JuNE 6, 1912] 
NATURE 
347 
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 
{The Editor does not hold himself responsible for 
opinions expressed by his correspondents. Neither 
can he undertake to return, or to correspond with 
the writers of, rejected manuscripts intended for 
this or any other part of Nature. No notice is 
taken of anonymous communications.] 
Discovery of Fossils in the Chert and Black Shale 
Series at Aberfoyle. 
THE greatest riddle in Scottish geology at the pre- 
sent day is that of the true stratigraphical position of 
the series of metamorphic rocks in the central, 
southern, and eastern Highlands which Sir Archi- 
bald Geikie has included under the term ‘* Dalradian.”’ 
These rocks have been mapped and to a large extent 
described by officers of the Geological Survey, and 
have been much discussed by others, but no agree- 
ment has been reached as to the structure of the area 
or the relations of various members of the series to 
each other. Even the question as to which is the 
top and which the bottom of the succession of de- 
posits is still unsettled. One great difficulty met with 
is the lack of organic remains in the altered sedi- 
ments. But fossils have recently been discovered in 
the group of rocks which Prof. J. W. Gregory con- 
veniently terms the ‘‘ Boundary Fault Series.’’ This 
series has been traced as an interrupted belt along 
the southern border of the Highlands from Stone- 
haven on the east to the island of Arran on the west, 
and it is prolonged into Ireland. The best exposures 
in Scotland occur in Arran, in the district between 
Loch Lomond and Callander, and in Forfarshire and 
Kincardineshire. They consist of cherts or jaspers 
and shales, sometimes associated with limestones and 
with some peculiar igneous rocks. 
The rocks of this belt often present a close re- 
semblance to some of the Arenig rocks in the 
Southern Uplands of Scotland, and were provisionally 
correlated with the latter by Messrs. Peach and 
Horne in their volume on ‘The Silurian Rocks of 
Britain,”’ vol. i., Scotland (Mem. Geol. Surv., 1899). 
Bodies recognised as remains of Radiolaria were | 
detected by Dr. Peach in the cherts near Gualann, 
east of Loch Lomond. 
The belt has been marked on the Geological Survey 
maps as doubtfully Lower Silurian. The exposures 
which occur along the Highland boundary in Forfar- 
shire and Kincardineshire have been described by 
Mr. G. Barrow (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. lvii., 
1gor), and there the ‘‘ Jasper and Green-rock Series” 
is associated with a younger group of argillaceous | 
and calcareous strata termed the ‘‘ Margie Series.” 
More recently Dr. R. Campbell has recorded the | 
discovery of fossils in the black shales, jaspers, and 
cherts intercalated in a series of crushed green 
igneous rocks north of Stonehaven, which points to 
the probability that the sediments are of Upper 
Cambrian age (Geol. Mag., N.S., Decade V., vol. 
Vili., 1911). 
After spending many months in searching the 
black shales and cherts in the neighbourhood of 
Aberfoyle, I have at last been fortunate in finding a | 
number of fossils in those beds. These have been 
submitted to Dr. Peach for determination. He has 
recognised the casts of hingeless brachiopods, some 
of which appear to be referable to the genus 
Lingulella and some to the genus Obolus; the collec- 
tion also includes the jaw of an annelid. The 
evidence, so far as it goes, which is afforded by these 
fossils as to the age of the Boundary Fault Series 
NO. vot. 89] 
oP.) 
23, 
| tends to confirm the view that it is Upper Cambrian, 
| or at any rate Lower Palzozoic. 
Further search is being made for fossils in the 
belt between Loch Lomond and Callander, and a 
fuller communication will be made at the British 
Association meetings in Dundee in September. 
Tuomas J. JEnu. 
The University, St. Andrews. 
The Protection of Nature in South Bavaria. 
THERE appeared in Nature of April 27, 1g11 (vol. 
Ixxxvi., p. 286), a very interesting paper by Mr. 
A. E. Crawley, ‘‘Germany and the Protection of 
Nature.” 
It will perhaps interest readers of Nature to have 
a few particulars about this scheme of protection 
from one of the best centres, namely, in the health 
resort of Berchtesgaden, in the Bavarian Alps, the 
shooting residence of the Prince Regent Luitpold of 
Bavaria. 
We find there different connected systems of pro- 
tection. The Government has ordered that all wild 
plants of commerce, as well as rare specimens, are 
to be protected. Without special permission nobody 
may remove the following plants :—Leontopodium 
| alpinum, Rhododendron hirsutum, R. intermedium, 
R.  ferrugineum, Rhodothamnus —_ chamacecistus, 
Loiseleuria procumbens, Helleborus niger, Cypri- 
pedilum  calceolus, Primula auricula, Gentiana 
pannonica, G. purpurea, Nigritella suaveolens, 
Orchis ustulata, Chamaeorchis alpina, Ophrys 
muscifera, Gentiana acaulis, Lilium martagon, 
| Platanthera bifolia, Scolopendrium officinarum, 
Cyclamen europaeum, Achillea clavennae, Imperatoria 
ostruthium, Nymphaea alba, Ilex aquifolium, Taxus 
baccata, Pinus cembra, &c. 
When we examine the names of these plants, we 
see that many of them are remarkable for a limestone 
flora. Tables with coloured flowers show the exact 
form of specimen under consideration, and the 
waiting-rooms in railway stations, as well as the 
foyers in the big hotels, have excellently painted 
illustrations of the protected plants. 
This system, however, is not sufficient alone; large 
mountain areas are also protected, and are called 
‘* Pflanzen-Schonbezirk.”” This applies to nearly all 
the great mountains which border the Kénigsee 
near Berchtesgaden, the pearl of the German lakes. 
No one has the right to collect here any plant, except 
a few men of science with special permission of the 
Government. Some rare butterflies, as Parnassius 
Apollo, var. Bartholomaeus (the only known locality 
for this variety is the surroundings by the old shoot- 
ing residence ‘St. Bartholoma’’ on the Kénigsee), 
are also protected. Infringement of these rules in- 
volves a fine up to 7l. 1os., or imprisonment. The 
protection is under the control of the Forest Depart- 
ment, and is left to the cooperation of the public. 
In the district of Berchtesgaden is also the well- 
| known health-resort Bath Reichenhall. Here is an 
Alpine garden at an altitude of 400 metres for the 
limestone flora of the Bavarian Alps. 
C. C. Hossews. 
A Simple Eclipse Experiment. 
Tue phenomena of an eclipse may be well repro- 
duced by a simple experiment made as follows :— 
Make a smooth round hole, about one-eighth of an 
inch in diameter, in a visiting card or thin sheet of 
metal, and allow the rays from the sun or other 
source of light to pass through the hole and fall on 
