MARCii 25, I909J 



NA TURE 



119 



resisting quartz-quartzite boulders and pebbles. Though 

 they form tne base of the Karroo system, there is no 

 certain evidence of glaciation. In the Lukasashi and the 

 Luano there is a dip of the strata north-westwards. No- 

 where on the plateau in the vicinity of the valley-walls 

 have Karroo beds been found. It is certain that the valleys 

 were at one time filled almost to plateau-level, as the 

 rivers pass through Archaean inliers by deep clefts. The 

 late times in which the Machinga escarpment was laid 

 bare, and the rejuvenation of the Lusenfwa River, suggest 

 a filling of the valleys. It is possible that the Karroo beds 

 extended over a part of the plateau, and were included in 

 folding and faulting movements. Subsequently the surface 

 was planed off to a plateau of remarkable monotony, and 

 on a change of conditions taking place, erosion of the 

 softer Karroo strata set in by which the present valleys 

 are again reaching a plane of denudation. The trough- 

 valleys of clastic rocks probably merely follow the axis 

 of pre-Karroo and post-Karroo movements, trending in 

 three directions. A distance of Soo miles displays move- 

 ments that commenced in pre-Karroo periods, and hav< 

 repeated themselves since the Karroo time. Fossils from, 

 the areas support the allocation of the deposits to the 

 Permo-Carboniferous and to the Karroo system of South 

 Africa. Palseolithic stone implements were found al 

 separate localities on the surface, about the latitude of 

 14° 50' S. — Plant-containing nodules from Japan, con- 

 sidered structurally in their relation to the " coal-balls " 

 and " roof-nodules " of the European Carboniferous : Marie 

 C. Stopes. The plant petrifactions are of a type unknown 

 from the Mesozoic. The nodules are of Cretaceous age. 

 They enclose well-petrified marine shells and plant-remains. 

 Unlike the " coal-balls " and " roof-nodules," they are 

 not contained in coal-seams or in the roof thereof, but 

 occur in a thick series of shales below the coals, which 

 appear to be of Tertiary age. Chemically they consist of 

 about 60 per cent, of carbonates, both lime and magnesia 

 being present, with 30 per cent, of silicates ; the large pro- 

 portion of silicates is a point of difference from the 

 Carboniferous nodules. In having plant fragments in a 

 single nodule, and in the type of petrifaction, the nodules 

 are like coal-balls ; in having marine shells included in the 

 matrix they are more like roof-nodules. They probably 

 represent fragments of tangled debris. 



Royal Anthropological Institute, March 9 — Mr. Henry 

 Balfour, past-president, and afterwards Sir Henry 

 Howorlh, in the chair. — The Veddas : Dr. C. G. Seligr- 

 mann. A description was given of the manners and 

 customs of these people. h.n interesting feature of these 

 customs is the cult of the dead, which has given rise to 

 a series of dances, often pantomimic in character, and so 

 perhaps in the nature of imitative magic, and accompanied 

 by offerings of food to the spirits of the departed. These 

 dances are performed especially by men who have been 

 trained to invoke the spirits of the dead. The use of a 

 ceremonial arrow, with a blade more than a foot long 

 and with a short handle, is an indispensable feature of 

 some of these ceremonies, in all of which the chief actor 

 becomes possessed by one or more of the spirits he 

 invokes. 



Royal Meteorological Society, March 17. — Mr. H 

 Mellish, president, in the chair. — Wind-waves in water, 

 sand, and snow ; Dr. Vaughan Cornish. Dealing first 

 with waves of the sea, the lecturer described the gradual 

 evolution of large sea-waves during the passage of a 

 cyclone or other depression across the Atlantic. The 

 ■great sea-waves are produced at that portion of the cyclone 

 where the direction of the wind coincides with the direc- 

 tion of advance of the depression. Along this line of' 

 advance the waves in their gravitational progress are 

 accompanied by a strong wind blowing across their ridges 

 so long as the atmospheric depression maintains itself. 

