Juiy 2J, 1882] 



NATURE 



293 



in the biological laboratory at South Kensington, and, after a 

 diligent attendance at T'rof. Huxley's eighty odd lectures, and at 

 the five months' practical work, he succeeded in passing the 

 examination in the second class. The two following years Mr. 

 McAlpine, with laudable perseverance, again presented himself 

 for examination, each time appearing a place or two lower in 

 the second class. 



While working at South Kensington Mr. McAlpine made 

 several copies of the diagrams of type dissections in the labora- 

 tory, which diagrams are for the most part enlargements of my 

 original drawings made by my friend and former colleague, Mr. 

 G. B. Howes. I naturally imagined that Mr. McAlpine, like 

 other students who had taken the same trouble, intended to use 

 these copies either for his private work or for his classes in 

 Edinburgh, and I was, therefore, greatly surprised at the appear- 

 ance of the Biological Alias, to find in it a number of marvel- 

 lously inaccurate copies of these same diagrams, published not 

 only without permission, but without the slighte-t reference to 

 their source even in the preface. 



In the Zoological Atlas (Vertebrata) the same thing occurs, 

 and my diagrams, although strangely altered, are quite recogni- 

 sable; in the figure of the skate's nervous system, for instance, 

 1 notice, copied with unusual accuracy, a mistake as to the origin 

 of the orbito-nasal nerve, which occurred in my original drawing, 

 but which has subsequently been corrected. 



In the cases where Mr. McAlpine, having no diagrams to 

 copy, has had to depend upon his own dissections and the state- 

 ments in text-books, the results are sometimes remarkable. As 

 rm instance, I may take the ingenious diagram of the skate's 

 vascular system, in which faired caudal veins are shown accom- 

 panying the caudal artery, and passing directly into the corre- 

 sponding cardinal veins, the renal portal systems being com- 

 pletely suppressed. 



According to the advertiements, the Athena-urn recommends 

 the " Biological Atlas" to all students of the subject; 1 regret 

 that I cannot agree with your contemporary ; in my opinion no 

 books could possibly be more mischievous to a beginner than 

 these, since they hold up for his example and imitation a work 

 of the most inaccurate and slovenly description ; as indeed, if 

 p assessed of ordinary powers of observation, he cannot fail to 

 find out for himself before he has been a month at the subject. 

 T. Jeefery Parker 



Otago University Museum, Dunedin, N.Z., March 24 



Palaeolithic Implements — New Localities in ihe 

 Thames Valley, near London 

 In Nature, for July 15, 1880, p. 253, Mr. P. H. Pepys 

 drew attention to a section then being made through beds of 

 river gravel and brick earth near the West Drayton Station of 

 the Great Western Railway. I had an opportunity of going to 

 West Drayton on July 27, 1S80, so I walked through the cutting 

 towards Langley. My quest was for relics of primaeval man, and 

 I was rewarded by finding not only several flint flakes, but the 

 butt end of a massive implement broken in Palaeolithic times. 

 This was just north of Langley Station, in Buckinghamshire, and 

 the first Palaeolithic relics, as far as I know, detected in that 

 county. The workmen in the cutting for the new canal were 

 such a rough lot that I found it impossible to fraternise with 

 tbem, so my subsequent visits were all made on Sundays. During 

 these walks I lighted on ten implements and a large number of 

 flakes at Langley and Iver, all in the valley of the Coin, and a 

 river until now (as far as I know) not described as implementi- 

 ferous. In gravel brought from the pit close to Taplow Station I 

 found a single implement, a large trimmed flake, and numerous 

 simple flakes ; this position is also in the county of Buckingham. 

