144 
NATURE 
[OcTOBER 2, 1913 
a central body, but he finds that there are several 
details that are difficult to explain which will perhaps 
be cleared up when more material has been collected. 
THe WaAvVE-LENGTHS OF CeErRTAIN IRON LinEs.—It 
is important for the accurate determination of wave- 
lengths in a spectrum to have available a large number 
of standard wave-lengths well distributed over the 
whole length of the spectrum. The work which the 
Solar Union initiated in this respect has been most 
valuable, and the task of determining more constants 
and of securing greater accuracy is no light one. By 
the aid of a grant of the Martin Kellogg fellowship 
in the Lick Observatory and of the generosity of MM. 
Buisson and Fabry, who placed the necessary ap- 
paratus and also constant help and advice at his ser- 
vice, Mr. Keivin Burns has been able to make a series 
of interference measures of standards in the iron 
spectrum between the limits 4A45434A and 8824A. The 
results of this research are recorded in Lick Bulletin, 
No. 233, and, in addition to the international standards 
already determined between the above-mentioned 
limits, he has added another one hundred and nineteen 
lines in regions which were lacking in international 
standard lines. Small discrepancies in different 
measures of some standard lines have led to the con- 
sideration of their variability of wave-length. Mr. 
Burns has had access to the manuscript of Dr. Goos, 
in which a special study has been made of the source 
of this variability, and he agrees entirely with the 
view, namely, that ‘‘Dr. Goos insists on the necessity 
of determining exactly what conditions the arc is to 
used.” In this journal for September 11 last, further 
details will be found regarding the specified conditions 
for the determinations of further standards which 
were recommended by the committee of the Soiar 
Union on standard wave-lengths at the recent meeting 
in Bonn. 
THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN SOUTH 
AMERICA.} 
Sees problem of the antiquity of man in South 
America has given rise to many papers and 
much discussion in various languages, and it became 
necessary for a trained anthropologist and geologist 
to study on the spot the human remains and the exact 
mode of their occurrence. Dr. A. Hrdliéka was un- 
doubtedly the anthropologist best fitted for the inves- 
tigation, as he has an unequalled knowledge of the 
physical anthropology of the American Indian and 
had ‘already summarised his own investigations on 
the antiquity of man in North America in Bulletin 33 
of the Bureau of American Ethnology (1907), where 
he states his conclusion that ‘“‘no human bones of 
undisputed geological antiquity are known,” and that 
the remains exhibit a ‘close affinity to or identity 
with those of the modern Indian.” 
Mr. Bailey Willis, of the U.S. Geological Survey, 
who had done important work on the loess and 
related formations in North America and China, 
accompanied Dr. Hrdliéka to Argentina in May, 1910, 
The Argentine men of science received them very 
cordially, and facilitated their work. Most of the 
specimens they were to examine had been described 
by Prof. F. Ameghino, to whose energy and enthu- 
siasm South American palzeontology owes so much, 
and it must have saddened his last hours to know— 
if indeed he admitted it—that zeal is a poor substitute 
for knowledge when the details of human anatomy 
are in question. 
1 “ Early Manin South America.” By Ales Hrdlicka, in collaboration with 
W. H. Holmes, Bnilev Willis, Fred E. Wright, and Clarence N. Fenner. 
Pp. xv+ 405+68. (Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology, 
Rulletin 52. Washington, 1912.) 
NO. 2292, VOL. 92] 
1 consider the age of the 
Mr. Bailey Willis gives an excellent account of the 
geology of central eastern Argentina, more especially 
of the Pampean terrane, which is a remarkably 
uniform deposit of fine-grained earth, probably an 
eolian formation of desert plateau origin, transported 
by rivers to the lowlands, but during arid episodes the 
alluvium was partially converted into eolian loess. 
There is no evidence at present that man lived during 
Pampean times, but his remains have been found in 
the Upper Pampean and Post Pampean, also mainly 
eolian loess formations, which lie in hollows sculp- 
tured in the surface of the Pampean, also in many 
cases there is a distinct unconformity beneath the 
deposits of the Upper Pampean. <A great deal has 
been written about the tierra cocida, or burnt earth 
which occurs in the Pampean terrane at various 
horizons; many of these may have been due to the 
burning of grasses, but there is nothing to connect 
the burnt earths of the Pampean with man. 
Messrs. F. E. Wright and C. N. Fenner present 
details of their petrographic studies of specimens of 
the loess, tierra cocida, and scoriz. They state that 
many specimens of tierra cocida are so large and com- 
pact that one is forced to assume long-continued and 
confined heating at a fairly high temperature, such 
as would be encountered near the contact of an in- 
trusive igneous or volcanic mass, but not beneath 
an open fire made of grass or small timber. 
Dr. Hrdli¢ka discusses the peculiar stone industries 
of the Argentine coast. Ameghino considered that the 
“split-stone’’ industry “is in certain respects more 
primitive than that of the eoliths of Europe,” referring 
it to the Middle Pliocene, and that it was preceded 
by a “broken-stone”’ industry. Dr. F. F, Outes 
denied the distinctiveness and great antiquity of these 
techniques, and Hrdli¢ka confirms him. Dr. W. H. 
Holmes supplies a valuable critical study of the stone 
implements collected by the expedition, which should 
be read. by European archzologists, as it contains 
information of general interest. 
The greater part of the book consists of a discussion 
by Dr. Hrdli¢ka of the human remains; his system 
is to note the history and earlier reports, then to 
give the result of his own examination, and to conclude 
with critical remarks. He first deals with the dolicho- 
cephalic skulls found in the caves at Lagoa Santa, 
Brazil, and states that there is no evidence that they 
belonged to a race which lived contemporaneously 
with the extinct species of animals found in the same 
caves. Similarly the Carcarafia, Rio Negro, Saladero, 
Fontezuelas, and other remains have no solid claims 
to geological antiquity. The Homo caputinclinatus 
and H. sinemento of Ameghino prove to be skulls of 
ordinary Indian type, with no title to antiquity; the 
same holds good for H. (Prothomo) pampaeus, despite 
Ameghino’s statement that it is the ‘earliest human 
representative—if not even a predecessor of man.” 
Concerning the fragmentary calvarium, Diprothomo 
platensis, of reputed Lower Pliocene origin, Hrdli¢ka 
supports Schwalbe’s statement that ‘“‘all the features 
dwelt upon *by Ameghino are referable to a wholly 
false orientation of the specimen.”’ Bailey Willis cannot 
give his support to the statement that the calvarium 
was really dug out of undisturbed ancient Pampean. 
Finally, the atlas and femur of Tetraprothomo 
argentinus, of supposed Upper Miocene age, have been 
subjected to a searching analysis by Hrdli¢ka, with 
the result that there is nothing to distinguish the 
former from the atlas of a modern Indian, and the 
femur is that of a carnivore, probably of an extinct 
form of one of the Felidw. Bailey Willis ‘‘does not 
so-called Monte Hermoso 
formation [in which the remains were found] definitely 
j established,” nor does he ‘attach any significance to 
