News from the Magazines. 273 



drainage. As time went on, the small streams would join 

 together and form larger ones, and eventually a great series of 

 rivers and tributaries would exist. 



As a matter of fact, there is ample evidence that there once 

 was such a system. A great river formerly flowed northward 

 along the middle of what was once known as the German 

 Ocean, but is n -w better described at the North Sea — the 

 Thames, the Humber, the Tees, and other of our great English 

 rivers, were then merely its tributaries. As time went on, 

 however, the sea came to its own again, and its waters once 

 more began to wash away the very beds of chalk that it had 

 formed so many millions of years before. And so we find that 

 a cliff-line was formed on the eastern side of our island, and 

 slowly this receded westward as the water washed it away. 

 By borings, and by aid of quarries, this old cliff line can still be 

 traced. It stills exists, though buried. It takes an inland 

 course at Sewerby, just north of Bridlington, and extends 

 through Driffield, Beverley and Cottingham, to the Humber 

 estuary at Hessle. The Humber — a mighty river even in this 

 far-oij time, had cut its way through the chalk to the sea ; 

 its old bed can yet be traced. And at other places, as at 

 Danes' Dyke Ravine, and at North and South Landings, on 

 the Headland, earlier streams had cut their way through the 

 hard rock to the sea level, their old beds, though blocked by 

 later deposits, still being visible in the cliffs. 



Such, then, is the story of the " foundation " of Brid- 

 lington. 



British Birds fqr August contains a description and illustration of 

 ' The Terek Sandpiper : a new British Bird ' taken in Kent, and duly seen 

 ' in the flesh.' 



A report of the public lecture given at Dublin in connection with the 

 Museums Association by Dr. Hoyle, on the subject of ' Museums : In- 

 teresting and Otherwise,' appears in The Museums Journal for July. 



In the New Phytologist for July, there is an important paper on ' Floral 

 Evolution, with particular reference to the Sympetalous Dicotyledons,' 

 by H. F. Wernham, and F. Cavers writes on recent work on the Bryophyta. 



In the Geological Magazine for August Mr. Jukes-Browne concludes 

 his paper on the ' Recognition of Two Stages in the Upper Chalk,' and 

 gives valuable lists of Inocerami and echinoderms ; the latter includes 

 Dr. Rowe's records, ' so that the list is more correct than any that has 

 previously been published.' 



The New Phytologist before us contains a paper on ' Floral Evolution,' 

 by H. F. Wernham, one on ' Sir Joseph Hooker, and Charles Darwin, 

 the History of a Forty Years' Friendship,' by A. C. Seward ; ' Modem 

 Systems of Classification of the Angiosperms,' by C. E. Moss, and ' Meiosis 

 and Alternation of Generations,' by A. G. Tansley. By the way, we notice 

 the part is described as ' Double Number, Vol. XL, Nos. 5 and 6, May and. 

 June 1912, published June 24th'. Why the absurdity of the two numbers,, 

 and two parts, and the necessity for the words ' Double Number ' ? 



1912 Sept. I. 



