Fae 9, 1870 | 
NATURE 
103 
as pebbles or gravel ;” or generally, ‘“‘any /arge water-worn and 
smoothed blocks, found embedded in the clays and gravels of 
the drift formation.” The maximum size he assigns to grayel is 
the size of a hen’s egg, and pebbles may be ten times as large as 
this, so that the smallest boulder may be regarded as being of 
more than afoot diameter. Again, the same author describes 
boulders as being ‘‘often of great size, and weighing many tons.” 
Dr. Nuttall, in his Pronouncing Dictonary, defines boulders 
as being ‘“‘large round pebbles ;” and it would not often be 
possible to put even a small pebble in one’s waistcoat pocket, 
and it must be a high wind that could blow a large pebble for 
any distance. 
Chambers gives, as the etymology of boulder, or bowlder, 
as it is sometimes spelt, the verb ‘‘to bowl,” and so states 
that it means a rolling stone, and, afterwards, one rounded by 
water. Now boulders are very often found separate, and at 
some distance from each other, and how could they have been 
rounded separately, without friction with each other, if they 
had been otherwise than large ? 
These arguments may be enough to show that boulders cannot 
be very small, and, in fact, may vary from stones 18 inches 
diameter, or thereabouts, to immense rocks of 10 feet diameter, 
‘‘weighing many tons.” 
Christ’s Hospital, May 27 J. W. CRrawLry 
Scandinavian Skulls 
Mr. G. STRACHEY, commenting in your columns on a recent 
lecture of Professor Huxley’s, makes the following statements :— 
** According to the highest Copenhagen authorities, there is 
no ground whatever for the assertion that modern Scandinavian 
skulls are of the long type. It is equally incorrect to say that 
Scandinavians are fair-haired and blue-eyed.” 
Without at all wishing to endorse Prof. Huxley’s views on 
British ethnology, which I regard as rather bold than sound, I 
may be allowed to express my astonishment at the statements 
just quoted. 
+ The skull measurements of Retzius, Van der Hoeven, and 
Barnard Davis all exhibit the Swedes as a more or less dolicho- 
kephalous people. My own measurements of the living head 
(Anthrop. Memoirs, ii. 351, and iii, 378) tend to controvert 
both Mr. Strachey’s facts and Prof. Huxley’s theory. Lastly, I 
should be glad to know where in the world fair hair and blue 
(or light) eyes are to be found, if not in Scandinavia. They are 
not universal there, nor any where else, but I do not think they 
are anywhere more common, except possibly in Lithuania or 
Esthonia, 
Clifton, June 7 Joun BEDDOE 
Formation of Cayerns 
In NAtuRE of 21st April, Mr. W. Boyd Dawkins, writing of 
caves in Yorkshire, tells us :—‘‘ All have been at one time or 
other subterranean water-courses.” In the Popular Science Re- 
view for October 1869, the same gentleman writes :—‘‘ The ceil- 
ing, at the time of its deposition, must have been supported by a 
layer of cave earth.” With your permission I will explain the 
character of a phenomenon, which I have published in my ‘‘ New 
Pages of Natural History” (Newby, 1868), which may suggest to 
Mr. Dawkins the manner in which the caves at Streddle and 
Kent’s Hole were formed. In the province of Poona, Bombay, 
the Ghar Nuddee (white river) has, in the mountains near its 
source, several lime formations spanning its level. In the dry 
season the river runs below as a subterranean stream ; in the Mon- 
soon it runs over this sheet of lime, which varies in thickness 
from a few inches to two feet along the centre or crown of the 
cavity, increasing in thickness towards the sides ; there are several 
fissures on the surface ; the hole at the upper end is smaller than 
that at the lower; the whole formation is in layers, and is due 
to water containing vast quantities of lime in solution. Originally 
there was a dip or hollow place on the spot, which gradually 
filled with all sorts of materials, till they grew nearly to the level 
of the dry season stream. In this condition the first thin sheet 
of lime was deposited on them, till by successive seasons the for- 
mation grew into a substantial covering composed of yearly 
layers. As there were perishable materials down below, they 
subsided, so that the lime covering, having in places no support, 
gave way to the force of the water, or to the weight of boulders 
hurled upon it, and water found admission between the lime sheet 
and the buried materials ; as these were more moveable than the 
covering, they gradually washed out, and left the river to resume 
its ancient course beneath a covering of its own formation. Of 
course subterranean streams may excavate caverns ; but if these 
streams owe their origin to percolation only, no large organic re- 
mains will be found inthe caverns. If these are formed after the 
fashion of the Ghara caves, some organic remains may still be 
found, though waters have washed through them for years. When 
these lime formations withstand all the forces to which they are 
subjected, and have grown into large hills, the materials which 
formed the mould of the cave are still 77 sz/, the perishable por- 
tions have changed into an oily, loamy soil; but bones, pebbles, 
and other materials are there mixed up with the stalagmite, which 
originally forming upon the surface of these materials, sunk and 
broke up as the supports failed, and remain, as Mr. Dawkins 
found them in Kent’s Hole. H. P. MALET 
The Anglo-Saxon Conquest 
I sAw, with perfect clearness, the fgrounds upon which Prof. 
