SEPTEMBER 4, 1913] 
isations. The last year’s work covered 519 miles of 
the Red River from its confluence with the 
Mississippi. Few burial places were found in 
Louisiana, as these were mainly in the often 
flooded level ground, and the artificial 
were erected for places of residence; since most of the 
finds are obtained from graves the spoil was not very 
large, and as many of the mounds are now utilised 
they could not be satisfactorily investigated. 
Along the Red River in Arkansas the conditions in 
the main are different; mounds containing burials, 
some of them richly endowed with artifacts, are fairly 
abundant, and further northward the lavish use of 
pottery with burials has often been described. It 
seems probable that the Arkansas mound burials were 
those of people of consequence. The pottery of Arkan- 
sas is as a rule tempered with fine gravel or sand, or 
with small bits of pottery, though kitchen vessels are 
often shell-tempered. The ware is thin and carefully 
modelled. There are few unusual shapes, grotesque 
or life forms were very rarely attempted, though they 
occur in the region to the north. Many vessels bear 
a high polish, and nearly all have incised designs 
filled in with red or white pigment. Circles, often 
series of concentric circles (probably sun-symbols), 
form a frequently recurring design. Decoration in 
polychrome was very exceptional, though common 
A remarkable feature—indeed, it 
is unique—in connection with some of the mounds 
is the depth of the grave-pits; one reached 15-5 ft. in 
two | 
more to the north. 
depth. Among several interesting pipes, 
types have not been met with hitherto. One 
form, from Haley Place, is of earthenware, 
the truncate conical bowl of which occurs at 
some distance from the end, the terminal continua- | 
| protuberances, 
tion of the stem being hollow; one is nearly 23 in. 
long. The other, from Gahagan, is moulded to repre- 
sent a kneeling man; there is a communication be- 
tween the bowl and the open mouth of the figure, so 
that smoke can be made to emerge from it when the 
pipe is in use (Fig. 1). A number of beautiful useful 
and ceremonial stone implements were found, and 
various interesting pendants, some of which have the 
form of a lizard; one was tormerly coated with 
sheet copper, as were also the large circular ear- 
plugs of limestone. It is, however, impossible to 
point out all the items of interest in this memoir. 
Dr. Hrdli¢ka adds a notice on the human remains. 
He says the skeletons from Haley Place and the 
McClure mounds probably may be safely ascribed to 
an extension of the Natchez people; the skulls ex- 
hibited deformation of the ‘* Flathead” variety. 
A. C. Happon. 
NO. 2288, VOL. 92} 
mounds | 
NATURE 19 
MAGNETIC STORMS AND SOLAR 
PHENOMENA.1 
[‘ the publication referred to below only the first 
thesis is printed. It deals with the relations 
between magnetic storms and solar phenomena. The 
thesis shows the nimbleness of mind one hopes to see 
in those who have taken high mathematical degrees 
at Cambridge, accompanied by a knowledge of terres- 
trial magnetism most unusual] in British seats of learn- 
ing. There are, it is true, researches bearing on the 
subjects investigated of which the author seems un- 
aware, but his knowledge of foreign writings, includ- 
in theoretical work by Kelvin, Larmor, Birkeland, 
Stérmer, and Schuster, and observational work by 
Walker, Airy, Ellis, Maunder, Hale, and many others, 
is highly commendable. Also the attitude he adopts 
towards the work he criticises is generally philo- 
sophical. Thus, taking Kelvin’s attempted demon- 
stration that solar action cannot be the proximate 
cause of magnetic storms, Bosler points out that there 
are possibilities not considered by Kelvin making 
much smaller demands on the sun’s stores-of energy, 
and that in the light of modern knowledge no one can 
say what is a reasonable limit to solar expenditure. 
On the other hand, he recognises that Kelvin’s 
work directed attention to a point apt to be 
overlooked. 
Dr. Bosler regards his countryman Marchand (1887) 
as the first to claim a connection between the occur- 
rence of magnetic storms and the presence of individual 
sun-spots or faculae near the sun’s central meridian, 
but he regards Maunder’s observations on the recur- 
rence of storms in the solar rotation period as the 
strongest evidence yet advanced in favour of this view. 
He seems to be unaware of Broun’s early work. He 
| apparently accepts Sabine’s deduction of an eleven- 
| year period—corresponding to the 
solar period—in 
magnetic disturbances, but while recognising the 
strength of the evidence adduced—especially that of 
Maunder—in favour of solar jet theories, he considers 
Dr. Schuster to have demonstrated the impossibility 
of swarms of any kind of electrified particles sticking 
together all the way from the sun to the earth. The 
view he inclines to is that earth currents are the imme- 
diate cause of most, if not all, magnetic disturbances. 
The evidence he advances in favour of this view is 
derived from comparisons of records of magnetic 
storms at Pare St. Maur and Greenwich—especially 
those known as ‘‘sudden commencements '"'—with cor- 
responding records of earth currents. This from an 
observational point of view is probably the most 
important part of the thesis, though only partly 
novel. 
The author thinks earth currents may be produced 
by movements of electrified matter—associated with 
r spots, or facula—on the sun. 
Taking the case of a cable of 0-25 cm.? section, made 
of copper of resistivity 1600, enclosing a circle 8000 km. 
in perimeter, he calculates that the current induced 
in the cable by a magnetic field of amplitude roy and 
period ro sec., normal to the plane of the circle, would 
at a distance 6f one metre from the wire produce an 
alternating magnetic field of amplitude 12507. This 
is adduced as an illustration of how a small field 
originating in the sun might be amplified on the earth. 
The idea may be worth considering, but the problem 
treated seems somewhat too remote from actuality. 
The magnetician will find a variety of other interest- 
ing matter in the thesis. 
C. CHREE. 
1 ‘© Theses rrésentées A la Faculté des Sciences de Paris pour obtenir le 
grade de Docteur és Sciences Mathématiques." By M. J. Bosler. Pp. 96. 
‘Paris : Gauthier-Villars, 1912.) 
