358 
‘ the English invasion, there was no evidence of any larger breed 
than the small short-horned Zos /ongifrons; the larger breed of the 
Urus type were probably imported by the English, and is repre- 
sented at the present day in its purity by the white-bodied, red- 
eared Chillinghan ox. In the course of the discussion Dr. 
Sclater fully agreed with the views of the speaker as to the 
eastern origin of our domestic animals, since the East is the only 
region in which the wild ancestors of the domestic breeds are 
now found, 
The President then read a paper On Auman and Animal 
Bones and Flints from a Cave at Oban, Argyleshire. The cave 
contained the remains of man associated with flint-flakes and the 
bones of the red and roe deer, fox, otter, and possibly reindeer. 
The human teeth were unground, and contrasted strongly in their 
preservation with those of modern civilised races ; the leg-bones 
also presented features which possibly may be platycnemic. The 
date of the cave is uncertain, but the association of flint imple- 
ments with the human and animal bones pointed to a consider- 
able antiquity. 
W. Boyd Dawkins made some remarks on the Classification 
of the Paleolithic Age by means of the Mammalia. The emi- 
nent French naturalist, M. Lartet, acting on the @ prior7 con- 
sideration, has attempted to divide up the palzeolithic age into 
four distinct periods. ‘ L’age du grand ours des cavernes, lage 
Velephant et du rhinocéros, lage du renne, et l’age de l’aurochs.” 
He said the very simplicity of the system had made it popular. 
A cave bear is found in a bed of gravel of a cave, and you put it 
down to the period of the great bear ; you find an aurochs, and 
forthwith assign it to the latestage. There are, however, two fatal 
objections to this mode of classification. In the first place, 
nobody could expect to find the whole Quaternary fauna buried 
in one spot. One animal could not fail to be better represented 
in one locality than another, and therefore the contents of the 
caves and river deposits must have been different. The den ofa 
hyzena could hardly be expected to afford precisely the same 
animals as a cave which had been filled with bones by the action 
of water. It therefore follows that the very diversity which M. 
Lartet insists upon as representing different periods of time, must 
necessarily have been the result of different animals occupyirg 
the same area at thesame time. In the second place, M. Lariet 
has not advanced a shadow of proof as to which of these animals 
was the first to arrive in Europe. From the fact that the Glacial 
period was colder than the Quaternary, it is probable that the 
Arctic Mammalia, the mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, and the 
reindeer arrived here before the advent of the cave bear. Itis 
undoubtedly true that they died out one by one, and it is very 
probable that they came in also gradually. The fossil remains 
from the English caves and river-deposits, as, for instance, those 
of Kent’s Hole or Bedford, prove only that the animals inhabited 
Britain at the same time, and do not in the least degree warrant 
any speculation as to which animal came here first. Nor does it 
apply to France or Belgium, for in the Reindeer caves of both 
these countries the four animals in question occur together—the 
Mammoth with the Reindeer and the Aurochs with the Urus. 
In Belgium, indeed, the reindeer was probably living in the 
Neolithic bronze and iron ages, since it lived in the Hercynian 
forest in the days of Julius Cesar. 
SECTION E. 
At the opening of this Section on Monday morning two very 
interesting papers were read by Mr. C. R. Markham, Ox the 
Recent North Polar Expeditions, one was by Dr. Copeland, on 
the Second German Arctic Expedition, and the other by Capt. 
Ward, R.N., on the American Arctic Expedition. Both papers 
contained details of great interest, some of which have, however, 
already been published in Petermann’s J/ittheilungen, and else- 
where ; and it is impossible in a short space to give even an 
abstract of them. ‘They gave rise to interesting discussions. 
The proceedings of this Section closed on Tuesday, August 8, 
when Mr. A. Buchan read a paper Ox the Rainfall of the 
Northern Hemisphere in July contrasted with that for Fanuary. 