 At West Drayton, in Middlesex, in the valley of the Coin, I 

 lighted on five implements and numerous flakes. East of West 

 Drayton, in a pit near Botwell, in the valley of the Yedding 

 Brook, hitherto undescribed as implement-bearing, I found a 

 single implement ; this was in the pit near Bull's Bridge. In the 

 same valley at Hillington, and other places I have found several 

 other implements. In all the excavations from Slough to Acton I 

 have found both implements and flakes. In the newrailw ay cutting 

 from Gunnersbury to Hounslow I have found four implements, one 

 close to Hounslow, a massive butt, and many flakes. This cutting 

 has been a very interesting one, from the abundance of the fossil 

 shells of fresh-water molluscs found in the sands, especially near 

 the bridge under the Hanwell Road. One shell very abundant, 

 and, as far as my observation goes, absent from the sands of 



North-east London, is Achatina acieula, Mull., kindly named 

 for me by Dr. J. Gwyn Jeffreys. I believe this is the first record 

 of fre-h-water shells from the Palaeolithic sands of the Ealing 

 district. Since my paper on the Valley of the Btent was read 

 before the Anthropological Institute, m June, 1879, I have found 

 many more implements in the positions there mentioned. At 

 North-east London, and especially in the Valley of the Lea, I 

 have been able to greatly extend the range of Palaeolithic 

 man. In addition to the localities mentioned in my paper 

 read before the Anthropological Institute, in June, 1S78, and 

 published in February, 1879, I am now able to mention 

 London Fields, Homerton, in the south, a position south of 

 Dalston Junction, and nearer the Thames than the places first 

 given by me, Hackney, near the railway station, Abney Park 

 Cemetery, South Hornsey, Highbury, Stamford Hill, Upper 

 Edmonton, Lower Edmonton, Bush Hill Park, Forty Hill, 

 Enfield, and Cheshunt ; the pit at the last place, which for- 

 merly produced flakes only, has since furnished three imple- 

 ments — one an example of the first class. On the east side of 

 the Leal have found implements in the gravels of Stratford, 

 Leyton, Leytonstone, Wanstead, Walthamstow, and Higham 

 Hill — a magnificent example from the last place. Further 

 east, and in the Valley of the Roding (first pointed out by me 

 as a river bearing implements in its gravels) — at Barking — I 

 have found two implements, and elsewhere in the neighbour- 

 hood, as at Ilford and Upton, numerous flakes. Still further 

 east, at Gray's Thurrcck, W'est Tilbury, and Southend, I 

 have evidence of the presence of primaeval man; at the 

 latter place, a rude mnke-shift implement, and a scraping- 

 tool with twin bulbs of percus-ion. These were found by my 

 two sons. I have not mentioned all the po*iti ns I know in this 

 letter, or re-mentioned those given in my two papers, but rather 

 the positions I can afford to dispense with. It shows, however, 

 especially when considered with the discoveries at Reading and 

 Oxford, w hat a vast cohort of men once lived all along the 

 Thames and its northern tributaries in Palaeolithic times. 



WORTHINGTON G. SMITH 

 125, Giosvenor Road, Highbury, N. 



"Halo": Pink Rainbow 



The appearance noted in Nature this week (p. 268) by 

 Prof. O'Reilly must surely have been a case of the rayons dn 

 crepuscnk that are frequently vi-ihle near sundown in the eastern 

 sky. East-south-east cannot at this season be very far from 

 opposite the setting sun. Prof. O'Reilly does not mention, 

 though probably it was the case, that the point of convergence 

 of the "beams" which he saw was diametrically opposite the 

 sun's position. That these beams appeared dark is probably 

 merely caused by the real "rayons" being wide, with narrow, 

 darker interspaces between. I have several times (see Fhil. 

 Mag., 1877) called attention to the existence of similar rays 

 crossing the rainbow radially ; indeed, it is seldom that a rain- 

 bow occurs when the sun is low in the sky, without one or more 

 such rays being visible within the arc. Two such rays, for 

 example, were visible in a bow seen here at sunset two evenings 

 ago. This bow was interesting in another way al-o ; for, like 

 the "pink " rainbows about which there was some correspond- 

 ence in Nature last year, the only colours visible (in the 

 primary arc) were red and yellow, the red being of a pinkish 

 rather than a crimson hue. Silvanus P. Thompson 



Pollokshields, Glasgow, July 20 



Smoke Abatement 



Count Rumford founded the Royal Institution of Great 

 Britain nearly a hundred years ago, chiefly, I believe, to intro- 

 duce improved grates, fireplaces, stoves, &c, as he then foresaw 

 the necessity of economising coal and obtaining more complete 

 combustion. 



In about the year i860 Faraday himself showed me Count 

 Rumford 's models, &c, and some of Rumford's working stoves 

 in the model room in the Institution, a subject in which I was 

 then much interested, as I was enlarging my own house. 



About ten yen is ago, when the laboratory of the Royal Insti- 

 tution was enlarged, the models, stoves, &c, devised by Count 

 Rumford were removed. It w ould be important to know what 

 has become of them. Would you kindly allow me to ask this 

 question ? 



A Member of the Royal Institution 



July 19 



