AvuGuST 15, 1912| 
obvious promise of continuance, until I was compelled 
to stop work. This curve also gives a poor impression 
of the great strength of the action. The f-rays seem 
to have had the upper hand in the case of pitchblende, 
just as the a particles had in that of thorium. 
As an amateur | do not feel able to take the matter 
beyond this point. Accurate laboratory methods with 
the help of qualified assistants might give important 
results. RicHarp How Lerr. 
Park House, Walton-on-Thames, August 1. 
Aged Sea Anemones. 
In 1904 Dr. J. R. Ashworth and I published in the 
Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (vol. 
XXV., p. I) observations on aged individuals of 
Sagartia troglodytes then and still in the possession 
of Miss Jessie Nelson in Edinburgh. After eight years 
these anemones are still in excellent health, having 
been in captivity for considerably more than half a 
century. In one respect I fear that we did them an 
injustice, namely in attributing cannibalism to them, 
the error being probably due to the observation of the 
birth of young from a parent the tentacles of which 
were not fully expanded. Recently I chanced to notice a 
young Sagartia attached to a small piece of seaweed 
floating free in the aquarium. A slight agitation of 
the water was sufficient to bring the young anemone 
in contact with the tentacles of one of the patriarchs 
of its own species. They immediately closed round it 
and a small part of the disk became emarginate. The 
greater part, however, was not sensibly affected, and 
the mouth remained closed. In less than two minutes 
the folded-in tentacles uncurled and the young 
anemone was thrust away with some force. It then 
came in contact with the tentacles of a second old 
Sagartia, and exactly the same thing occurred. 
Neither the young one nor the tentacles that had held 
it were apparently affected in any way. Immediately 
after the first old Sagartia had released the young 
one, I dropped on its tentacles, in the region which 
had temporarily been affected by contact with the 
latter, the body of a small isopod. The isopod was 
seized in exactly the same manner that the young 
anemone had been seized, but the movements soon 
spread to other tentacles, the mouth gaped open, and 
the isopod was swallowed. In other individuals of the 
same species I have noticed that small masses of 
food, such as this little isopod, remain apparently un- 
observed if dropped gently on to the disk within the 
tentacles without touching them, but that if the | 
tentacles are then touched and in the movements that 
ensue come in contact with the food lying neglected 
on the disk, its presence is apparently realised and 
it is swallowed. N. ANNANDALE. 
1 Marchhall Crescent, Edinburgh, July 30. 
On the Nature of Stromatoporoids. 
In a letter to Nature (July 18, p. 502) I stated that 
the Palaeozoic Monticuliporas were siliceous sponges 
with a supplementary calcareous skeleton. 
An examination of the Stromatoporoids—classed 
in the standard text-books (Zittel, Geilkie, Steinmann) 
under Hydrozoa and Polyzoa—has led me to the con- 
clusion that these fossils also are siliceous sponges. 
For I have found, both in the Hydractinioid and 
Milleporoid groups of Stromatoporoids, — siliceous 
spicules of a kind related to, but not identical with, 
those of Merlia and Monticulipora. Frequently it is 
difficult to find the spicules, and it is not surprising 
that they have hitherto escaped observation. They 
are mostly microscleres of the sigma type, and re- 
quire a magnification of about tooo diameters to see 
clearly. Some care is necessary not to mistake edges 
of flakes of calcite for spicules. i 
NO. 2233, vor. 89] 
NATURE 
‘ 
| deaf ears. 
607 
The ‘‘Caunopora”’ tubes, at least those which I 
have examined in several typical Stromatoporoids, 
are not corals, as generally supposed, but tubes of a 
Chzetopod worm. The supposed tabulze are merely 
an expression of the segmentation of the Annelid. 
In some instances the worm is fairly well preserved, 
and the acicula abundant. 
To return to Monticulipora, I find that some typical 
species of Favosites, Chaetetes, and Rhaphidopora 
are siliceous sponges with supplementary calcareous 
skeletons of the Monticulipora type. 
R. Kirkpatrick. 
British Museum (Natural History). 
The Earthquake in Turkey on August 9. 
Tue recent earthquake, reported as felt in Con- 
stantinople, and as very destructive near the Sea of 
Marmora, has left its mark on the photographic 
traces of our unifilar and bifilar magnetographs, but 
not on the vertical force balance; and, contrary to 
expectation, the disturbance is more pronounced on 
the unifilar than on the bifilar curve. The Milne 
seismograph failed to record the time of the maxi- 
mum disturbance otherwise than that it occurred 
either between 1.44 and 1.45 or between 1.47 and 
1.50 a.m. on August 9, during which intervals the 
oscillations of the boom overstepped the recording 
limits. The time as registered on the magnetograms 
is 1.45 a.m., and this, as the true time of greatest 
earth oscillation, would lead us to expect an origin 
nearer to us than the Sea of Marmora. 
W. SIDGREAVES. 
Stonyhurst College Observatory, Blackburn. 
A Flower Sanctuary. 
I am afraid that Sir Herbert Maxwell’s suggestion 
that the plants of Cheddar pink offered for sale had 
been raised from seed cannot be accepted. 
The Thalictrum referred to is Thalictrum minus, 
which is still abundant in the Gorge. As regards the 
Welsh poppy, it is good to know that this beautiful 
plant has increased its range; but, if by evil chance 
some dealer should exterminate it at Cheddar, visitors 
who love to see it growing there would derive small 
comfort from the knowledge that it continued to 
flourish in many other places. I hope that the appeal 
to ‘‘proclaim’’ these Cheddar plants will not fall on 
Frank H. PERRYCOSTE. 
Higher Shute Cottage, Polperro, Cornwall, 
August Io. 
Striated Flints from the Chalky Boulder Clay. 
For some time past I have been examining flints 
from the Chalky Boulder Clay of Suffolk, and have 
been struck by the almost entire absence of striz 
upon them. 
When striz are present to any noticeable degree 
they are generally developed on the comparatively soft 
cortex of the flints, while where the stones have been 
broken and the hard interior exposed the scratches 
are not to be seen. 
This appears to me to point to the conclusion that 
the glacial action which is held to have been the cause 
of the Boulder Clay and the striations on the flints 
could not have been of a very intense order, and there- 
fore very different from that obtaining at some period 
prior to the deposition of the Suffolk Red Crag, the 
stones found at, the base of this deposit often exhibit- 
ing the most definite and deep striz all over their 
flaked surfaces. 
Also I find in the Chalky Boulder Clay stones which 
show a small ‘‘island”’ of striated cortex left in the 
centre of a flaked surface, and this flaked surface is 
