JULY Q, 1896] 



AW TORE 



particularly among the larger kinds, and offers various 

 suggestions, both as to increasing the number of domes- 

 ticated forms and the conservation of wild species in 

 reservation-areas, such as the Yellowstone Park. Valuable 

 as many of his proposals are, it is to be feared, in the 

 present relation of natural science to bodies politic, that 

 they are somewhat of an Utopian character. It is not 

 easy to maintain such areas under entirely natural con- 

 ditions and free from interference, administrative or other- 

 wise. To take a small instance : it is notorious that in 

 the New Forest, perhaps our nearest approach to such 

 an area, the insect-population has greatly diminished 

 during the last thirty years, and many rare and retired 

 species are on the point of extinction. 



In the artistic, though somewhat unequal, illustrations, 

 and the excellence of printing and paper, the book is 

 worthy of high praise. W. F. H. 15. 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 

 A Geological Sketch Map of Africa South of the Zambesi. 



By E. P. T. Struben, "F.R.CS. (London : Edward 



Stanford, l8q6.) 

 Thk chief object of this new map, and accompanying 

 pamphlet, of South .Africa is to show that the Witwatersrand 

 beds occur over a large portion of .Africa south of the 

 Zambesi. The band of dolomite, already described by Mr. 

 Draper, is used by the author as a means of identifying the 

 various scattered portions of sandstones, conglomerates, 

 &c., occurring in South .Africa, and which in many 

 localities have proved to be auriferous. That the auri- 

 ferous strata of the Rand occur outside the Transvaal is 

 an established fact ; but Mr. .Struben hardly brings 

 forward enough e\idence to show that the sandstones, 

 conglomerates and dolomites, recognised by him as 

 identical with the Witwatersrand beds, are really all of 

 one age. 



The table of strata is very meagre in detail : the 

 formations recognised being " Granite, Carboniferous 

 beds, .Sandstones, Shales and other stratified rocks, and 

 Limestone." The formations are too much lumped 

 together to be of much ser\ice, and there remains a doubt 

 that the dolomite limestone mentioned by Mr. Struben is 

 of various ages. .A strip of crystalline limestone is 

 represented near the coast north of the Umzimkulu 

 River, and coloured similarly to the dolomite, but no 

 mention is made of the cretaceous rocks of the east 

 coast. There is no attempt made to show the relation- 

 ship of the Rand beds to the Dwyka conglomerate, the 

 Zwaartebergen quartzites, and the older rocks of the 

 Cape. The metamorphic schists underlying the forma- 

 tions of South .Africa are not mentioned. The relation of 

 the Rand beds to the coal-bearing strata is also not clearly 

 stated. In Natal the relationship is drawn as one of 

 perfect conformity; but it is certain that in the Transvaal 

 the coal-bearing rocks are unconformable to the Rand 

 beds, and of much more recent date. 



Mr. Struben's map, as showing the localities in which 

 the minerals occur in South Africa, is valuable, but it does 

 not approach in scientific value to Dunn's map of South 

 Africa. The stratigraphy of .South Africa is extremely 

 complex, and a solution can only be arrived at by a 

 survey, such as was commenced by Dunn, Griesbach and 

 Stow. 



Wayside atid Woodland Blossoms. A Pocket Guide to 



British Wild Flcnuers for the Country Rambler. 



(.Second .Series.) By Edward Step, F.L.S. Pp. 170. 



(London : Frederick Warne and Co., 1896.) 



We are glad to know that the first volume published 



under the same title as this has met with the success it 



NO. 1 393, VOL. 54] 



deserves, and we hope the present pocket-book will have 

 a similar welcome extended to it. Four hundred species 

 of flowering plants were described and illustrated in 

 the first series, which Mr. Step now supplements with 

 descriptions of 325 species, 130 being represented upon 

 coloured plates, while 23 are shown in black and white. 

 The plates render the identification of a plant a com- 

 paratively easy matter, and the clear descriptions of 

 the plants are worthy accompanirtients to them. Mr. 

 Thiselton-Dyer should rejoice at the opportunity which 

 the book affords every one to learn something about 

 botany from "wayside and woodland." It will be remem- 

 bered that as president of the botanical section of the 

 British Association last year, he condemned the system of 

 botanical teaching followed in many schools for examin- 

 ation purposes, and pleaded that the subject should be 

 developed as an educational instrument. In the course 

 of his address he said : " The modern university student 

 of botany puts his elders to blush by his minute know- 

 ledge of some small point in vegetable histology. But 

 he can tell you little of the contents of a country hedge- 

 row ; and if you put an unfamiliar plant in his hands, he 

 is pretty much at a loss how to set about recognising its 

 affinities." Mr. .Step's book provides such students with 

 the materials to make up their deficiencies ; it is a book 

 which will develop the observant faculties in young 

 students of natural history, and one which will make 

 more lovers of botany than all the examination syllabuses 

 and text-book formulas yet devised. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 

 [The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions ex- 

 pressed by his corresponden's Neil her can he undertake 

 to return.^ or lo correspond wl'k the writers of^ rejected 

 manuscripts intended for this or any other part of Nature. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications.'] 



A Fine Shooting-Star; and Heights of Meteors in 

 August and November 1895. 



A REMARKABLY bright shooting-star was seen here on Satur- 

 day, June 13, at 10.59 p.m., under such favourable con- 

 ditions of a clear sky and warm calm air on that evening, that it 

 may possibly have happened that other notes were kept of its 

 appearance, in the South of England, by astronomical observers. 

 It was not a large-sized fireball, but in its course of about 30° 

 it increased quickly from the brightness of a 1st mag. star to that 

 of Sirius and of Jupiter, and just before its disappearance it 

 shone with a short white flash as bright as Venus, which lit up 

 the sky quite distinctly to about 20" or 30° from its final bright 

 expansion. The head was white, free from sparks, and left 

 along the greater portion of its course a yellow streak of light, 

 of which a portion 8° or 10° in length was visible 10 seconds, 

 while a shorter piece, 3° or 4° long at the end of that, where the 

 bright flash occurred, growing white and misty by degrees, 

 remained visible for 40 seconds. Duration of the flight about 

 2 seconds ; from 230°, + 20° to 208°, - 4° ; the patch of long- 

 enduring streak extending about from 212°, + 0°, to 209°, - 3°. 



This track is directed from the head of Andromeda ; and 

 albeit the meteor greatly resembled a bright August PerseVd in 

 appearance, of which shower first members have been traced as 

 early as the beginning of July, proceeding from radiant-points 

 in much lower R.A. than the chief centre of the system, yet the 

 displacements of this meteor's course in time and in position 

 from the main stream of the Perseids are too considerable to 

 allow an explanation of its appearance of that kind to be pro- 

 posed as a probable conjecture. But there are no less than four 

 ordinary radiant points, all active at this time, as Mr. Denning 

 has informed me, in Cygntis, Laceria, and Honores Frederici, 

 in the " List of 918 Radiant-points" which he has published in 

 the Astronomical Society's Monthly Notices (vol. 50, p. 410, 

 May 1S90), at distances back along the line of flight, of 55°, 70°, 

 So°, and 100°, from which its flight was directed accurately ; and 

 it is from the last of these slender meteor-sources (No. 174 in 

 his List), at 354°, + 39°, about 5° south of 1, k Honoruin, a 

 centre of swift, long-pathed, streakdeaving meteors in June and 



