August 7, igr 



NATURE 



^89 



and Weight Stand. uds," "The Origin and Influence 

 of the Thoroughbred Horse," and "The Origin of 

 Tragedy," have advanced our knowledge of pre- 

 historic archaeology, while his separation of the 

 northern and southern elements in early Greek history, 

 received at first with almost generally hostile criti- 

 cism, has passed into the region of orthodox common- 

 place in the light of the Cretan discoveries by Sir A. 

 Evans. It is much to be desired that the completion 

 of his admirable work, "The Early Age of Greece," 

 will not be much longer delayed. 



The death is announced, in his sixty-sixth year, ol 

 Sir Richard Powell Cooper, a distinguished agricul- 

 turist, who played a very large part indeed in develop- 

 ing the enormous industry in exporting pedigree live- 

 stock, which has now become a recognised part of 

 British agriculture. He was also a member of the firm 

 of Cooper and Nephews, chemical manufacturers and 

 exporters of live-stock; this firm set up laboratories at 

 Watford and Berkhamsted, and made chemical pre- 

 parations for agricultural and horticultural purposes, 

 and also conducted a number of investigations bearing 

 on these substances. Sir Richard farmed a large 

 estate at Shenstone Court, Lichfield, and he also 

 owned land and live-stock in Australia, the Argentine, 

 South Africa, Paraguay, Russia, and elsewhere. He 

 was an exceedingly good business man, and intro- 

 duced business methods into branches of agriculture 

 and horticulture where such methods had previously 

 been wanting. In particular he played a great part 

 in revivifying the Royal Agricultural Society, when a 

 few years ago it came dangerously near to collapse. 



As the white man spreads over the tropical regions 

 of the earth, he comes continually into contact with 

 new and unfamiliar forms of disease, often of a 

 deadly kind. One of the most recent additions to 

 the white man's burden is a peculiar malady known 

 as Verruga (or Verruca) Peruana, also as Fiebre de 

 la Oroya, or Carrion's fever, described by Darling 

 as "an infectious disease in which a fever of irregu- 

 lar type, associated with more or less severe anaemia, 

 is followed by a wart-like eruption of the skir> and 

 sometimes of the mucous or serous membrane." Two 

 forms of the disease are recognised, malignant and 

 benign. It occurs in certain valleys on the western 

 slopes of the Peruvian Andes at altitudes of from 

 1000 to 12,000 ft., most often between 2000 and 

 6000 ft. According to the researches of Mayer, 

 Rocha-Lima, and Werner (vide Tropical Diseases 

 Bulletin, No. 12, p. 727), the parasitic cause of the 

 disease is one of the problematic class of organisms 

 known as Chlamydozoa. In a recent letter to The Times 

 (July 12) Dr. Anderson states that, according to a tele- 

 gram from Mr. Billinghurst, President of the Peruvian 

 Republic, it has been discovered by Prof. Townsend, 

 of Lima, that verruga is transmitted by one of the 

 small blood-sucking midges of the genus Phlebotomus. 

 These insects are small, hairy, moth-like flies, widely 

 distributed in tropical or subtropical regions; one 

 species is known to transmit " Papataci fever " in 

 Dalmatia, and by some authorities the dissemination 

 of Oriental sore is also attributed to midges of this 

 genus. 



NO. 2284, VOL. 91] 



Mr. W. M. Newton has republished from the 

 Journal of the British Archaeological Association for 

 lasl March an important paper entitled " Palaeolithic 

 Figures of Flint Found in the Old River Alluvia of 

 England and France, and called Figure Stones." 

 These are nodules of flint assuming the shapes of 

 animals or of animals' heads. These objects were 

 discussed by Boucher de Perthes in his " Antiques 

 Celtiques et Antediluviennes," published in 1840, and 

 l'\ the late Sir John Evans in Archaeologia, 

 vol. xxxviii., i860, the latter eminent authority re- 

 garding them as "the effects of accidental concretions 

 and the peculiar colourings and fracture of flint, rather 

 than as designedly fashioned." Mr. Newton has, in 

 recent years, found similar objects in a gravel-pit at 

 Dartford, Kent. In the present paper he describes 

 his fine collection, and suggests their analogy with 

 specimens found in Egypt and elsewhere. The full 

 materials and fine illustrations supplied will enable 

 archaeologists to study the facts, which are certainly 

 striking. Meanwhile, the conclusions of Sir John 

 Evans do not appear to be materially affected by the 

 fresh evidence now presented. 



A remarkable group of long-snouted representatives 

 of the Lower Tertiary perissodactyle family Titano- 

 theriidae, from the Uinta beds of Utah, forms the 

 subject of a paper by Mr. E. S. Riggs in the Geo- 

 logical Publications (vol. iv., No. 2) of the Field 

 Museum, Chicago. Four generic types (one of which, 

 Rhadinorhinus, is described as new) are recognised in 

 this group, collectively forming the subfamily Dolicho- 

 rhinae. 



It is well known to poultry-breeders that birds pro- 

 duced by crossing white Leghorns with black or dark- 

 coloured breeds frequently exhibit a barred plumage 

 ("cuckoo-marking"), of which there is no trace in 

 either of the parent stocks. As the result of experi- 

 ments, Dr. P. B. Hadley is enabled to demonstrate, 

 in the July number of The American Naturalist, that 

 this barring occurs in a certain proportion of such 

 cross-bred birds of the F, and subsequent generations, 

 and that the pattern is derived from the white stock. 

 The result of the experiments has, however, no bear- 

 ing on the ultimate origin of this type of marking, 

 but merely indicates the existence in white Leghorns 

 of factors tending to produce both black and barring. 



According to an illustrated article by Prof. C. L. 

 Edwards, in the June number of The Popular Science 

 Monthly, "abalones," as the various species of 

 Haliotis are locally called, are extensively fished in 

 California, both as a food-supply and for the sake of 

 their shells, which form an important sourte of 

 mother-of-pearl, and, when polished, are also used as 

 ornaments and as shades for electric lights. A con- 

 siderable number of pearls are also yielded by 

 abalones. The price of the shells ranges from 1000 

 to 4000 dollars per ton, and the total value of the 

 shells and flesh taken at Long Beach alone during 

 the year ending in July, 1912, was no less than 

 95,800 dollars. 



To part 4 of the first volume of Mitteilungen land- 

 wirtschaft. Lehrkanzeln k.k. Hochschule fin Boden- 



