228 



NA TURE 



[January 4, 1906 



(23,622 feet) was correctly fixed, and the discovery 

 was made that this, the culminating eminence of the 

 whole Tian-Shan, does not stand in the main water- 

 shed, and is not a nucleus of converging ranges, 

 but is situated on a secondary spur which projects 

 from the main range far to the south-west. The 

 true " nucleus " is the so-called " Marble Wall," 

 which in lieu of a better name Dr. Merzbacher has 

 christened alter the president of the Imperial Russian 

 Geographical Society Mount Nicholas Mikhailovich ! 

 The Inylchek glacier was found to have a total length 

 of from forty-three to forty-six miles, in place of six 

 to eight miles as previously supposed, and another 

 equally large glacier was discovered but not visited. 

 In the matter of climbing Khan-Tengri, which has 

 been sometimes wrongly assumed to have been the 

 main object of this expedition, Dr. Merzbacher points 

 out the difficulties, which will probably have the result 

 of exciting someone to make the attempt. 



An accident which resulted in the unfortunate 

 destruction of many photographic plates gave the 

 energetic traveller an excuse for revisiting some of 

 the ground already traversed, and 



enabling him, owing to the finer 



weather, to take still better photo- 

 graphs. Dr. Merzbacher's visit to 

 the alpine lakes, such a rare pheno- 

 menon in the central Tian-Shan, 

 and his notes thereon are of great 

 interest, but as winter was closing 

 in work became more difficult, and 

 the expedition finally reached Tash- 

 kent via Kulja. 



Regarding this volume as a pre- 

 liminary report Dr. Merzbacher 

 deprecates drawing conclusions 

 from the facts noted until his rich 

 materials have been examined by 

 competent experts. He however 

 mentions one point on which his 

 scientific conviction is settled once 

 and for all, namely, that for the 

 Tian-Shan also an Ice age has to 

 be accepted. 



Photography was used on this 

 expedition to an unprecedented 

 extent, many beautiful views being 

 due to ihe telephotographic pro- 

 cess, which was used with excel- 

 lent results. In addition to 

 botanical and zoological collections 

 climatic observations were taken 



twice daily, while the map was compiled with great 

 care, and is also well drawn and beautifully repro- 

 duced. It is a pity thai the same symbol should have 

 been used to denote permanent villages and the 

 pasturages, which are only visited at certain seasons 

 by the Kirghiz herdsmen. 



This volume, which is published under the authority 

 of the Royal Geographical Society, is a worthy record 

 of scientific work carried out under great difficulties. 

 The author is to be warmly congratulated. 



A LARGE-HEADED DINOSAUR. 

 T^HE mounted skeleton of Triceratops prorsus, of 

 * which a note by Mr. Charles W. Gilmore, pre- 

 parator to the department of geology in the United 

 States National Museum, Washington, has recently 

 been published ' with two plates, is interesting as dis- 

 playing another I )inosaur of a distinct and very remark- 

 able type, differing entirely from the numerous series 



, Washington, vol. xxix., pp. 



of bipedal forms with which we are now familiar from 

 the reconstructed skeleton of the iguanodon and its 

 allies, and also from the ponderous quadrupedal, 

 long-necked, small-headed Diplodocus, Brontosaurus, 

 and Cetiosaurus types of gigantic herbivorous reptiles. 

 Compared with these latter, Triceratops was a quad- 

 rupedal reptile of quite moderate size, the skeleton, 

 according to the late Prof. Marsh, being not more 

 than 25 feet in length and 10 feet in height. The 

 present reconstruction by Mr. Gilmore still further 

 reduces its length by the omission of six of the pre- 

 sacral vertebrae (introduced by Prof. Marsh), so that, 

 as now restored, its total length is only 19 feet 

 8 inches. 



The striking feature, which remains unchanged, is 

 the skull, which is fully 6 feet long, and is conse- 

 quently just one-third of the entire length of the 

 skeleton as now set up. 



Two powerful horn-cores of the bovine type, .■ ', feel 

 in length, rise from the frontal boms ol the skull, at 

 the base of which are the round bony orbits. The 

 snout is narrow and pointed, and carries a third 



Skeleton of Triceratops /: 



1 Proc. United States Rational Museim 

 33-435, with plates i. and ii., 1005. 



NO. 1888, \OL. 73] 



smaller horn upon the nasal bone. Behind the pair 

 of frontal horns is an immense frill of bone spreading 

 back over the occipital region and covering the first 

 si\ cervical vertebrae; it was 2 feet 6 inches long and 

 3 feet broad, resembling an immense Elizabethan 

 ruff, ornamented with about twenty-four pointed 

 bosses ol bone along its border. The rostrum and 

 predentary bones were armed with pointed horny 

 beaks, the teeth being confined to the maxillary and 

 dentary bones, forming a single series in each jaw. 

 They are remarkable as having two di-t in, 1 fangs, 

 placed transversely in the jaw, with distinct sockets, 

 and are displaced vertically; the suceession.il teeth 

 cut their way between the alveolar margin and the 

 adjacent root of the old tooth, or between the two 

 roots. Prof. Marsh had published a restoration of 

 this dinosaur in 1891 (see Geol. Mag., plate vii. ) , the 

 chief difference between which and the present skele- 

 ton sel up by Mr. Gilmore being the reduction in the 

 number of the presacral vertebra 1 , already referred 

 to, and the placing of the limbs, especially the fore- 

 limbs (the humerus and the radius and ulna), in a 



