August 26, 1922] 



NA TURE 



291 



Research Items. 



The Age of Stonehenge. — In the August issue 

 of Man Mr. E. Herbert Stone describes some astro- 

 nomical enquiries into the midsummer sunrise at 

 Stonehenge. The date, 1840 B.C., given here for 

 midsummer sunrise in line with the axis of Stone- 

 henge must, the writer says, be regarded merely as 

 a rough approximation. Owing to want of pre- 

 cision in the data Sir Norman Lockyer considered 

 that the error — phis or minus — might amount to as 

 much as 200 years ; that is to say, the actual date is 

 probably not earlier than 2040 B.C., and not later 

 than 1640 b.c. 



The Hull Municipal Museum. — Mr. T. Sheppard. 

 Curator of the Hull Municipal Museum, has published 

 a pamphlet giving an account of the collections under 

 his charge. The museum originated in the collections of 

 the museums of the Literary and Philosophical Society, 

 which dates back to 1823. Eventually these collec- 

 tions were made over to the Hull Municipality, and 

 the new museum, which has been improved by 

 numerous gifts and purchases, was opened in 1902. 

 It now contains numerous examples of the Prehistoric, 

 Bronze, and Roman periods, and of the Anglo-Saxon, 

 pre- Viking, and Viking ages, besides more modern 

 productions. The Geological Gallery is an important 

 feature of the institution, which seems to be efficiently 

 conducted. The publication in a cheap form of 

 monographs for the use of visitors is an important 

 part of the work of the museum. 



The Flora of the Dakota Series. — The Uppe r 

 Cretaceous flora, so widely known as that of the 

 Dakota Beds, is receiving detailed attention from 

 C. Wilber Berry, who marks out successive stages in 

 the southern states of N. America. His review of 

 these in a paper on " The Flora of the Cheyenne Sand- 

 stone of Kansas " (U.S. Geol. Survey, Prof. Paper 

 129 — I, 1922) shows that the term " Dakota flora " 

 has been too vaguely used. The author has proved 

 the Patapsco flora of Virginia and Maryland to be 

 Albian. A comparison of genera gives the Cheyenne 

 Sandstone a distinctly higher position, presumably 

 Cenomanian, since the flora of the Woodbine Sand of 

 Texas (ibid., 129 — G) is held to succeed it and to be 

 Turonian rather than Cenomanian. The Woodbine 

 flora is synchronous with that of the true Dakota 

 Sandstone of the western interior, and floras older 

 than this should not now be described as of Dakota age. 



Devonian Fossils from Chitral and the Pamirs. 

 — Dr. H. H. Hayden in the course of his journey 

 through Chitral and the Pamirs in 1914 studied the 

 geology and collected the fossils he came across. 

 Of these the Devonian Invertebrata, chiefly Brachio- 

 poda, have now been described and figured by F. R. 

 Cowper Reed (Mem. Geol. Surv. India, New Series, 

 vol. vi., mem. 2). His investigations go to show 

 that in Chitral the Upper Devonian is developed 

 with a fauna of a west European type indicating a 

 Frasnian age ; the presence of the Middle Devonian 

 is not proved, but the Lower Devonian is believed 

 to be present. In the Pamirs the Upper Devonian 

 fauna presents a different facies and does not possess 

 a single species in common with the Chitral beds, 

 it is unlike that of any beds of western Europe, but 

 on the other hand, especially as regards the Brachio- 

 poda, is characterised by a certain American element. 

 Beds of Middle Devonian age are also probably 

 present in the Pamirs. As might be expected, a fair 

 number of the species proved to be new and are 

 accordingly named and illustrated on the sixteen 

 accompanying plates, which are of unusual excellence. 



The Cretaceous Marine Transgression in the 

 African Region. — The investigation by Dr. L. F. 

 Spath (Annals of the Durban Museum, vol. 3, part 2, 



NO. 2756, VOL. I IO] 



August 1 921) of Cretaceous ammonoidea from Pondo- 

 land assigns the strata from which they have been 

 collected to upper stages, Turonian to Campanian. 

 Prof. J. W. Gregory, however, has gathered from the 

 other side of the continent, in Angola, evidence of 

 Albian strata, and it may be concluded that a sub- 

 mergence of some extent took place before the widely 

 recognised Cenomanian transgression. Dr. Spath, 

 following on Mr. R. B. Newton's account of the 

 brachiopods and molluscs, describes the ammonoids 

 from Angola in a memoir in the Transactions of the 

 Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. 53, part 1, 1922, 

 with handsome plates provided by the funds of the 

 Carnegie Trust. Most of the 117 specimens were 

 collected near Labito Bay, and not a single Ceno- 

 manian ammonite occurs among them. The fauna 

 is compared with that of Albian horizons in Mada- 

 gascar and India ; but the author holds that its 

 closest affinities are with that of the Mediterranean 

 region. Similar relations have been indicated for 

 the Cenomanian fauna of West Africa. The paper 

 includes considerations affecting the classification of 

 ammonoidea from the British Gault. 



Mount Etna and Upper Air Currents. — In a 

 paper published bv the Reale Accademia Nazionale 

 dei Lincei (vol. xxxi. ser. 5a, fasc. 7, 1922), Prof. 

 Filippo Eredia shows that numerous pilot balloon 

 observations conducted at Catania confirm what had 

 been revealed by cirrus clouds and smoke from the 

 volcano, namely, that the upper wind is very per- 

 sistently from the N.W., and that Mount Etna does not 

 effect any local modification in the general course of the 

 Temperate latitude westerlies, which have been shown 

 by Hildebrandsson to acquire a northerly deviation 

 at the higher levels. The balloon observations in 

 question disclose a definite N.W. direction at all 

 seasons at the height of about 2400 metres (7000 feet 

 circa), this direction becoming very persistent at 

 3300 metres (10,000 feet). It is found that the 

 increase in the speed of the wind with altitude is in 

 the Etna region more pronounced in summer than 

 in winter, and the fact is connected with the greater 

 rotation of the direction of the wind with height in 

 summer, the surface winds in winter being also W. 

 or N.W. The N.W. upper current is styled " il 

 contro-aliseo boreale," that is, the northern counter 

 (anti) trade feeding the tropical high pressure, in 

 accordance with the terminology of Hildebrandsson. 



Brazilian Climatology. — An official publication 

 (" Boletim de Normaes, Ministerioda Agricultura, etc., 

 Directoria de Meteorologia "), under the direction of 

 Sampaio Ferraz, has recently appeared, comprising 

 meteorological statistics for a large network of stations 

 scattered over the republic of Brazil, so that, although 

 the records cover but a few years, it is evident that 

 a commencement has been made towards a very 

 thorough climatological survey of this remarkably 

 progressive tropical state. For the capital, however, 

 Rio de Janeiro, situated in lat. 23 S., near the 

 southern tropic, a thirty years' record or more exists 

 for most of the meteorological elements, and it may 

 be of interest to quote a few figures. The annual 

 range of mean temperature is what one would expect 

 in a maritime city at the margin of the tropics, namely, 

 about io° F. between 77°-3 F. in January and 68°-i 

 F. in July, the figure for the year being 73°-6. The 

 absolute "maximum is 102-2 recorded in December, 

 and the absolute minimum for the period 5o°-3 in 

 September. Thus frost, which is often quite severe in 

 the extreme south of the republic, has not been recorded 

 in the capital by a wide margin. The mean annual 

 rainfall is 46 inches, with a summer maximum, and the 

 greatest 24-hour fall of 8-9 inches is in no way remark- 



