June 20, 1872] 



NATURE 



iSS 



eruption;. Lieut. Markham ascended the volcano Gasowa, in 

 the island of Tanna, and watched an eruption from the edge of 

 the crater. During the intervals between the explosions (sound- 

 ing like broadsides from a line-ol-batt!e ship) the sheets of 

 liquid fire seemed to flow back to three distant openings in the 

 bottom of the funnel-.shaped crater ; masses of scorix were 

 hurled up vertically to a height of 1,000 feet. The Melanesian 

 (black, curly-haired) and Polynesian (straight-haired) races ap- 

 peared to be curiously dovetailed in their distribution throughout 

 the northern portion of these archipelagos. This was explained, 

 in the discussion which followed, by the Bishop of Lichfield, 

 who gave to the meeting a most interesting account of his own 

 experiences in these islands, and who showed that the wandering 

 Polynesians, who peopled the greater portion of the Pacific area 

 (including New Zealand), had been driven in their canoes by 

 winds on some of the smaller islands of the group. 



Geological Society, June 5 —J. Gwyn Jen"reys, F.R.,S, in 

 the chair. — i. "Notes on Sand-pits, Mud-volcanoes, and Brine- 

 pits, met with during the Varkand Expcdiiion of 1S70." By 

 Dr. George Henderson. The author described some very re- 

 markable circular pits which occurred cliielly in the \aUey nf the 

 K.irakash river. These pits varied in diameter from six to eight 

 feet, and v.'ere between two and three feet deep, the distances 

 between the pits being about the same as the diameters. He 

 accounted for the formation of the pits by supposing that the 

 water, which sinks into the gravel at the head of the valley, I 

 flows under a stratum of clay, which prevents it from rising ; the 

 water in course of time, however, flowing in very varying quanti- 

 ties at different periods, gradually washes away small portions 

 of the clayey band, when the sand above runs through into the 

 cavity tlius formed, leaving the pits described by the author. 

 The mud-volcanoes at Tarl Dab he accounted for by supposing 

 that altera fall of rain or snow the air contained in the water- 

 bearing stratum would get churned up with water and mud, and 

 be ejecied as a frothy mud, sometimes to a height of 3 ft. ; while 

 the brine-pits in the Karakash valley he believed to be formed 

 by the excessive rise and fall in the level of that river at various 

 times, which alternately fills and empties the bottoms of the pits, 

 and the water left in the pils gels gradually concentrated by 

 evaporation until a strong brine remains. Mr. Prestwich 

 pointed out that the pits seemed due to quite another cause 

 than the pipes in the chalk and other calcareous rocks, 

 as they did not appear to arise from erosion by carbonic 

 acid. Mr. Thorp suggested an analogy between the pheno- 

 mena in Yarkand ana those at Nantwich, and thought that the 

 pits might be due to solution of rock-salt below the surface. — 

 2. "On the Cervidx of the Forest-bed of Norfolk and Suffolk,'' 

 by W. Boyd Dawkins, F.R. S. The author described a new 

 form of Ccn-iis from the Forest-bed of Norfolk, which he based 

 on a series of antlers, and named ,C. vcrticoniis. The base of 

 the antler is set on the head very obliquely ; immediately above 

 it springs the cylindrical brow-tyne, which suddenly curves down- 

 wards and inwards ; immediately above the brow-tyne the beam 

 is more or less cylindrical, becoming gradually flattened. A 

 third flattened tyne springs on the anterior side of the beam, and 

 immediately above it the broad crown terminated in two or more 

 points. No tyne is thrown off on the posterior side of the antler, 

 and the sweep is uninterrupted from the antler base to the first 

 point of the crown. The antlers differ in curvature and other- 

 wise from those of Co-^iis mei^accros, but there is a general resem- 

 blance between the two animals ; and the Vir/iconus must have 

 rivalled the Irish elk in size. A second species of deer, the 

 Ceniis caniulorum, which had been furnished by the strata of 

 St. Prest near Chartres, must be added to the fauna of the 

 forest -bed. The Cervida; of the forest-bed present a remarkable 

 mixture of forms such as the Cer-jus polignaciis, C. Sah^wickii, 

 C. megaceroSj C. cayiutlorum^ C. cJnpJnis^ and C. caprcolus^ seem- 

 ting to indicate that in classification the forest-bed belongs rather 

 to an early stage of the Pleistocene than to the Pliocene age. This 

 inference is strongly corroborated by the presence of themammoth, 

 which is so charactsristic of the Pleistocene age. — 3. "The Clas- 

 sification of the Pleistocene Strata of Britain and the Continent 

 by means of the Mammalia." By W. Boyd Dawkins, F.R.S. 

