\pril 1 8, 1872] 



NATURE 



495 



n the separate distribution of Composita; in America and the 

 Old World there is one striking difference in the two divisions 

 vith regard to the extratropical or subtropical races which form 

 he great bulk of the order. In America the northern and 

 leathern tribes are the same, although in different proportions, 

 lind there are a considerable number of identical genera and 

 feven species in the north and in the south. In the Old World 

 fhn the contrary two large northern tribes, Cynaroide.-e and 

 Cichoracess, are all but absent from the south, whilst the southern 

 ;&retotideee, as well as several subtribes of other tribes, are 

 banting in the north. The genera common to the Mediter- 

 ifanean and South African regions (except such cosmopolitan 

 igenera as Senecio) are very few, and the common species scarcely 

 6ny. This great difference in the two divisions of the globe 

 iimay be due in a great measure to the direction of the great chain 

 pf mountains which in America, running north and south, 

 facilitates or has facilitated means of intercommunication to races 

 jof the constitution of Composite, to which the east and west 

 jmountain ranges plains seas and deserts of the Old World 

 ionly oppose obstacles. The regions of which the Composita; 

 'are severally tabulated and commented upon are, in America : (i) 

 the Mexican region including California, a portion of Western 

 Texas and Central America north of Veraguas, remarkable for 

 'the Large number of endemic genera, 135 out of 240, and the 

 small average number of species ; (2) the United .Slates region, 

 [comprising the general area of North America from the Oregon 

 land Texas eastward and northward, with about 118 genera, out 

 ef whicli only 25 are endemic, or nearly so, but the average 

 oiumber of species more than double that of the Mexican genera ; 

 1(5) the West Indian region, of which the three principal islands, 

 'Cuba, St. Domingo, and Jamaica, have 13 endemic genera of 

 one to three species each ; and three South American regions, the 

 Andine, the Brazilian, and the Chilian, not so distinct from 

 le.ich other, nor showing any such remarkable contrasts as the 

 two northern ones. In the Old World six regions are distin- 

 (guished — (i) the Mediterranean, extending from Spain to Affgha- 

 nistan, with at least 140 genera, more than half of them endemic, and 

 an average of nearly i o species to a genus ; (2 ) the great Europaso- 

 Asiaiic region, extending from Western Europe to Eastern Asia, 

 with a large number of species, but only 10 endemic genera out 

 of 87 ; (3) the Tropical African, with 18 endemic genera out of 

 109 ; (4) the Tropical Asiatic, with only 9 out of 78 endemic or 

 nearly so ; (5) the South African, the smallest in extent but the 

 'richest in endemic highly differentiated genera and species, 100 

 out of 148 genera being limited to that locality, and out of about 

 1,400 species not above a dozen common to other regions ; and, 

 ' lastly, (6) the Australian region, with 39 out of 83 genera endemic, 

 and, notwithstanding its isolation, nearly 60 species common 

 to other countries, chiefly tropical Asia and New Zealand. The 

 Compositai of the principal Oceanic islands are also separately 

 tabulated and considered ; after which, in the general summary, 

 it is conjectured that Africa, Western America, and possibly 

 Australia may have possessed the order at the earliest re- 

 cognisable stage, Africa showing the greatest variety of mdi- 

 vidual isolated remnants of extinct races ; Andine America, and 

 some of the scattered Oceanic islands, exhibiting a few of what 

 may be deemed the nearest approach to the previously men- 

 tioned conjectural primitive form of the order ; that at this early 

 period there must have been some means of reciprocal inter- 

 change of races between these regions ; that since the disruption 

 of this intercourse between the two great divisions of the globe, 

 there must have been for a time a certain continuity of composite 

 races from north to south across the tropics— a continuity which 

 was probably further prolonged in America than in the Old 

 World ; that as Compositre began to disappear from these tropi- 

 cal regions which thenceforth opposed to them impassable 

 barriers, they became rapidly differentiated to the northward and 

 southward, with greater structural divergences in the Old than 

 in the New World, owing to the isolation being more complete 

 in the former than in the latter ; and that those forms, those more 

 or less differentiated races, which had reached and accommo- 

 dated themselves to high northern latitudes or mountain altitudes, 

 retained some means of communication and interchange between 

 the Old and the New World, long after it was broken off in the 

 warmer parts of the globe. Finally the homes where Compositae 

 now fl.5urish in the greatest luxuriance of specific variety and 

 individual numbers, appear to be tropical America, exclusive of 

 the great alluvial low grounds and forest regions, the United 

 States, South Africa, the Mediterranean region, West Central 

 Asia, and extra-tropical Australia. 



