
May 12, 1923] 
NATURE 
647 

Research Items. 
A Roman Fortiriep House NEAR CARDIFF,—In 
the Journal of Roman Studies (vol. xi. Part i), Mr. 
R. E. M. Wheeler gives an elaborate account of a 
fortified Roman villa, about two miles west of the 
west bank of the river Ely, at the point where that 
river, though still tidal, first becomes fordable. He 
concludes that about A.p. 300 this work fell into line 
with the general defensive and offensive activities of 
the period. At a time when Romano-British towns 
seem to have built or strengthened their walls as the 
Welsh tribesmen did, it is not unnatural that a private 
householder should have followed the same example 
on a smaller scale. It is indeed rather matter for 
remark that other examples of domestic fortification 
in the late Roman period have been so rarely observed 
or recorded. The closest analogy is perhaps the 
partially excavated house and baths within the Castle 
Dykes near Ripon. 
An Ovp-Wor-tp Cusir IN AMERICA.—In Ancient 
Egypt, Part iv. 1922, Prof. W. M. Flinders Petrie 
directs attention to excavations made by the School 
of American Research at Santa Fé, New Mexico, 
where the measurements of buildings indicate a unit 
of 20°7 inches. This figure accords exactly to the 
well-known Egyptian cubit : 20°62 in the best early 
examples, 20°65 in later cubit rods, 20°76 on the 
Roman Nilometers. Babylonia had a rather longer 
type, 20°88 in. for the cubit of Gudea’s plotting scales, 
and this was also the standard of Asia Minor, 20°6 to 
20°9, with a mean of allof 20°63 in. ‘‘ Howcould this 
teach New Mexico? It was evidently Asiatic. We 
have evidence from weights of an Asiatic diffusion of 
a Babylonian original over India, China, and Etruria. 
If the cubit similarly passed to China, it might thence 
reach North America. It has been already pointed 
out how the cross at Palenque (Southern Mexico) was 
in its detail of ornament derived from Italian crosses 
of about the eighth century, probably carried to 
China by the Nestorian mission. By the same route 
the Asiatic cubit may have passed over to the New 
World at some earlier period.” 
MARRIAGE CusTOMS IN MEDIEVAL INpIA.—In a 
paper published in the last issue of the Bulletin of 
the School of Oriental Studies, Sir G. Grierson directs 
attention to an epic still recited in Northern India 
describing the war between the Rajputs of Bundel- 
khand and Delhi. When a Raja had a marriageable 
daughter he used to send a challenge to neighbouring 
Rajas, who attacked him, and the contest for the 
bride was accompanied by serious loss of life on both 
sides. No exact parallel to this custom has been 
traced, and it looks as if the bard had exaggerated 
the details of the mock fight which occurs on the 
occasion of a wedding. The view that this is a 
survival of marriage by capture is now gencrally 
abandoned, and anthropologists are disposed to be- 
lieve that the mock fight is a symbol of a contest 
between the powers of good and evil. The final 
victory of the good spirits is carefully arranged before- 
hand, and thus the fertility and happiness of the 
union is assured. 
SUBMARINE WEATHERING OF ROCK-MATERIAL.— 
K. Humnel of Gieszen (Geologische Rundschau, vol. 13, 
Pp. 40, 1922) gives the name “ halmyrolysis ’’ to the 
processes of decay and reconstruction, akin to weather- 
ing, that go on in rock-material on the floor of seas 
and oceans. He gives special attention to the origin 
of glauconite, and attributes its absence from fresh- 
water deposits to the facts that the salts in sea-water 
NO. 2793, VOL. IIT] 
_that certain marine bacteria also play a part. 
are essential to the reactions that build it up, ang 
e 
organic matter, the humic acid, and the energy of 
oxidation on sea-floors are not sufficiently different 
from those in lakes to account, as others have sug- 
gested, for the absence of glauconite from fresh 
waters. We may hope that the author will expand 
his views (p. 102) on phosphatisation on the sea-floor, 
which he regards as beginning with the absorption of 
phosphorus by gels consisting of calcium carbonate. 
The colloidal character of the material for which 
A. F. Rogers has recently revived the name of 
‘“collophane ”’ (see NATURE, vol. 110, p. 292), might 
thus be an inheritance from previous colloidal cal- 
cium carbonate ; but this would not account for the 
widely spread ‘‘ halmyrolysis ’’ of marine 00zes and 
limestones without loss of the intimate structures of 
their shelly constituents, which were deposited as 
crystalline material. 
TERTIARY BRACHIOPODA OF JAPAN.—Ichiré Haya- 
saka, whose papers on the Paleozoic Brachiopoda of 
Eastern Asia and the Permian Brachiopoda of Japan 
we have already had occasion to refer to (NATURE, 
July 29, p. 161, and December 2, p. 749, 1922), has 
now dealt with the Tertiary Brachiopoda of Japan 
(Science Reports, Téhoku Imp. Univ., Sendai, Second 
Series (Geology), vol. ii., No. 2). While the waters of 
the Japanese Islands are notoriously rich in these 
forms, no fewer than thirty-seven species of ‘‘ lamp- 
shells’”’ being recorded therefrom, only thirteen 
species and five varieties figure in the present mono- 
graph, one species and four varieties being believed 
to be new. Of the eighteen forms, seven are only 
known fossil, seven are found living in Japanese 
waters, while the remainder now inhabit distant 
regions. The occurrence in Japan of Terebratulina 
septentrionalis in the fossil state, indeed, seems to 
be the first recorded instance, and that, since it is 
to-day an Atlantic form, is the more remarkable. 
In an appendix one other species and another variety 
are recorded as coming from the Pleistocene. These 
last are apparently additional to the three previously 
recorded from beds of that age near Téky6 in 1906. 
Tur INNER STRUCTURE OF ALLoyS.—The thirteenth 
annual May lecture of the Institute of Metals was 
delivered on Wednesday, May 2, by Dr. W. Rosenhain. 
Referring to the great accumulation of facts in regard 
to the properties and microstructure of alloys which 
have been forthcoming in recent years, Dr. Rosenhain 
considers that it is most desirable that there should 
be found a key to this maze of knowledge in the form 
of a general theory that will link together the mass of 
facts into a homogeneous whole. Such a theory is 
put forward, based upon the intimate knowledge of 
crystal structure acquired by X-rays analysis. The 
crystal structures found in pure metals are modified 
in the case of alloys, particularly in those called solid 
solutions, where a second kind of atom enters into the 
structure of the crystal and produces in it certain 
minute changes. Especially important is the con- 
nexion between the minute distortion of crystal 
structure which occurs in alloys and the behaviour of 
alloys on melting and freezing, while such phenomena 
as plasticity, diffusion, and others fall easily into line 
with the same type of explanation. This new theory 
of alloy structure is said to afford a ready explanation 
of the electrical properties of metals and alloys and 
the changes of those properties when the metal is 
heated or cooled, and cover the phenomena of super- 
