NA TURE 



[May 2, 1907 



inasmuch ;is there seemed good reason for continuing to 

 regard these birds as near allies of the Corvida?. — 

 Anatomy of a Bornean frog of the genus Megalophrys, 

 with references to other genera of Batrachia : F. E. 

 Beddard. — The winter habits of the greater horseshoe 

 and other cave-haunting bats : T. A. Cowiard. This 

 paper contained the results of observations made in the 

 Somersetshire caverns, where at the end of December 

 and beginning of January the author found that the bats 

 were not in profound sleep, but moved in the caves and 

 went: into the open for food. This food, the author showed, 

 was not all taken when the bats were in flight, but was 

 usually devoured when the bats were at rest. The manner 

 of feeding was described, and information supplied about 

 the food of the greater horseshoe and the parasites which 

 infested this species and the lesser horseshoe. 



Anthropological Institute, Atiril 16. — Mr. A. L. Lewis, 

 vice-president, in the chair. — Exhibit. — A selection of 

 specimens of flint from Cornwall : Mr. Lewis, Mr. 

 Warren, Mr. Kendall, and Mr. Chandler. — Note on 

 some Pala-olilhic and Neolithic implements from East 

 Lincohishire : S. Hazzledine Warren. The Neolithic 

 implements described were found by the author in situ in 

 an undisturbed section of the fen deposit of the East 

 Lincolnshire coast near Skegness. The lowest bed seen in 

 the district was Boulder-clay ; overlying this there are 

 patches of fluviatile gravel ; above this, again, comes the 

 old surface soil of the buried forest; then the peat by 

 which the forest was destroyed, and above this, again, a 

 succession of warp clays with some subordinate peat beds. 

 The exact horizon at which the Neolithic implements 

 occurred was in the old surface soil beneath the lowest 

 peat bed. Besides the neoliths, the author also found a 

 palffiolith in situ in one of the patches of fluviatile drift 

 gravel between the submerged forest above and the 

 Boulder-clay below. One or two other palaioliths w-ere 

 also found which had evidently been derived from one of 

 these patches of post-Glacial drift. Apart from discoveries 

 in caves, this is the most northerly point at which Palaeo- 

 lithic implements have yet been found in this country in 

 any river drift gravel. 



Geological Society, April 17.— Sir Archibald Geikie, 

 Sec.R.S., president, in the chair. — The loadstones of 

 Derbyshire, their field-relations and petrography : H. H. 

 Arnold-Bemrose. The district over which the toad- 

 stones are seen may be divided into three main areas of 

 volcanic activity, between which there are no exposures 

 of igneous rock : — (i) the north-western or Miller's Dale 

 area ; (2) the south-eastern or Matlock area ; (3) the 

 south-western or Tissington area. In each of these areas 

 there are lava-flows, bedded tuffs, and volcanic vents, 

 and in the Miller's Dale and Matlock areas several in- 

 trusive sills. In the Miller's Dale and Matlock areas 

 the igneous rocks are, with the exception of the Hopton 

 vent, entirely in the Mountain Limestone, but in the third 

 area they are mostly in the Yoredale Shales, and lava 

 plays only a subordinate part. In the Miller 's-Dale area 

 the upper lava is the thicker, and extends over a greater 

 district than the lower, while in the Matlock area the 

 converse is true. In the former area the lavas are 

 separated by about 150 feet of limestone, in the latter by 

 about 80 feet to 100 feet. The upper lava of Miller's 

 Dale is on a lower horizon than the lower lava of Mat- 

 lock, and the limestone above it contains at least two 

 bands of interbedded tuff. The lavas are vesicular and 

 amygdaloidal in structure, and often very much decom- 

 posed. They contain olivine, augite, and felspars, 

 magnetite, and iron-oxide ; the felspars are often present 

 in two generations. The sills are, for the most part, 

 ophitic olivine-dolerites, and pass from a very coarse- 

 grained dolerite through the intervening stages into a fine- 

 grained dolerite or basalt ; they are similar in structure 

 to certain Tertiary dolerites. The toadstones have all 

 been m.apped on the 6-inch scale, and petrological accounts 

 of the different rocks are furnished. — Data bearing on the 

 age of Niagara Falls : Prof. J. W. W. Spencer. The 

 author has been engaged in investigations for a mono- 

 graph on Niagara Falls, to be published by the Geological 

 Survey of Canada. Soundings at all the points of great 



NO. T957, VOL. 76] 



