October 6, 1904J 



NA TURE. 



565 



in brickearth. Forty implements and numerous chipped 

 fragments have been found, and the position of certain well 

 wrought ova! implements, in and under compact clay at 

 the lowest levels, identifies them as missiles hurled at water- 

 fowl on the lake. Teeth of elephant, rhinoceros, ox, and 

 deer occur in coarse gravel below the implement layer, and 

 plant-roots in the clay below that. 



Prof. E. B. Poulton exhibited records of Palaeolithic man 

 from a new locality on the north-east coast of the Isle of 

 Wight, including every stage from flake to finished imple- 

 n ent. 



The sixth report of the committee on the lake village at 

 rilastonbury announced fresh excavation in 1904, under the 

 joint superintendence of .Mr. :\. Bulleid and Mr. H. St. G. 

 Gray. Eight mounds, containing two or more floors, were 

 examined, and plans and photographs secured. Objects of 

 amber, glass, and tin, and an adze of iron were found, as 

 well as bronze, stone, and bone objects, and pottery. In 

 one mound, peas were found in some quantity. Arrange- 

 ments are in progress for the publication of the results of ' 

 the whole excavation. 



Mr. F. R. Coles and Dr. T. II. Bryce described an inter- 

 Tiient of the early Iron age found at .Moredun, near Edin- 

 burgh, in 1903. .-V cist covered with flagstones contained 

 fragmentary human remains of normal local type, with a 

 fibula of La Tkne type, a ring-brooch, and a circular open 

 pinhead, indicating a date not later than the second century 

 A.D. This is tho first completely attested interment of early 

 Iron age in .Scotland. 



Dr. T. H. Bryce discussed a phase of transition between 

 the chambered cairns and closed cists in the south-west 

 corner of Scotland. The clue is given by a cairn at 

 Glecknabae, in Bute, which contained two " atypical 

 chambers set radially in the cairn and containing burnt 

 bones, and a closed cist with unburnt interment. One of 

 the chambers also contained an unburnt fragment. The 

 pottery, which included both typical " chamber " pottery 

 and also fragments of the " beaker "' class, indicated a triple 

 occupation of the site, and a late dale for the reduced 

 atypical chamber. 



The report of the Roman sites committee described work 

 in progress at .Silchester and Caerwent, and Mr. T. Ashby 

 summarised the season's progress on the latter site. The 

 south gate has been found to be parallel to the gate on the 

 other side, and an inscription dedicated to Mars bears the 

 date .\ugust 23, 152 .^.n. 



Prof. Flinders Petrie's excavations at Ehnasya have been 

 already mentioned in connection with his series of Roman 

 lamps. Ehnasya is the Roman Herakleopolis Magna and 

 the Egyptian Henensuten, about 70 miles south of Cairo 

 and 10 miles from the Nile. It was the home of the ninth 

 and tenth dynasties, of which hardly anything is known. 

 It is found to contain temples of the eighteenth and twelfth 

 dynasties, and under the latter a stratum of older houses and 

 burials with scarabs of ."Vntef V. This king has recentlv 

 been assigned to dynasty XVI. or X^TI., but is thus 

 brought earlier than dynasty XII. I-ater buildings of 

 dynasty XXIII. yielded a fine votive statuette, in 

 gold, of the local ram-headed deity. Hershefia, dedicated 

 by a vassal of King Piankhi ; and houses of Roman date 

 gave important evidence as to the stages by which 

 Christianity first displaced the native animal-cults, and then 

 itself absorbed the Isis and Horus worship as the Madonna- 

 cult. 



Mr. J. Garstang described his excavations in the Roval 

 tomb of Negadeh, in Ipper Egypt, which completed the 

 work begun some years back by the French, and recovered 

 another fragment of the " Tablet of .Mena," to whom the 

 tomb has been commonly attributed. 



Mr. R. \. Hall's recent excavations at Great Zimbabwe 

 show the ruins to be three times larger than was supposed, 

 and distinguish clearly between (ci) the original construc- 

 tions (e.g. the eastern half of the " f^lliptical Temple "), 

 which are still of uncertain age and associated with 

 numerous phalli, and (h) sundry additions which are shown 

 by .^rab pottery to be not older than about 1300 .\.D., and 

 do not contain phallic objects. Much useful work has been 

 done on behalf of the Chartered Company to preserve exist- 

 ing structures, and to clear the ruins of surface deposits 

 and other obstacles to study. 