Geologists' Association, April 7. — The Rev. J. Wiltshire, 

 F.G.S., president, in the chair. "On the Excav.ations at the 

 Site of the New Law Courts," by W. H. Hudleston, F.G.S., 

 and F. G. H. Price. The authors commenced with a general 

 description of the area in question, which faces the Strand for 

 500 feet, and is in shape a rough square of some seven acres in 

 extent. The floor of the excavation is about 33 feet above 

 ordnance datum line at the south-east corner. Four varieties of 

 beds are recognised, (i) Brick rubbish, &c.; (2) gravels and 

 sands ; (3) red clay ; (4) blue clay. The nature of the changes 

 which the London clay undergoes in its upper portions was 

 noticed, and the chemical agencies acting upon the clay and its 

 included septaria pointed out. The changes from blue to red 

 were thus summarised : — Conversion of dyad iron, existing partly 

 as carbonate partly as as a basic element of the silicate, into 

 tryad iron, oxidation of the included pyrites, removal to.a con- 

 siderable extent of the resulting sulphuric acid and diminution of 

 the carbonate of lime and magnesia. The several sections care- 

 fully examined by the authors showed that on tlie north side the 

 gravels have a thickness varying from 9 to 13 feet, and thin out 

 and disappear before the Strand is reached. The contour of 

 the London clay is irregular, one line of 30 yards giving a varia- 

 tion of 7 feet in the thickness of the overlying gravels, due to 

 this cause. Deposits of oxide of manganese and sulphide of 

 iron occur in the gravels ; the former, it was contended, due to 

 natural causes, while the latter was probably owing to sewage 

 contamination. The bones of Bos, Capra, and Ejmis, were 

 found in the gravels, and in the underlying clay t«'enty-three 

 species of moUusca, including Fiisiis bifasciatiis and Pyrula 

 siiiWiii, characteristic, in the opinion of Mr. C. Evans, of a line 

 of the London clay 130 feet above the base. The gravels belong 

 to the west London block of the Middle Level gravels, the as- 

 certained thickness of which at various points was compared with 

 the thickness of the Lower Level gravels at South Kensington, 

 Battersea, and Westminster. These latter the authors concluded 

 were double the thickness of the western block of the Middle 

 Level gravels. In conclusion the authors drew attention to the 

 results of the operations of the existing river, and several ac- 

 curate measurements of the bed of the Thames were given in 

 illustration. — Mr. E. Charlesworth brought before the notice of 

 the Association some sharks' teeth from the Red Crag, having 

 certain perforations which, should they be proved to be the 

 result of human agency, would seem to carry the advent of man 

 on the earth back to Pliocene times. 



Society of Biblical Archseology, April 2.— Dr. Birch, 

 F.S.A., president, in the chair. "Notice of a Curious Myth 

 respecting the Birth of Sargina, from the Assyrian Tablets con- 

 taining an account of his Life." By Henry Fox Talbot. In 

 this paper Mr. Talbot showed that Sargina the First was a very 

 ancient king of Babylonia. The date of his reign is uncertain, 

 but it may be roughly estimated at fourteen or fifteen centuries 

 before the Christian era. He was a legislator and a conqueror, 

 and his arms appear to have reached the distant Mediterranean. 

 He fixed his capital at Ag.ani, in Babylonia, a city whose site 

 has not yet been discovered. His history, like that of other 

 ancient conquerors and legislators, has become partially involved 

 in fable. An account of his birth and infancy, preserved on a 

 tablet in the British Museum, offers a great similarity to that of 

 the infancy of Moses, as related in the second chapter of Exo- 

 dus. This account agrees very closely with the conduct of 

 Sargina's mother as described by the Assyrian tablet. " In a 

 secret place my mother had brought me forth. She placed me 

 in an ark of bulrushes ; with bitumen she closed up the door. 

 She threw me into the river, which did not enter into the ark. 

 The river bore me up, and brought me to the dwelling of a kind- 

 hearted fisherman. He saved my life, and brought me up as 

 his own son," &c. The inscription appears to have been a long 

 one, but only a small portion of the beginning has been well 

 preserved.— "On the Rise of Semitic Civilisation, chiefly 

 considered upon Philological Evidence." By the Rev. A. H. 

 Sayce. The author stated that comparative grammar has 

 shown that the Semitic language belongs to a late period in the 

 history of the development of speech, and presupposes a parent- 

 lanijuage, possibly connected with the old Egyptian and the sub- 

 Semitic dialects of North Africa. Many objections, however, lie 

 against the biliteral theory, and most of the bilileral roots are 

 probably of foreign origin. This is Accadian, also the source, 

 it would seem, of the early Semitic traditions. Thus two at 

 j least of the rivers of Paradise are Babylonian, and the Sisuthrus 