The paper was illustrated by chart showing the distribution of 
rain in inches over the greater portion of the northern hemisphere 
in July. Mr. Buchan described the principles which guided him 
in drawing lines representing the rainfall of the globe—namely, to 
reject all places which, being in the immediate vicinity of hills or 
rising grounds, did not represent the average rainfall of the dis- 
trict ; secondly, he drew lines of rainfall for each month 

NATURE 



separately. The months of July and January were selected, 
because in these months the greatest effect of heat and cold on 
the earth’s atmosphere and its movements occurred. In July 
the line of the rainfall passed through the south of Spain, the 
north of Africa, through Syria, and thence westwards into the 
desert of Cobi, thus forming the northern boundary line of the 
rainless region of this part of the globe in July. The map fur- 
ther showed that the greatest amount of rainfall occurred in the 
centre of the continent of Asia and Europe, taking them both as 
one continent; and that the line of greatest rainfall passed 
through the centre of Europe and towards the centre of Asia to 
some distance north of the Caspian. In India, the line of the 
rainfall passed a little to the west of the Ganges, east of which 
the lines representing inches could not be shown ; and the whole ~ 
of this region was therefore marked by a deep red to show the 
rainfall was enormous ; and the rainfall was also very excessive 
in Further India, and in the east of Asia generally. In America 
the line of the rainfall included California and the neighbouring 
regions. Very heavy rainfall occurred in the lake district of the 
north-western sides which sloped eastward—that is, those to 
the east of the mountains ; but the heaviest rainfall occurred in 
the sides bordering on the Gulf of Mexico and the whole of the 
eastern slope of Central America. In the map contrasting the 
rainfall of July with that of January, there were two sets of lines 
—hblue and red, the red showing those regions at which the rain- 
fall of July exceeded that of January, and the blue those regions 
where the rainfall was less than that of January. Mr, Buchan 
showed that where there were prevailing winds blowing into 
warmer latitudes the rainfall was not defective, even though 
those winds came from the ocean, and illustrated his re- 
marks by the summer rainfall of the south of Europe and 
the north of Africa, and by that of California. The greatest 
excess of the rainfall in July was in those regions to which the 
prevailing winds arrived after having traversed a vast extent of 
ocean, India and Central America. Illustrating this connection, 
on the western slopes of the British Isles the rainfall in July was 
less than that of January, but on the eastern slopes it was greater. 
In July, when the prevailing winds blew from the Atlantic east- 
wards into the centre of the great continent, the rainfall of the 
hills of this immense tract was greatly in excess in July of what 
it was in January. Mr. Buchan also pointed out the importance 
of inquiry in reference to the great movement of the atmosphere, 
especially the vapour which was condensed into rain, and which 
must come from some neighbouring surface. The important 
bearing of the subject on physical geography and climate, and the 
distribution of vegetable and animal life on the globe, was also 
pointed out. 
On the conclusion of the paper, Colonel Yule remarked that 
Mr. Buchan had not gone beyond six inches in his calculations, 
but he wished to state that in the place where his earliest service 
began—in the district of Assam—there fell, in the month of 
August 1841, 30 inches of rain on six days continuously, or 180 
inches in all, while the whole rainfall of Edinburgh for a year 
was about 26 inches. During that same month of August the 
rainfall was 264 inches, or 22 feet. He thanked Mr. Buchan 
heartily for his paper, and hoped that his maps and observations 
would be published before long in a shape in which they could 
all have access to them, 
The only remaining paper of more than pure geographical 
interest was by Captain L. Brine, R.N., Ox the Ruined Cities 
of Central America. It stated that it was not until the year 
1870—more than than 200 years after the Spanish conquest 
-—that the existence of ruined cities and temples lying 
hidden in the jungles and forests of Central America was 
revealed to the knowledge of the Spanish Government. A 
small party of Spaniards, travelling in the State of Chiapas, 
happened to diverge from the usual track leading from the 
southern limit of the Gulf of Mexico to the Mexican Cor- 
dilleras, and accidentally discovered in the dense forest remains 
of stone buildings—palaces and temples, with other evidences of 
a past and forgotten civilisation of a very high order. These 
ruins were those of Palenque. Some years subsequently to this 
discovery, the King of Spain ordered an official survey to be made, 
and this survey was made in 1787 under the direction of Captain 
del Rio. Later official surveys were also made in 1806 and 1807 ; 
but these, with the usual secresy of the Spanish conquerors, were 
not generally made public, and thus it happened that only as 
recently as the year 1822, at the revolution of Mexico, did the 
existence of these ruins first become known in Europe. Since 
then other hidden cities or temples had been discovered—Copan, 
in the State of Honduras ; Ocosingo, on the frontiers of Guate« 
[ Aug. 31,1871 
4 
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