554 



NA TURE 



{April \\, 1887 



After a short stay at Sandy Point, a Chilian settlement 

 at the eastern mouth of the Straits, Mr. Ball proceeded 

 to Monte A'ideo and Baenos Ayres, from whence he 

 ascended the Uruguay River ; and, passing Fray Bentos, 

 the great factory of " Liebig's Extract of Beef," finally 

 reached Paysandu, equally familiar to English house- 

 keepers for its preserved tongues. This digression gave 

 him a fair view of the aspect of the flora of a great extent 

 of the Argentine Confederation, which, with its Pampas, 

 Salinas, and riparian vegetation differs wholly from that of 

 all the regions he had hitherto visited. For the Argentine 

 Confederation he proposes the terra " Argentaria,"a good 

 one, which will, we hope, be acceptable to biologists, and 

 to geographers too. 



Santos, in South Brazil, was the next point visited, and 

 from there Mr. Ball took tlie rail to Sto. Paolo, and thence 

 on to Rio de Janeiro. Here he is upon ground familiar to 

 naturalists, and we need only allude to the singular specu- 

 lation to which his observations on the geology of that 

 part of Brazil, and his reading of the observations of 

 others on the same subject, have given birth. After dwell- 

 ing on the enormous area of Brazil occupied exclusively 

 by granite and gneiss, and the extent and depth of the 

 deposits of the disintegrated materials formed out of the 

 same matrix, including 200,000 square miles of the 

 plateau of Brazil, the Argentine Pampas, and Paraguay, 

 he goes on to say : " To my mind the conclusion is irre- 

 sistible that ancient Brazil was one of the greatest moun- 

 tain regions of the earth, and that its summits may very 

 probably have exceeded in height any now existing in the 

 world." And it is these mountains which he regards as 

 the probable birthplace of the chief types of the phanero- 

 gamous vegetation of South America. A few peculiar 

 types, indeed, may have been developed in the Andes, 

 but not such as have stamped their features on the vegeta- 

 tion of the continent. Mr. Ball further correlates this 

 speculation with another as bold, which he gave to the 

 Geographical Society in 1879 (Proceedings, p. 464), and 

 which is, that the chief types of existing flowering-plants 

 originated in the higher mountain regions of the globe 

 " at a period when the proportion of carbonic acid 

 gas present in the atmosphere was very much greater 

 than it has been since the deposition of the Coal- 

 measures." To discuss these novel ideas would be out 

 of place here ; but we must, in justice to our author's 

 candour, add his avowal that he regards them " as having 

 no claim to rank as more than probable conjectures, 

 but that, as they rest on some positive basis of facts, they 

 may be serviceable to the progress of science by stimu- 

 lating inquiry." 



It remains to add that the work concludes with two 

 appendixes — one " on the fall of temperature in ascending 

 to heights above the sea-level," which is a model of pains- 

 taking research into the methods and observations hitherto 

 adopted, but which leaves this complex subject no further 

 advanced ; the other, " on Mr. CroU's theory of secular 

 changes of the earth's climate," is a really valuable con- 

 tribution to that fascinating inquiry. And here we take 

 leave of Mr. Ball, congratulating him heartily on having 

 .-idded to oui library of South American travels a volume 

 that well deserves a corner of the shelf that contains 

 those of Humboldt, Darwin, and Bates. 



PAL/EOLITHIC MAN IN NORTH-WEST 

 MIDDLESEX 



PalaoUlhic Man in North- West Middlesex. By J. A. 

 Brown. (London: Macmillan and Co , 18S7.) 



THIS work has two faults by no means peculiar to 

 itself, but which it shares with many books on 

 science. 



One of these is the large amount of introductory matter 

 that bars the way to the special subject of study. Thus 

 we do not get into Middlesex until reaching page 42, 

 and then we quit it again after p. 120, to return at 

 p. 185. Certainly, our author shows us how much 

 trouble he has taken in looking up authorities on palaeo- 

 lithic and savage man in general ; but he should 

 remember that some folk don't like their whisky to be 

 over-watered. 



The second fault one must allude to with sorrow. 

 Why is it that so many scientific scribes have such a 

 weakness for slipshod English ? Is it that they feel the 

 advance of science to be so rapid that their works will be 

 passed by in a few years, as out of date, so that it is not 

 worth while to cultivate style, and grammar is hardly 

 essential ? Or is it that they expect the bad language of 

 to-day to be the good language of the future, by an evil 

 process of evolution, the survival of the unfittest ? 

 Let Prof. Lankester note this as a possible case of 

 degeneration. 



One cannot resist giving some examples. On p. 11 we 

 are told that " abundant traces of man in the Neolithic 

 Age are found on the surface of the ground, which may 

 be picked up on ploughed fields." The surface of the 

 ground is usually a good deal picked up on ploughed 

 fields ; but of course that is not what is meant. An 

 author who has written much on prehistoric man might 

 perhaps be justified in bringing an action for libel for the 

 remark on p. 67 that " the fauna — as Prof Dawkins says 

 — is the same, and are referable to the same geological 

 horizon." On p. 90 it is said of a certain tool that " it 

 certainly has the appearance of greater antiquity as an 

 implement, than do a very large proportion," &c. In the 

 middle of p. 94 three successive sentences begin with 

 " It," but that awkward little word in two cases stands for 

 one particular implement, whilst in the third the general 

 type to which that implement belongs must be referred 

 to, as the particular " it " cannot have been found, in these 

 unmiraculous times, in three distinct places : at Ealing, 

 in Kent, and in Surrey. At p. 112 the singular " No. 131 " 

 is shortly followed by the plural " They," the latter being 

 meant to refer to other numbers as well. 



Having said this much as to things in general, we may 

 say that Mr. Brown's book is a praiseworthy account of 

 a particular district, and that it would not be amiss if 

 other districts had as careful an observer in their midst, 

 eager to see every section, and to record every find. It 

 is a work that London antiquaries and geologists should 

 possess. 



Up to the time when Dr. Evans's great work on stone 

 implements was published, but few specimens of worked 

 flints had been recorded from the nutropolitan district ; 

 but in the same year. Colonel Lane- Fox (now General 

 Pitt-Rivers) recorded the finding of a lar_;e number in the 