 Thus the waves are developed until they attain a con- 

 siderable steepness. The average height attained by these 

 waves (in feet) is about half the velocity of the wind (in 

 miles per hour). Thus a wind of fifty-two miles per hour 

 gives waves of an average height of about 26 feet, although 

 individuals will then attain a height of 40 feet. In the 

 circumpolar southern ocean the height of North, Atlantic 



NO. 2056, VOL. 80] 



waves is somewhat exceeded, but the outstanding feature 

 of the waves of high southern latitudes is their greater 

 length from crest to crest. South of the Cape of Good 

 Hope and of Cape Horn there is neither windward nor 

 leeward shore, and the prevailing wind in all longitudes 

 is westerly. Thus, wherever a westerly wind springs up 

 it finds a long westerly swell, the effect of a previous 

 wind, still running, and the principal effect of the newly- 

 born wind is to increase the steepness of the already 

 runr.ing long swell so as to form majestic storm-waves, 

 which sometimes attain a length of 1200 feet from crest 

 to crest. The longest swells due to wind are almost in- 

 visible during storms, for they are masked by the shorter 

 and steeper waves. They emerge into view, however, 

 after, or beyond, the storm, and Dr. Cornish has found 

 their speed to be approximately equal to that of the wind 

 by which they are created, sometimes attaining, even in 

 the North Atlantic, a velocity of more than sixty miles 

 per hour. Sand-waves are unable to travel by gravita- 

 tion, as do the waves of the sea ; their movements are 

 entirely directed and controlled by the wind, and are there- 

 fore much simpler and more regular in form and move- 

 ment than ocean-waves. When they grow to great size, 

 as in the desert sand-dunes, which attain a height of 

 several hundred feet, the forms become more complicated 

 owing to the partial consolidation of the lower layers of 

 sand by pressure. Nevertheless, the characteristic wave- 

 form can still be distinguished. Mackerel-sky is produced 

 bv the formation of an undulating surface where a lighter 

 laver of air flows over a heavier one. The positive and 

 negative of a rippled-cloud photograph were shown, and it 

 was explained that the negative (showing the pattern, not 

 of the clouds themselves, but of the unclouded sky 

 between) was the true aerial " ripplemark," corresponding 

 to sand-waves. Freshly fallen dry snow is drifted by wind 

 in a procession of regular waves, similar to desert sand- 

 waves, but less than half as steep, the wave-length being 

 fiftv times as great as the height. The flatness of the 

 wind-formed snow-waves affords a valuable indication of 

 the great distance to which hills give effective shelter from 

 wind, and helps to explain the climatic advantages of 

 certain localities. 



Zoological Society, March 16.— Mr. F. Gillett, vice-presi- 

 dent, in the chair. — Reports of the Grouse Disease Com- 

 mittee :— (a) the ectoparasites of the grouse ; (b) the thread- 

 worms (Nematoda) of the red grouse (JeUao scoiicus) ; 

 (c) the tape-worms (Cestoda) of the grouse. Appendix, 

 parasites of birds allied to the grouse : Dr. A. E. Shipley. 

 The author gave a general description of the work of the 

 committee, and explained the results of the examination 

 of the parasites of the grouse, exhibiting drawings and 

 specimens to illustrate his remarks. — Fossilised remains of 

 a small passerine bird, from the Lower Pliocene of Gabbro, 

 near Leghorn : W. P. Pycraft. The remains most nearly 

 resembled those of the living species known as Berthelot's 

 pipit {Anthus bertheloti).—A collection of mammals from 

 western Java, presented to the National Museum by Mr. 

 W. E. Balston : Oldfield Thomas and R. C. Wroughton. 

 The island of Java had been almost entirely neglected 

 during the last sixty years, while it had been one of the 

 most prolific .sources of early described species, and in con- 

 sequence workers had been much embarrassed for want of 

 modern specimens representing these early species for com- 

 parison with their allies elsewhere. Now, thanks to the 

 gcnerositv of Mr. Balston, a verv fine collection had been 

 made in 'the island by Mr. G. C.'Shortridge, and presented 

 to the National Museum. It consisted in all of more than 

 1500 specimens, belonging to seventy-four species, of which 

 si:c were new. 



Manchester. 



Literary and Philosophical Society. February g. — Prof. 

 H. B. Dixon, F.R.S., president, in the chair. — Experiments 

 on the ignition point of gases by the method of adiabatic 

 compression suggested by Prof. Nernst : Prof. H. B. 

 Dixon. In the first experiments tried the compression was 

 effected in a strong glass tube, and photographs of the 

 explosion were taken on a rapidly moving film. The 

 photographs showed that the ignition was not set up 

 instantaneously throughout the whole mass of compressed 

 gas, but begati at one point, which might be varied accord- 



