Jury 8, 1915] 
the bones of the head and face remain to serve them 
as a guide. The matter has also been taken up by 
anatomists in America. Recently Prof. Charles 
W. M. Poynter, of the University of Nebraska, handed 
three human skulls to an artist with the request that 
the soft parts of the face and head might be recon- 
structed according to the data published by Prof. von 
Eggeling, of the University of Jena. The artist did 
not know that the three skulls belonged to natives 
of North America, one being a skull found in a 
Nebraska loess mound by Mr. Robert F. Gilder, and 
possibly of Pleistocene age, another belonged to an 
Indian of pre-Columbian date, while the third was 
that of a modern Indian. Photographs of the plastic 
reconstructions made by the artist have been published 
in the illustrated Press of America, the American- 
Indian type of countenance being very apparent in all 
three. Whatever the age of the Nebraska loess skull 
may prove to be, there can be no doubt, from its 
osteological characters, that its owner was a man of 
the Indian type. The plastic reconstructions show that 
the artist had come unconsciously to the same con- | 
clusion. 
THE appointment of Dr. R. E. Fries to the director- 
ship of the Bergielund Botanic Garden is recorded in 
Kew Bulletin No. 4. Dr. Fries, who has travelled 
widely in South America and published extensively in 
various domains of botany, carries on the botanical 
traditions of his father, Prof. T. M. Fries, and his 
grandfather, E. M. Fries, the brilliant expositor of 
the Fungi. The Bergielund garden is at Albano, near 
Stockholm, and was bequeathed to the Royal Academy 
of Science by Bergius, the pupil of Linnzus, well 
known for his work on Cape plants. His bequest, in 
addition to the garden of 17 acres, comprised his ex- 
tensive library and herbarium as well as much of his 
estate. 
Miss Maup D. Havitanp records some very in- 
teresting observations, which have the additional merit 
of being for the most part new, on the courtship of the 
lapwing in the Zoologist for June. Under the term 
“courtship ’’ she includes all behaviour that is peculiar 
to the bird in spring time, but the only emotional 
display, she contends, which is to be interpreted as a 
deliberate display to a prospective mate, is the exhibi- 
tion of the richly coloured chestnut under tail-coverts. 
Miss Haviland confirms the view that the amatory 
exercises of these birds take place within a circum- 
scribed area, more or less distant from the nesting 
place. While making no claim to originality for her 
interpretation of the origin of nest-building, she makes 
some trenchant criticisms on certain grotesque theories 
which have been propounded on this subject. 
THE recently issued number (tome xiv., 1914) of the 
Bulletin du Jardin Impérial Botanique de Pierre le 
Grand contains several interesting papers in Russian, 
which, fortunately, are provided with summaries in 
French. Mlle. Ljabitzkaja contributes an account 
illustrated with excellent plates dealing with the 
various forms of Leucobryum glaucum, the moss 
which occurs in the form of free, rounded, disc-like 
masses with radially arranged stems sometimes met 
NO. 2384, VOL. 95] 
NATORE 
517 
with in Engiand. A map of the distribution of the 
various forms in Russia is also included. The author 
considers that only the single species, L. glaucum, 
occurs in Europe, the ball-like form being var. sub- 
secundum, The moss, except in the west of the 
Caucasus, is always infertile, and the author considers 
the fertile form of the Czemomorsk region to be a 
new variety, which he calls var. gracile. 
In continuation of the series. of researches on the 
development of minerals from igneous magmas, which 
we owe to workers in the United States, Mr. Olaf 
Andersen has examined the supposed binary system, 
CaAl,Si,O0,—MgSiO, (American Journal of Science, 
vol. xxxix., p. 408). The MgSiO, constituent proved 
to be unstable at its melting point, breaking up into 
forsterite and a melt. Silica appeared as cristobalite 
and tridymite. In certain mixtures, moreover, spinel 
arose, deriving its alumina from the anorthite mole- 
cule, which also became unstable. Spinel is in conse- 
quence regarded as originating in igneous rocks froma 
homogeneous magma. The crystallisation of forsterite 
under the conditions of the experiments is interestingly 
shown to explain the known relations between olivine 
and pyroxene in igneous rocks. 
Tue Geological Survey of Great Britain, since our 
notice at the end of April (Nature, vol. xcv., p. 242), 
has issued a memoir to Sheet 269, price 2s. 6d., on 
the country around Windsor and Chertsey. The 
authors, Messrs. Dewey and Bromehead, show how 
the commanding site chosen for Windsor Castle is 
due to the erosion of an anticline of challx, which here 
rises from beneath the level Cainozoic beds. It will 
be new to many readers that the Ditrupa sandstones 
in the London Clay are capable of forming waterfalls 
in the local streams. The sequence of flint implements 
in the gravel-terraces is discussed. The Scottish 
Branch gives us a memoir to Sheet 74, on the difficult 
country of Mid-Strathspey and Strathearn (price 
2s. 6d.). The great alluvial cones and terraces con- 
nected with overflow-channels of glacial days are 
finely illustrated. The book is one that will add 
greatly to the pleasure of any intelligent visitor to 
Aviemore and the historic Grampian road. 
THE severe thunderstorm which passed over the 
central parts of London on the evening of May 6 is 
dealt with in Symons’s Meteorological Magazine. A 
map is given which shows very clearly the limited 
area over which the rainfall was heavy. Only four 
rainfall records have been received from the six square 
miles which embrace the region with a rainfall of more 
than 15 in. The measurements are 1°70 in. at Messrs. 
Negretti and Zambra’s premises at Holborn Viaduct; 
1-76 in. at Mr. Steward’s in the Strand; 3-00 in. at 
the Holborn Borough Stone Yard; and 3712 in. at 
New River Head, the office of the Northern District 
of the Metropolitan Water Board. It is stated that 
more than 3 in. of rain possibly fell on an area, 
about half a mile wide and a mile and a half long, 
between the City and King’s Cross. Mr. J. M. Wood, 
Engineer for the Northern District of the Metropolitan 
Water Board, made the following careful and interest- 
| ing report. ‘‘On Thursday evening, the 6th instant, 

