January 18, 1917] 
results were generally favourable, and demonstrated 
that the cake possesses qualities which should secure 
its*permanent inclusion in the list of feeding-stuffs 
widely used on British farms. Further work 
with palm-kernel products is reported by Prof. 
. Crowther in the December issue of the 
same journal, in an account of ’a practical feeding 
experiment with pigs, carried out on behalf of the 
‘Co-operative Wholesale Society at their farm near 
Clitheroe. In this experiment with three groups of 
eighteen pigs each, palm-kernel cake and extracted 
palm-kernel meal were compared with the grade of 
milling offals known as “‘thirds."”” The cake proved 
an efficient and economical substitute for ‘‘ thirds,” 
and appreciably superior to the meal. These results 
should usefully supplement the great efforts now being 
made to secure for this country the palm-kernel crush- 
ing industry, the great importance of which from 
Imperial and national points of view was strikingly 
revealed in the recently issued report of the Edible 
Nuts Committee of the Colonial Office. 
_ Aw article on river frontiers in Europe, by Prof. 
L. W. Lyde (Scottish Geographical Magazine, xxxii., 
PP- 545-555), is an able rejoinder to Sir T. H. Holdich’s 
well-known views on the subject. Prof. Lyde holds 
that as war is not a normal condition, it is surprising 
that the accepted theory of frontiers is essentially a 
military one, the object of which is not to effect an 
international equilibrium across it, but to make inter- 
national intercourse, peaceful or otherwise, impossible. 
Prof. Lyde maintains that the principle of democracy 
is sufficiently mature to demand that boundaries should 
make for peace as well as for security. A navigable river 
€ncourages peaceful intercourse, and so has a civilising 
influence which cannot be said of any barrier which 
keeps peoples apart. Sir T. H. Holdich admits that 
a river makes a good boundary except on its plain 
course. But this contention, Prof. Lyde says, must be 
modified in the light of events in the present war. 
‘The Danube proved to be an absolute defence to Bel- 
grade during four months in 1914, and in the great 
Russian retreat rivers backed by railways were defen- 
sive positions of enormous strength. Prof. Lyde cites 
the Plate, the St. Lawrence, and the lower’ Danube 
to show that a navigable river does not of necessity 
form an unstable boundary and become the property 
of the most pushing nation on its banks. Again, 
economic equilibrium, a necessary factor in inter- 
national equilibrium, is more likely to result from a 
river frontier, as that will hold a fair balance of the 
mineral and other wealth on either side. The author 
holds that if the new map of Europe is based on 
purely military lines, Europe will have to expiate it 
‘once more on purely military lines. 
Mr. E. L. TROXELL traces back the one-toed horse toa 
new species, Pliohippus lullianus, discovered by him 
in the Lower Pliocene of S, Dakota (Am. Journ. Sci., 
vol. xlii., p. 335, 1916). This horse presents the 
unique feature of an ulna unfused at any point with 
the radius. 
AN interesting case of the replacement of calcite by 
iron pyrites as the cementing material of a sandstone 
is given by Mr. T. A. Jones in a note on Permo- 
Triassic sandstones of South-west Lancashire (Proc. 
Liverpool Geol. Soc., vol. xii., p. 257, 1916). It may 
‘be remembered that even quartz has been thus replaced 
during the formation of concretions in certain Karroo 
sandstones (see Nature, vol. xcv., p. 216). 
Grotocists interested in the much-discussed strati- 
graphy of New Zealand will find new material con- 
cerning the junction of Cretaceous and Cainozoic 
NO. 2464, VOL. 98] 
NATURE 
; annual report (1916), p. 
395° 
horizons in a paper by Mr. P. G. Morgan (‘‘ Notes of 
a Visit to Marlborough and North Canterbury, with 
especial reference to Unconformities post-dating the 
Amuri Limestones,’’ Geological Survey, N.Z., tenth 
17). The unconformities 
traced by the author do not, as the title might imply, 
assign. a date to the Amuri Limestones, but. are above 
this horizon, and the lowest one divides the upper lime- 
stone from the Weka Pass.Stone. This break is 
shown to be widespread, but, like the others, may not 
be continuous throughout New Zealand. 
A “CataLocuE of the Collection of Meteorites” 
belonging to the Geological Survey of India, and pre- 
served in the Indian Museum in Calcutta, is given by 
Mr. J. Coggin Brown in the Memoirs of the Geological 
Survey of India (1916, vol, xliii., part 2, pp. 149-287). 
The private collection of the late R. P. Greg, purchased 
in 1865, formed the’ nucleus of this collection, which 
now represents 379 meteoritic falls, and is the largest 
in Asia. Previous catalogues were prepared in 1867 
by Thomas Oldham, and in 1879-80, with a supple- 
ment in 1901. The main part of the present catalogue 
is occupied by an alphabetical list of the specimens 
arranged under the geographical names of the falls. 
There are brief descriptions of the individual specimens 
and their weights are recorded. A second short list 
gives an outline of the Brezina classification of meteor- 
ites, with the names of-falls represented in the collec- 
tion under each of the seventy-four groups. 
Amone the Memoirs of the National Academy of 
Sciences of Washington (1916, xiv., pp. 1-29) Dr. 
G. P. Merrill, the head curator of geology in the 
United States National Museum, has recently pub- 
lished a report on researches on the chemical and 
mineralogical composition of meteorites, with especial 
reference to their minor constituents. When preparing 
an earlier paper on a similar subject he had been 
struck with the comparatively small number of trust- 
worthy analyses available, and the apparent similarity 
in, and simplicity of, the composition of meteorites. 
At his instigation careful analyses were made of twenty 
typical meteorites, ranging from irons to stones, by Dr. 
J. E. Whitfield, of Messrs. Booth, Garrett, and Blair, 
in Philadelphia, and the results obtained are tabulated, 
and in some instances compared with those published 
by earlier workers. | Occasionally considerable dis- 
crepancies were revealed, the most remarkable being 
in the case of the Collescipoli stone, in which none of 
the rare elements noted by Trottarelli could be found; 
on the other hand, wheyeas the latter gives nearly 
8 per cent. of sulphur, Dr. Whitfield found none, and 
yet in the description of the stone the presence of 
metallic sulphide is noted. The analysis of meteorites 
is a task calling for care, skill, and unlimited patience 
owing to the paucity of material usually available and 
the necessity for testing for so many elements which 
can only be present in extremely small amounts, and 
it should, moreover, be combined with a careful micro. 
scopic examination of thin sections; obviously such 
work can only be undertaken as a labour of love. 
Some excellent specimens of the important tungsten 
ores, wolframite and scheelite, have just been received 
at the Imperial Institute from the Federated Malay 
States, and can be seen in the Malay Court 
of the Exhibition Galleries. As is now well 
known, the most important use of tungsten ores is 
in the manufacture of tungsten steel, of which large 
quantities are now being employed in munition fac. 
tories in Sheffield and elsewhere in the manufacture 
of high-speed tools and for other special purposes. 
Tungsten is also used in the form of wire in the manu- 
facture of metallic filaments for electric lamps. Wolf- 
ramite, commonly called wolfram, which forms the 