 '1 he Pleistocene cepusiis may be divided into three groups — ist, 

 that in w hich the Pleistocene immigrant? lived, with some of the 

 southern and Pliocene animals in Britain, France, and Germany, 

 and in which no arctic mammalia had arrived ; 2nd, that in 

 which the characteristic Pliocene Cervid.-e had disappeared, and 

 the EUphas merUionalis and A'/ii/inavs dnisiriis had been 

 driven south ; 3rd, that in which the true arctic mammalia were 



the chief inhabitants. This third, or late Pleistocene division, 

 must be far older than any prehistoric deposits, as the latter 

 often rest on the former, and are composed of different materials ; 

 but the difference offered by the fauna is the most striking. In 

 the Pleistocene river-deposits twenty-eight species h.ive been 

 found, the remains of man being associated with the lion, hip- 

 popotamus, mammoth, wolf, and reindeer. On examining the 

 fauna from the ossiferous caves, we find the same gioup of ani- 

 mals, with the exception of the musk-sheep ; and it is therefore 

 evident that the cave-fauna is identical with that or the river 

 strata, and must be referred to the same period. S-me few- 

 animals, however, which would naturally haunt caves, are 

 peculiar to them, as the cave-bear, wild cat, leopard, &c. 

 The magnitude of the break in time between the prehistoric and 

 late Pleistocene period may be g>ithered also from the disap- 

 pearance in the interval of no less than nineteen species. The 

 middle division of the Pleistocene mammalia, or that from which 

 the Pliocene Cervida; had disappeared, and been replaced by 

 invading temperate forms, is represented in Great Britain by the 

 deposits of the Lower Brick-earths of the Thames Valley, and 

 the older deposits in Kent's Hole and Oreston. The discovery, 

 by the Rev. O. Fisher, of a flin -flake in the undisturbed Lower 

 Brick-earth at Crayford, proves that man must have been living 

 at this time. The mammalia from these deposits are linked to 

 the Pliocene by the /?//. mcgnr/iiniis, and to the late Pleistocene by 

 the Ovihiis mosc/iaitis. The presence of jMiir/uvroi/iis latidcns in 

 Kent's Hole, and of the RJi. nwgai'hiniis in the cave at Oreston, 

 tends to the conclusion that some of the caves in the south of 

 England contain a fauna that was living before the late Pleisto- 

 cene age. The whole assemblage of Pleistocene animals evinces 

 a less severe climate than in the late Pleistocene times. The 

 fossil bones from the forest-bed of Norfolk and Suffolk show that 

 in the early Pleistocene mammalia there was a great mixture of 

 Pleistocene and Pliocene species. It is probable also that the 

 period was one of long duration, for in it we find two animals 

 which are unknown on the Continent, implying that the 

 lapse of lime was sufficiently great to allow of the evolution 

 of forms of animal life hitherto unknown, and which dis- 

 appeared before the middle and late Pleistocene stages. 

 The author criticised M. Lartet's classification of the late Pleis- 

 tocene or Quaternary period by means of the cave-bear, mam- 

 moth, reindeer, and aurochs, and urged that, since the remains 

 of all these animals were intimately associated in the caves of 

 France, Germany, and Britain, and, so far as we know, the first 

 two appeared and disappeared together, and the last two liveil 

 on into the Prehistoric age, they did not afford a basis for 

 a chronology. The latest of the ihrte divi-ions of the British 

 Pleistocene fauna is widely spread through France, Germany, 

 and Russia, from the English Channel to the shores of the 

 Mediterranean. The Middle Pleistocene is represented by a 

 river-deposit in Auvergne, and by a cave in the Jura, in which 

 the presence of the Miichinvdiis latidcus, and a non-tichorine 

 rhinoceros, and the absence of the characteristic arctic group of 

 the late Pleistocene and of all the peculiar animals of the early 

 Forest-bed stage, prove that that era muut be Middle Pleisto- 

 cene. The early Pleistocene division is represented in France 

 by the river-deposit at Chartres, being char.acterised by the 

 presence of two non-Pliocene animals, Trogonlheriuiii xa& Ccrvus 

 carniiloriim. The Pleistocene mammalia of the regions south 

 of the Alps and Pyrenees present no trace of arctic species, 

 the mammoth being viewed as an animal fitted for the climatal 

 conditions both of Northern Siberia and of the Southern States 

 of America. It contains Eleplias africaiius and HviTiia stria/n. 

 The fauna of Sicily, Malta, and Crete differ considerably from 

 that described above, possessing some peculiar forms, such as 

 Hippopotamus pcnthuidi, Myoxiis mcli/ciisis, and EUphas tiicli- 

 ti'iisis. The Pleistocene mammalia may be divided into five 

 groups, each marking a difference in the climate, the first 

 embracing those which now live in hot countries ; the second 

 those which inhabit northern regions, or high mountains, where 

 the cold is severe ; the third those whicli inhabit temperate 

 regioa ; a frMrth thoFe which are found alike in hot and cold ; 

 and a fifth which are extinct. There were three climatal zones, 

 marked by the varying range of animals. The northern, into 

 which the southern forms never penetrated, the latitude of York- 

 shire being the boundary of the advance of the southern animals; 

 the southern, into which the northern species never passed, a line 

 passing through the Alps and Pyrenees being the limit of the 

 range of the northern animals, and an intermediatearea in which 

 the two are found mingled together. Two out of the three zones 

 are proved by the physical evidence of the Pleistocene strata. 



