August 17, 1911] 



NATURE 



225 



what appears to be a very remarkable phenomenon at the 

 same time. The circumstances are of a piece with the 

 whole history of our knowledge of the variation of lati- 

 tude; and this is perhaps natural enough, since it is 

 entirely a question of residual phenomena only revealed 

 by observations of the highest order of accuracy. 



In The Athenaeum of August 12 Prof. W. M. Ramsay 

 reports a very interesting and important archaeological 

 discovery, which will hereafter throw much light on the 

 religion of Asia Minor. This is the holy place of Men 

 Askaenos at Pisidian Antioch. The site contained no 

 temple, but only a great altar standing in an enclosure 

 surrounded by a massive wall. The shrine has clearly re- 

 mained in the state in which it was left by the Christians 

 n hen they destroyed it in the fourth century. No other 

 primaeval sanctuary on a mountain top, dedicated to a 

 known god and famous throughout Asia Minor, has ever 

 been discovered. The sacred way with votive reliefs on 

 the rocks, the wall of the precinct covered with votive 

 dedications to Men Askaenos, the church built of materials 

 collected from the shrine, the theatre of the Hellenistic or 

 Roman period, present a combination of interesting archaeo- 

 logical remains without parallel in this region ; and the 

 shallowness of the soil renders excavation particularly easy. 

 It may be hoped that funds for the excavation of this unique 

 sanctuary will soon be provided, and the work carried on 

 by some of the scholars who have been trained by Prof. 

 Ramsay in archaeological research in Asia Minor. 



The third season's investigations, conducted at Avebury 

 by the British Association under the superintendence of 

 Mr. 11. St. George Gray, commenced in April last. The 

 results of the work supply further corroboration of the 

 conclusions already arrived at that the " temple " dates 

 from the Neolithic stone period. This is shown by the 

 discovery of two worked red-deer antlers, a finely chipped 

 flint knife, and fragments of prehistoric pottery. This 

 last is formed of a coarse, thick black paste containing 

 grains of various substances introduced to bind and 

 strengthen the ware, such as pieces of burnt bone and 

 tiny bits of charcoal. Its chief interest lies in the fact 

 that it is ornamented on both faces, the impressions of 

 twisted grass, or cord, and finger-nails being clearly 

 defined. This pottery was found about 5J feet below the 

 surface. At a lower depth, but still below the Roman 

 stratum, another form of vessel was discovered, orna- 

 mented in a herring-bone pattern, which was impressed 

 by means of a notched implement of wood, bone, or antler, 

 or by a shell with its natural ribbing. This pottery is 

 identical with specimens found in the West Kennet long 

 barrow, at Peterborough, on the Thames at Mortlake, and 

 in General Pitt-Rivers's excavations at Handley, North 

 Dorset. The date of the Avebury circle seems to be 

 definitely fixed by these discoveries. 



The Hittite Excavations Committee, the honorary 

 treasurer of which is Mr. R. Mond, Coombe Bank, Seven- 

 oaks, has issued an appeal for assistance in archaeological 

 research in certain parts of Asia Minor and northern Syria. 

 Much information has already been collected regarding 

 Hittite civilisation by the excavations at Boghaz Keui, 

 the capital of the great Hittite kings in the fourteenth and 

 thirteenth centuries B.C. Numerous clay tablets have been 

 discovered here which will throw welcome light on the 

 relations of the Hittite Empire with Assyria on the east 

 and Palestine, the -4Lgean, and even Egypt on the west. 

 It is now proposed that excavations shall start on the 

 great mound at Sakje Geuzi, which lies four days' journey 

 eastward from Adana, near Tarsus, and on an ancient 

 NO. 2l8l, VOL. 87] . 



route between the east and west by way of Carchemish 

 and the Cilician Gate. Prof. J. Garstang, who will take 

 charge of the operations, has already made some pre- 

 liminary excavations on this site, and has discovered a 

 palace with sculptured portico which promises to contain 

 most interesting material, possibly that bilingual inscrip- 

 tion which would solve the riddle of innumerable docu- 

 ments. 



The Scientific American of July 22 contains an appreci- 

 ative notice, accompanied by a full-page portrait, of Prof. 

 Henry Fairfield Osborn, who, it appears, takes his second 

 name from the Connecticut town in which he was born in 

 1857. In the course of the article ■ reference is made to 

 the strong support accorded by Mr. Osborn to the tri- 

 tubercular theory of the evolution of mammalian molars, 

 and likewise to his investigations into the phylogeny of 

 the titanotheres of the American Tertiary. 



The so-called British bird-fauna has just been augmented 

 by another subspecies in the shape of the Alpine ring- 

 ouzel (Turdus torquatus alpestris), of which, as recorded 

 by Mr. M. J. Nicoll in British Birds for August, a speci- 

 men was shot at Guestling, Sussex, on May 23. This 

 race, which ranges from central and southern Europe to 

 the Balkans, differs from the typical form by having more 

 white on the secondary quills, and the presence of large 

 median patches of white on the feathers of the breast 

 and chest, and of white streaks on the under tail-coverts. 

 The more eastern T. t. orientalis, which ranges into 

 Egypt, is intermediate in colouring between the typical 

 and Alpine races. 



No. 3 of the first volume of the Records of the Canter- 

 bury Museum, New Zealand, is devoted to a continuation 

 of the account of the zoological results of the New Zealand 

 Government trawling expedition of 1907, Mr. E. R. Waite 

 dealing with the fishes, Mr. H. Suter with the molluscs, 

 and Mr. C. Chilton with the crustaceans. In a summary 

 of the results of the expedition Mr. Waite directs atten- 

 tion to their bearing on the supply of local food-fishes. 

 One of the results is the marking out of areas suitable 

 for trawling ; and although there appears to be no evidence 

 of commercial trawling having in consequence been under- 

 taken on an extended scale, it seems that the favourable 

 report as to the potentialities of the Chatham Islands for 

 line-fishing has been effective in attracting capital to what 

 it is hoped will prove a profitable venture. 



We have received copies of six guides to the Grange 

 Wood Museum at Croydon and its various sections, written 

 by the hon. curator, Mr. E. A. Martin. Unfortunately, at 

 least some of these lack that accuracy and " up-to-date- 

 ness " which are of such prime importance in publications 

 of this nature. On the first page of the Guide to the 

 Back-boned Animals we find, for instance, the statement 

 that the Chordata (in its restricted sense) includes the sea- 

 squirts and the lamprey, instead of the sea-squirts and the 

 lancelet. In a reference on the same page to the noto- 

 chord, the author assumes his readers to possess more 

 knowledge than they are likely to have acquired. On p. 8 

 the statement that the constituent bones of the chelonian 

 shell articulate by means of teeth is misleading, while 

 on the next page readers are led to believe that chameleons 

 are restricted to N. Africa. The classification of both 

 birds and mammals is quite obsolete ; it is stated that 

 there are only two kinds of monotremes, Edentata is mis- 

 printed Endentata, and the horns of antelopes are referred 

 to as antlers. In the Shell Guide Lamellibranchiata is 

 spelt with two m's, and Spondylus is included among 

 gastropods; and, to take one example from the Fos?il 