changes in the gorge have been successfully undertaken ; 

 borings were put down for the exploration of buried 

 valleys, and instrumental surveys made of the original 

 river-banks and the physics of the stream. The mean 

 recession of the crest-line of the falls is found to be 

 42 feet a year under existing conditions, and this rate 

 has approximately obtained for 227 years. But this rate 

 will not give the age of the falls, on account of former 

 great variations in the volume of the river and in the 

 height of the falls themselves. The chief change in 

 volume of water depends on the fact that originally Lake 

 Erie alone was discharged over the falls, when the supply 

 of water was only 15 per cent, of the present discharge. 

 Lake Ontario, too, stood at a higher level, and thus the 

 cutting-back from Oueenstown to Foster's Flats was 

 effected with a small water discharge and, at first, a low 

 head. .'Mter an uplift, which raised the crest of the fall 

 considerably above Lake Ontario, a slight depression 

 followed which " drowned " part of the lower gorge. 

 This cutting is calculated to have taken 35,500 years for 

 a distance of 14,400 feet. .Above Foster's Flats the sudden 

 widening indicates the inflow of the other lakes into Erie, 

 greater water discharge, and greatly increased rapidity of 

 recession. The changes in height of the falls and resist- 

 ance of the rocks are examined in detail, and the small 

 influence of pre-Glacial filled channels estimated. The 

 whirlpool is on the site where the recession broke down 

 the partition separating the head of the Whirlpool-St. 

 David's buried gorge, and began to empty out the con- 

 tents of this valley. The cutting with the full power of 

 the water of the four lakes varied at times according to 

 the height of the fall, and is calculated to have occupied 

 only 3500 years for the cutting-back of about four miles 

 above the head of Foster's Flats. Thus the entire age 

 of the falls is given as 39,000 years. 



Royal Meteorological Society, April 17.- Dr. H. R. 

 Mill, president, in the chair. — Phenomenal rainfall in Suva, 

 Fiji, August 8, 1906 : R. L. Holmes. This is an account 

 of a very remarkable fall of rain which occurred during 

 a thunderstorm, at Suva, the capital of Fiji, on the night 

 of August 8. Unfortunately, the exact amount had to 

 be, in part, estimated, owing to the observer failing to 

 measure the fall at intervals during the night. Very little 

 rain fell before sunset, but from 6 p.m. it continued a 

 ceaseless downpour until sunrise the next day. At 10 p.m. 

 the assistant found the gauge overflowing with 1250 inches 

 of rain in it. Four hours later, at 2 a.m. on August 9, 

 the gauge was again overflowing, and at 6 a.m. it was 

 overflowing once more, that is, three times in twelve 

 hours. Very little rain fell after 6 a.m. These measure- 

 ments show more than 37 inches, without taking into 

 account the overflowings, which are an unknown quantity. 

 .\s the gauge was 25 feet above the ground, Mr. Holmes is 

 of opinion that the rainfall should be increased by about 

 II per cent., so that the total fall must have been fully 

 41 inches in about thirteen hours, which he thinks sur- 

 passes anything that has been recorded in any other part 

 of the world in so short a space of time. — Temperature 

 around the British Islands in relation to the Gulf Stream : 

 R. Strachan. This paper was based on observations made 

 in the year 1906 which have been published by the Meteor- 

 ological Office. Around the British coasts the tempera- 

 ture of the air was lowest in February and highest in 

 .August ; the temperature of the sea corresponded to these 

 epochs with slight interruptions, having been lowest in 

 January for the west and central, in March for the south, 

 and highest in September for the north and in July for 

 the east, positions. The water in the Strait of Florida 

 was about 30° warmer than the sea at the north of Scot- 

 land. — Weather regarded as a function of climate : 

 L. C. W. Bonacina> 



M.\NCHESTER. 



Literary and Philosophical Society, March 12. — Prof. 

 \V. Boyd Dawi-cins, F.R.S., in the chair. — The occurrence 

 and significance of symbiotic corpuscles in the lower 

 animals : Dr. F. \V. Gamble and Dr. F. Keeble. The 

 paper described the occurrence of symbiotic coloured cor- 

 puscles in the bodies of lower animals. It dealt in detail 

 with a single case, that of the simple turbellarian worm 



