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NA TURE 



\_7nnc 7, 1877 



viscous when emitted, and crystals of chloride of ammo- 

 nium were found in the vicinity of the craters. Only 

 slight traces of the volcanic action remain now, where 

 warm air arises from the thicker layers of lava. 



Prof. Johnstrup is engaged at present in the preparation 

 of maps showing the successive deposits of lava from the 

 older eruptions, as well as from the more recent. The 

 Hlidar range, hitherto regarded as a palagonite formation, 

 was found by him to consist of trachytic masses, a more 

 ancient, and in Iceland rarer, formation than palagonite. 



In connection with Prof Johnstrup's Report we may 

 refer to IVIr. Watts's interesli ig narrative of his journey 

 across the Vatna Jokull.i Mr. Watts's name is already 

 well known in connection with recent exploration in Ice- 

 land. He has for long had a strong desire to cross the 

 Vatna JokuU, and at last succeeded. We infer- for his 

 narrative is almost innocent of dates — that the feat took 

 place in the summer of 1S75. The preparations made 

 remind one of those necessary before setting out on an 

 Arctic expedition, and the whole journey bore a strong 

 resemblance to those sledge journeys we read of in con- 

 nection with the recent polar expedition. There were 

 sledges, tent, sleeping bag, pemmican, and similar stores ; 

 frost-bites, snow-storms, and weary detentions for favour- 

 able weather and ground. The Vatna Jokull, we learn 

 from Mr. Watts, is a vast accumulation of volcanoes, ice, 

 and snow, covering an area of over 3,000 square miles in 

 the south-east of Iceland. It is a plateau of from 4,000 

 to 6,000 feet high, is surrounded on all sides by volcanic 

 mountains, and gives birth to glaciers on various sides. 

 On the south especially it seems to be advancing, and 

 there the glacier may soon reach the sea and give 

 birth to miniature icebergs. Mr. Watts crossed at 

 the east side, and after suffering considerable hard- 

 ships he and his party reached the farm of Grimstadr, 

 in the north of Iceland. From here Mr. Watts returned 

 southwards to the northern edge of the Vatna Jokull 

 for the purpose of examining the Oskjigja, a huge and 

 active crater on the south of the Askja, or Dyngjufjall, 

 referred to by Prof Johnstrup. Mr. Watts gives many 

 interesting and important details concerning this moun- 

 tain and the desolate country in its vicinity, covered 

 with pumice dust and other products of eruption. 

 Mr. Watts also visited the region around the Myvatn 

 Lake, near which are the sulphur deposits which a 

 company was started to work. After visiting one or two 

 places on the n^,rth coast he returned to Reykjavik 

 right across the centre of the country. Notwithstanding 

 the defects of style, the want of dates, and occasional 

 vagueness, Mr. Watts's narrative is a really valuable 

 and interesting contribution to a knowledge of the 

 physical geography of Iceland, and he has the honour to 

 be the first, so far as known, to have crossed the great 

 Icelandic waste. 



THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 



IN the number for May 24 we gave abstracts of the 

 papers read by Professors Dawkins and Hughes, and 

 Mr. Tiddeman at the Conference on the subject of the 

 Antiquity of Man at the Anthropological Institute, and 

 this week we give a report of the discussion which followed 

 the reading of these papers, the remarks of the various 

 speakers, we may state, having been revised by themselves. 



Prof. Busk wished to explain, before the discussion com- 

 menced, the circumstances connected with the interesting frag- 

 ment of bone, for the determination of wfiich he was personally 

 responsible. This " bone of contention " was represented by the 

 cast which h» held in his hand. He was surprised that such a 

 lirge superstructure had been raised upon that particular piece. 

 It was merely a fragment, evidently of a fibula, one of the most 

 variable bones in the body. It was received by him, together 

 with a large collection of other remiins from Mr. Tiddeman, 



> ■■ Across the Valna Jiikvill ; or, Scenes in Iceland," by William Lord 

 Watts. (Loudon; Longmans and Co.J 



and for a long time remained an insoluble proMem. At last, 

 after many conjectural determinations by himself and others, 

 Mr. James Flower, the well-known articulator to the Royal Col- 

 lege of Surgeons, discovered in the College a human fibula of 

 unusual size, and with which, as he pointed out, the Victoria 

 Cave bone corresponded in many particulars. This determina- 

 tion, with the reasons for it, and illustrated by figures, was pub- 

 lished in the 7'""'«''^ of the Institute. At the same time Mr. 

