Nov. 3, 1881] 
NATURE 3 
fully distinct on many specimens. The combs are much 
like those of the modern scorpion, but with a very 
remarkable sculpturing which at once recalls that so 
characteristic of the Eurypterids. The genital orifice, 
combs, and eight breathing stigmata occupy positions 
similar to those of the same organs in the modern 
scorpion. As regards theories of descent these fossils 
afford no more help in tracing the pedigree of the 
scorpion than is furnished by the living form, for it is 
)bvious that the scorpion has remained with hardly any 
change since Carboniferous times, There can be little 
Joubt that it is the most ancient type of Arachnid, whence 
he others have been derived. 
Since the first specimens of scorpion were found by the 
Geological Survey among the Lower Carboniferous beds 
of the Border further research has brought many more to 
ight from other and distant parts of the country. No 
ewer than five species belonging to a single genus 
Loscorpius) have been recognised by Mr. Peach, some 
of which must have contained individuals eight or ten 
nches in length. Most of these specimens, and also the 
srustacea and fishes above referred to, have been obtained 
oy the Survey fossil-collector, A. Macconochie, 
One further interesting fact deserves mention here. 
When the Geological Survey first began its work in Scot- 
and, and was engaged in mapping the east of Berwickshire 
und Haddingtonshire, a remarkable and hitherto unique 
specimen was found there which was described by Salter 
inder the name of Cycadites Caledonicus, as the most 
ncient cycad yet known. Among the specimens recently 
Blected by A. Macconochie from the Border ground are 
everal apparently of this same form which are so well 
reserved as to show that they are not plants at all. They 
yecur together with species of EwryPferws,and are almost 
ertainly a yet undescribed comb-like organ belonging 
that creature. This fact, coupled with the singular 
jurypterid-like sculpture on the combs of the fossil scor- 
jions, lends support to the suggestion which has been 
ade that the eurypterids are ancestral aquatic arachnids. 
ARCH. GEIKIE 
THE HEAD-HUNTERS OF BORNEO 
he Head-hunters of Borneo: a Narrative of Travel up 
the Mahakkam and down the Barito ; also Fourneyings 
in Sumatra, By Carl Bock (late Commissioner of the 
{Dutch Government). With thirty Coloured Plates, 
Map, and other Illustrations. (London: Sampson 
Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington, 1881.) 
[HIS large and lavishly-illustrated volume derives its 
chief value from the fact that the author is a clever 
ist, and that all the handsome coloured plates which 
m the main feature of the book are evidently careful 
awings made on the spot, not imaginary designs con- 
Hicted from more or less imperfect sketches or descrip- 
ms. The houses, villages, and forest scenes are all true 
nature, and the same may be said of the numerous 
htrait of the Dyaks and illustrations of their domestic 
and customs. The figures are indeed wonderfully 
-like and the drawing accurate, the only fault being 
ery slight tendency to Europeanise the features—a 
d of personal equation due to Mr. Bock’s artistic 
\dies having been made from European models. This 
is visible in the small and well-formed mouths of the two 
women in Plate 16, and in the perfectly straight and 
well-developed nose of the “ Chief of the Forest People’’ 
in Plate 24. When, however, he has taken special pains 
and has had ample time to finish his drawing, as in 
“Hetdung, my favourite Dyak Boy” (Plate 23), he 
avoids this fault, and gives us a portrait as perfect 
and as characteristic as a good photograph. 
Mr. Bock went out to the East to collect birds in 
Sumatra for the late Marquis of Tweeddale, and spent 
about nine months in that island. He was then em- 
ployed by the Dutch Government to make an excursion 
through the interior of Borneo, to report on some of the 
Dyak tribes and collect specimens of natural history for 
the museums of Holland. This journey, which occupied 
in its preparation and execution about six months, was 
partly over ground new to European travellers; first to 
the country of the Poonau Dyaks in about 1° 4o’ N. lat., 
116° 30’ E. long,, and then up a western tributary of the 
Mahakkam or Koti River, and overland for a short 
distance to the head waters of the Teweh, a branch of 
the Barito or Banjermassin River. This watershed is 
in about o° 5’ S. lat. and 115° 35’ E. long., and appears to 
consist of an undulating country with a few detached 
hills. It is however marked by a curious geological 
phenomenon very rarely met with in the tropics, a large 
area covered with huge angular rocks, of every shape and 
size and tossed about in the greatest confusion, It is 
called by the natives ¥a/an bat, or the Stony way, and 
our author’s description of it will bear quotation ;— 
“Covering an area of several square miles, and crop- 
ping up as it were in the centre of a vast forest, this 
Field of Stones is well calculated to arouse the super- 
stitious dread of a savage people. Here scattered in 
wonderful confusion like the remains of a ruined castle : 
there standing erect and orderly as if carved by chisel 
and levelled by plumb-line and square: some in pon- 
derous masses as large as a house, fifty or sixty feet in 
height and of still greater width and thickness : others 
heaped like so many petrified cocoa-nuts, or like a pile of 
forty-pounder cannon-balls : here bare and gaunt like the 
pillars of Stonehenge ; there moss-covered and decked 
with ferns or gorgeous flowers : in all directions for miles 
and miles the stones lie scattered. Some of them have 
assumed fantastic shapes, in which the imagination can 
easily picture a travesty of the human form, or of other 
familiar objects: others again are marked with quaint 
devices, where wind and rain have put finishing touches 
to natural cracks and crevices, and made them assume 
the appearance of deliberately carved inscriptions, like 
those seen on ancient weather-beaten tombstones—or 
rather, like the curious ‘ picture-writings’ found on scat- 
tered stones and rocks in British Guiana and other parts 
of South America, . . . For miles our route lay through 
this wilderness of sterility and fertility combined—some- 
times creeping between two parallel walls of stone, thrown 
so closely together that there was scarcely room to walk 
sideways ; sometimes making a considerable défour to 
avoid a more than usually rough spot. In some places 
the earth was covered with small loose stones, most diffi- 
cult and painful to walk over; in others, the ground 
seemed to be of solid rock, and great care was necessary 
in walking to prevent one’s feet being fixed in one of the 
innumerable crevices, which were the more dangerous 
from being partially covered by vegetation. Many of the 
large stones were so lightly balanced on a small founda~ 
tion that it seemed as if the exercise of a moderate force 
would be sufficient to overturn them.” 
