‘‘ granulite’’ is clearly 
an invader in the limestone. This 
report, so closely and simply written, 
provides more agreeable reading 
than many ambitious volumes with 
wide margins and encyclopedic in- 
formation. 
From the New Zealand Geological 
Survey we have received Bulletin 
No. 1, describing the geology of the 
Hokitika sheet, by J. M. Bell and 
Colin Fraser (pp. xii+102, 1906). 
Some of the topographical work has 
to be carried out by the Geological Survey, and maps are | 
usefully added in an envelope at the end of the bulletin. 
The-area described lies in North Westland, and contains 
both alluvial gold and coal. The relics of formerly ex- 
tensive glaciers, with snowy gathering-grounds at a height 
of about 5500 feet above the sea, afford especially interest- 
ing features in a latitude of 43° S. One of these narrow 
shrunken glaciers is shown in the illustration here selected 
(Fig. 1), and the memoir abounds in photographic views 
which will appeal equally to the geographer and the 
geologist. It should have been noted, perhaps, by the 
authors that some of these views represent more than the 
perpetual snow. On p. 21 it is suggested that the 
glaciation began to spread from the new mountain-range 
‘““during or perhaps just following Lower Cretaceous 
times.’” On the next page this is, we think, corrected by 
the statement that ‘“‘ glaciation started in Miocene time.” 
The great advance of the ice, reducing the island to the 
condition of Greenland, probably took place in the early 
Pleistocene. Whether this was due entirely to the upheaval 
of a mountain-chain across the direction of the prevalent 
winds is left an open question. We gather that the great 
mountain-building movements were of early Eocene age. 
NO. 1943, VOL. 75] 
Fic. 1.—Grave Creek Glacier, with Mount Walter (6350 feet) at the back. 
production of geological maps on a large scale (p. 4). As 
is now the case with most surveys, economic observations 
occupy an important place, and it is doubtless found that 
the necessity for close scrutiny and all-round questioning 
which such inquiries involve reacts favourably on the 
character of the more purely scientific work. In New 
Jersey, however, the Geological Survey goes outside 
ordinary lines, and deals, for instance, with water-supply 
and coast-protection from an engineering point of view. 
Mr. Berry describes (p. 135) the Cenomanian flora of the 
Magothy beds at Cliffwood. Messrs. Parmelee and 
McCourt contribute ninety pages on the nature and uses 
of peat, and on the peat-deposits of the State, with a 
general bibliography. - 
The recent work of the United States Geological Survey 
has been dealt with lately in a special article (NATURE, 
December 20, 1906, p. 182). Mr. Calhoun has now issued 
a professional paper on ‘‘ The Montana Lobe of the 
Keewatin Ice-sheet,’’? which contains interesting details 
(p. 40, &c.) as to the influence of the main ice-sheet on 
the course of the Missouri River. Students of dry river- 
courses in glaciated areas will find the Shonkin Sag of 
interest, a channel with characteristically fresh surface- 
