370 



NA TURE 



[August 9, 1906 



son dealing with the basin itself, while Mr. T. D. A. 

 Cocl^erell discusses the fossil fauna and flora of the 

 Florissant shales. A paper on the existing flora of the 

 district, by Dr. F. Ramaley, may be regarded as supple- 

 mental to the other two. The Florissant shales, which 

 contain a very rich series of fossils, are apparently later 

 than the well-known Green Rover shales, and may prob- 

 ably be assigned to the Miocene period. " The plants and 

 insects are wonderfully preserved in fine volcanic sand or 

 ash, deposited in layers which readily split apart, reveal- 

 ing the specimens, just as they fell, in prodigious numbers. 

 Green leaves and even branchlets were torn from the trees, 

 and insects perished wholesale in a catastrophe that must 

 have equalled that of Martinique." 



Two new memoirs of the Geological Survey of England 

 and Wales have been received, " The Geology of the 

 Country near Sidmouth and Lyme Regis," by H. B. 

 Woodward and W. A. E. Ussher, and " The Water 

 Supply of Suffolk from Underground Sources," by W. 

 Whitaker, with contributions by Dr. H. F. Parsons, Dr. 

 H. R. Mill, and Dr. J. C. Thresh. The former memoir 

 is explanatory of sheets 326 and 340 of the new series, 

 colour printed, geological maps (i inch to the mile). It 

 embraces a district that is famous no less for the eminent 

 pioneer geologists who have worked in it than for its 

 intrinsic geological interest. The cliff sections, so well 

 exposed along the coast, are represented by numerous 

 diagrams ; there are also some small black-and-white maps 

 and a few time-honoured representations of common 

 fossils ; the frontispiece is a reproduction of one of Sir 

 A. Geikie's vigorous sketches, depicting the Axmouth or 

 Bindon landslip. A short chapter on the local economic 

 geology is done with more care than is usual in these 

 " sheet explanations," and is quite adequate for the pur- 

 pose. No striking advance appears to have been made 

 with the difficult problem of the correlation of the lower 

 New Red Sandstone series. The " Water Supply of 

 Suffolk " is the fourth of the series of county memoirs 

 dealing with this subject. It comprises a brief introduc- 

 tion to the geology, with remarks on the more notable 

 borings, as that at Stutton, and others which record a 

 remarkable thickness of Glacial drift. There is a sketch 

 of the county rainfall with a coloured rainfall map by 

 Dr. H. R. Mill, a series of detailed records of wells and 

 borings, and a number of analyses of Suffolk waters. 

 These water-supply memoirs should be of the greatest 

 value to engineers, builders, and others. We note, for 

 the first time, the free use of the American " geologic " in 

 an English survey memoir; it is to be hoped that in 

 future numbers of the series the practice of inserting maps 

 showing the depth of water-bearing strata may be 

 imported from the same quarter — this would be a much 

 more useful innovation. 



The application of artificial manures to forest land has 

 received some attention in Belgium and Germany, the 

 results being sufficiently encouraging to induce Dr. Borth- 

 wick to bring the matter to the notice of the Royal Scottish 

 Arboricultural Society. Besides showing an increase of 

 growth, it has been found that trees on manured soil are 

 stronger and less liable to disease. Dr. Borthwick's 

 address is printed in the Transactions of the Society (vol. 

 xix., part ii.), wherein there appear several papers by Dr. 

 Nisbet, Mr. W. M. Stewart, and Mr. R. Galloway on the 

 advisability and cost of establishing plantations in Great 

 Britain, either as a cooperative undertaking or otherwise. 

 A system is described of combating larch disease by 

 NO. 1919. VOL. 74] 



thinning out the pure larch woods after sixteen or twenty 

 years and planting up with other conifers or beech. 



The Department of Agriculture in the Federated Malay 

 States was initiated in June, 1905, so that the report of 

 the director, Mr. J. B. Carruthers, refers to half a year's 

 work. Mr. Carruthers is continuing his experimental trials, 

 previously started in Ceylon, of protective jungle belts to 

 prevent the spread of fungal and insect pests. Reference 

 is made to the more important products of the States, e.g. 

 rubber, cocoanuts, sugar, and rice. At present the acreage 

 of land planted with cocoanut palms is three times as great 

 as that planted in rubber, but the value of the latter is 

 already greater. On swampy lands it is suggested that 

 nipah and sago palms will yield profitable results. 



Sir Dietrich Brandis contributes an account, with illus- 

 trations, of some bamboos collected in Martaban to the 

 April and May numbers of the Indian Forester. Allusion 

 is made to the transverse veins and the longitudinal 

 bands of silica cells on bamboo leaves that are both well 

 marked in Pseudostachyum polymorphum. The genera 

 Oxytenanthera and Gigantochloa are characterised by the 

 connate arrangement of the anthers, forming a transparent 

 membranous tube. The rhizomes of a Phyllostachys and 

 Thyrostachys siamensis are converted into walking-sticks 

 and umbrella handles. 



A NEW photographic paper has recently been put on 

 the market by the Falla-Gray Photo Paper Co., Ltd., and 

 samples have been submitted to us for trial. The special 

 feature of the paper is that by some preparation of the 

 emulsion it has been found possible to give a film which 

 can be satisfactorily fixed by an immersion of only one 

 minute in the hypo bath, and as satisfactorily washed in 

 five minutes after fixing. It is claimed that this great 

 saving of time is not obtained at any expense of the per- 

 manency of the prints. In actual working the paper is 

 similar to the general type of gaslight paper, the image 

 appearing quickly and rapidly acquiring full density. Wfth 

 the developer recommended, a rather strong combination of 

 metol and hydroquinone, excellent toned greys and blacks 

 appear to be easily obtained, while the semi-glossy surface 

 is well adapted to give all the detail that may be required 

 for reproduction purposes. The paper should prove useful 

 for Press purposes, where fine gradation and speed of pro- 

 duction are specially necessary, while to the ordinary 

 worlver it will be recommended by its full range of tones 

 and adaptability to most kinds of negatives by variations 

 of exposure. 



The eleventh " Annual " of the British School at Athens 

 has been issued by Messrs. Macmillan and Co., Ltd; it 

 describes the work accomplished during the session 

 1904-5. Dr. A. J. Evans, F.R.S., contributes a pro- 

 visional report on the e.\cavations during the year at the 

 palace of Knossos and its dependencies ; there are five 

 articles on Laconia concerned respectively with the ex- 

 cavations near Angelona, the excavations, sculptures and 

 inscriptions of Geraki, the excavations and inscriptions of 

 Thalamae, a note on the 'Sp/tui on the north-east frontier, 

 and the Frankish sculptures at Parori and Geraki. The 

 assistant-director of the school, Mr. M. N. Tod, describes 

 inscriptions from Eumeneia, and there are in addition nearly 

 a dozen other well-illustrated contributions, making up with 

 the sixteen plates an admirable and interesting volume. 



An interesting pamphlet on the development of the 

 Bristol Museum and Art Gallery has been written by Mr. 

 W. R. Barker, chairman of the Museum and Art Gallery 