 Busk was perfectly open to be convinced that it might be ursine. 

 But ahh High Prof. Boyd Dawkins had been good enough to 

 show him bones of fossil bears of surprising size, none of 

 them quite came up to the one in question. Nor at Toulouse, 

 where there is such an enormous collection of ursine remains, 

 did Mr. Busk observe any of corresponding dimensions. He 

 was himself still disposed to regard the specimen as a fragment 

 of an abnormally large human fibula, hut thought that at present 

 it would be unsafe to build any strong conclusions upon it. 



Pro'". RoUeston stited that in digging out a British skeleton 

 he came upon a fibula standing vertically. They went on and 

 he took out every hone with his own hands and they came to a 

 skeleton, contrac'ed in the ordinary British way, which was whole, 

 minus that one fibula. A man is put into the ground with 

 his flesh and bones all upon him, the flesh decays, the stones 

 get upon him, the hones are loose and consequently the fibula 

 gets disturbed. Even granting that the one before ihem was a 

 human fibula he would lay less stress upon it than on any o'her 

 bone. In the Gibraltar Cave series the fibula;, owing to their 

 liability to displacement, were very often missing. He did not 

 in the least dispute the antiquity of the deposits in the Victoria 

 Cave. With respecl to the reindeer and the hippopotamus, they 

 might judge something from what they saw in the life and in 

 the flesh. He had seen the hippopotamus walking about in 

 very co'd weather in the Zoological Gardens seeming extremely 

 comfortable, and the rhinoceros and reindeer the same. Mr. 

 Evelyn, of Wotton, had kept reindeer alive for considerable 

 periods in England. At the time of Julius Cssar the reindeer 

 lived in Germany. At the present time the reindeer was the 

 food of the tiger in the Isle of Saghalien, North of Japan. There 

 the tiger, which has a black and thick fur, crosses the ice after 

 the reindeer. The skull of a young hippopotamus was found in 

 England, showing that the hippopotamus really did live here 

 and breed here too. Hence, mammals were not good indicators 

 of temperature. 



Prof. Prestwich referred to the observation of the president, that 

 to consider the present subject thoroughly required the knowledge 

 of the paleontologist, the anthropologist, the archaeologist, and the 

 geologist. He thoi-ght that it specially concerned the geologist 

 with regard to the sequence of events. The palceontological 

 evidence hardly presented sufficient differences. We had to deal 

 with the sequence of man from his first appearance in time geo- 

 logically to the present period. He would confine himself to the 

 evidence in the south of England and in the north of France. 

 In the south of England it was particularly clear and decisive ; 

 the datum line was distinct. It was atforded by the deposit 

 of the boulder clay, which ranged as far south as London. That 

 represented the glicial period. The post-glacial period he con- 

 sidered to be subsequent to the period of the deposit of the 

 boulder clay. Most of the discoveries made in this country have 

 been made in the districts of the south which have been covered 

 by the boulder clay, and it is in the drift jnd gravel of the valleys 

 excavated in the boulder clay of those dfstricts that the flint im- 

 plements have been so largely found ; therefore he believed that 

 in all that area man is of post-glacial age. If we got two levels 

 on either side of a valley, so many feet above sea-level, with the 

 boulder clay cut off on either side, then of course the dcbi-is 

 at the bottom of the valley would consist of gravel, and so on, 

 derived from materials which had been formed by the destruction 

 of the several strata which originally traversed that valley. The 

 materials so spread out were necessarily newer than the boulder 

 clay ; consequently man in the valleys was post-glacial. There 

 were sometimes two or three successive levels of gravels in those 

 vallcyi. If a valley was excavated to a certain depth, and a 

 deposit was formed in which they could find no traces of the 

 existence of man, whilst at another and deeper level flint imple- 

 ments were found, then man was introduced in that place only 

 when the valley was excavated to its greatest depth and the gravel 

 was spread out on the site now nearly occupied by our present 

 rivers. Unfortunately the mammalian remains of those neatly 

 connected periods were so alike that it was impossible to deter- 

 mine from the distinction of age. Bone caves were also found on 

 the sides of vallejsand in distiicts where there was scarcely any 



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