Rolleston now rests his defence. It is assumed that we can 
identify, to a nicety, the precise period of an interment, having 
no recording date, that took place fourteen or fifteen hundred 
years ago. I need not contest or discuss this point, but I am at 
liberty to doubt it. 
The Britons petitioned Rome for assistance in A.D. 446. 
Cerdic landed in 494 ; the groans of the Britons were a piteous 
wail of ‘fold men and children,” The interval, taking it at 
three generations, passed in constant warfare, would not restore 
the balance of youth removed by conscription prior to A.D. 418, 
which circumstance therefore remains in part as an element to 
affect the general average of assumed longevity in the time of 
Cerdic. I urge this, withall respect, not as affecting, inany way, 
the real facts discovered or expounded by Prof. Rolleston, with 
whose address I was very much gratified ; but only as affecting 
certain conclusions sought to be founded thereon, A. HAL 
Curious Effect of the Words ‘‘ Carmine” and 
“Germinal Matter” ° 
DuRING the twelve or thirteen years that Mr. Huxley has 
performed the duties of Examiner at the University of London, 
it appears that he has been much disturbed by the frequent use 
the candidates have made of the words, ‘‘cell,” ‘* germinal 
matter,” and ‘‘carmine.” He says: ‘‘/ declare to you I be- 
lieve it will take me two years at least of absolute rest from the 
business of an examiner to hear either of the words without a 
sort of inward shudder.” * This is surely a very remarkable 
declaration on the part of the examiner, since it is extremely 
doubtful if hearing these words ever made anyone else shudder, 
and if any other words written or spoken ever produced an effect 
so exceptional upon Mr. Huxley. LIONEL BEALE 
Holly Berries 
WILL some learned botanist, or Darwinian theorist, kindly 
inform me through the columns of Nature why some holly 
berries appear obnoxious to birds? This is a great holly neigh- 
bourhood, and there are at present several trees actually loaded 
with ripe berries ; the ground is also thickly strewed with berries 
beneath the trees, and yet not a single species of bird appears to 
eat them. Last winter the holly trees bore an abundance of 
berries, but the majority of the trees were stripped by the mi- 
gratory Zurdi, &c., as early as the beginning of February. I 
presume, in the ‘‘ struggle for existence” these berries, obnoxious 
to birds, will stand a better chance of propagating and increasing 
that peculiar variety, and in course of time raise a distinct and 
well marked species. 
Thruxton, May 23 HENRY REEKS 
Origin of Languages 
Ir seems to me that your correspondents, Mr. Taylor and 
S. J., have discovered merely imaginary differences between the 
origin of species and the origin of languages. Mr. Taylor sees 
an essential difference in the fact that in the one case the process 
“is carried on by the countless efforts of xatiozal beings,” whilst 
in the other case there is ‘‘veason/ess variation and selection,” 
* Address on Medical Education,” Zavcef¢, June 4th, 1870. 