NO. 1823 VOL. 70I 



BOTANY AT THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 

 HTHE meeting of the botanical section at Cambridge may 

 ■'■ probably be regarded as the most successful of the 

 whole series of meetings which have been held since botany 

 was constituted a separate section of the British Association. 

 .•\ large number of distinguished foreign botanists were pre- 

 sent, and there was a fully representative gathering of 

 British botanists to meet them. By the kindness of Prof. 

 H. Marshall Ward, F.R.S., the meetings were held in the 

 rooms of the new botany school, which proved to be 

 admirably suited for the purpose. Prof. Ward and the 

 botanicaf staff are to be congratulated upon the excellent 

 arrangements made for the lectures, lantern demonstrations, 

 exhibition of apparatus and specimens, &c., which con- 

 tributed so much to make the meeting a success. 



The president (.Mr. Francis Darwin, F.R.S.) in his 

 address, which has already appeared in Nature 

 (September 8), dealt with the 'perception of the force of 

 gravity by plants, and especially with the statolith theory 

 of geotropism. 



The general work of the section included, in addition to 

 the more technical papers, the usual semi-popular lecture^ 

 and a series of three addresses of a general character oa 

 important topics. 



The subject of the semi-popular lecture, which was de- 

 livered by Dr. D. H. Scott, F.R.S. , was a new aspect of 

 the Carboniferous flora. It was shown that Brongjniart's. 

 conception of the Carboniferous period as the reign of 

 Cryptogams can no longer be maintained. Recent work 

 has all tended to show that a large number— perhaps the- 

 majoritv— of the so-called ferns of that period were not true 

 ferns at all, but seed-bearing plants approaching the 

 Cycadophyta. While their atfmity with ferns is evident, 

 these plants had already acquired spermatophytic methods 

 of reproduction— hence the name Pteridospermeae is proposed 

 for them. If we further take into account the seed-plants 

 previously known— notably the Cordaitese— and those Lyco- 

 pods which produced organs analogous to seeds, we are 

 led to the conclusion that quite half the vascular plants of 

 the Carboniferous period had already assumed the seed-habit. 



Ecology. 



Prof. A. G. Tansley, in an address on the problems of 

 ecology, defined ecology for his purpose as the study of 

 those relations of plants to their environment dependent on 

 geographical and topographical factors. It is very largely 

 topographical aggregates, due to soil, water, and other 

 conditions with which ecology has to do, and the study of 

 these falls into two parts, descriptive and experimental. 

 The problems to be solved may be indicated during the 

 progress of an ordinary botanical survey, but it requires 

 the establishment of experimental stations in regions 

 characterised by definite and specialised floras in order that 

 the detailed investigation of the functional relations of plants 

 to their surroundings may be more completely carried out. 



Dr W. G. Smith, whose work in connection with the 

 botanical surveys of the north of England is so well known, 

 in referring to the ecological aspect of the British flora, 

 pointed out^ that, a general survey of the chief plant associ- 

 ations of Britain has so far revealed some broad principles 

 of distribution in relation to soil and climate, and that 

 when wider areas are investigated the chief plant associ- 

 ations may be more clearly defined as climatic, edaphic, or 

 biological formations. 



Mr T W. Woodhead gave an interesting account ot his 

 observations on the biology and distribution of woodland 

 plants and dealt with some of the principal factors, such 

 as shade, soil, &c., which tend to modify the plant associ- 

 ations under trees. , , r 



Prof. A. Engler (Berlin) read a paper on the plants of 

 the northern temperate zone in their transition to the high 

 mountains of tropical Africa, in which he pointed out that 

 the differences seen in most of the highland forms of plants 

 of tropical Africa, as compared with their relatives of ihe 

 northern temperate zone, are always in harmony with the 

 different climatic conditions. The modifications observed 

 may be regarded as adaptations, but only in the sense, that 

 the' adaptation is a passive one caused by the physical con- 



