524 Reviews — Drayson* s Second Rotation of the Earth. 



IV. — Draysoniana: being an attempt to explain and popularise 



THE SYSTEM OF THE SECOND ROTATION OF THE EARTH AS DISCOVERED 

 BY THE LATE II AJOR-GENERAL A. ~W. DRAYSON, F.R.A.S. By 



Admiral Sir Algernon F. 11. De Horsey, K.C.B. 8vo ; pp. ix, 76, 

 with numerous diagrams. London : Longmans, Green, & Co., 1911. 

 Price 3s. 6d. net. 



IN 1871 Drayson read before the Geological Society a paper " On the 

 probable Cause, Date, and Duration of the Glacial Epoch of Geology". 

 This was published in abstract, and the author concluded that " about 

 21.000 years ago the climate would become more and more extreme 

 up to about 15,000 years ago, and then gradually more and more 

 equable to about 6,000 years ago ". These estimates appear to have 

 undergone subsequent revision, as Admiral De Horsey remarks (p. 69) 

 " that among the results of Drayson's discovery is the geometrical 

 proof that the glacial period lasted only about 16,000 or 18,000 years, 

 and terminated about 7,500 years ago ". It is not right to say that 

 " nearly all geologists in America and England have from geological 

 evidence found that the dates given by General Drayson about thirty 

 years ago were absolutely accurate ". Prestwich's estimates of 1887 

 agree approximately with those of Drayson, and it is true that there 

 has been a disposition to adopt lesser estimates for the duration of the 

 Glacial epoch than those of thirty or forty years ago. Draysoniana 

 deals mainly with matters astronomical. 



V. — Brief Notices. 



1 . St. Albans and its Neighbourhood. — Under this title the Hertford- 

 shire Natural History Society has reprinted from its Transactions and 

 issued as a pamphlet (price 2s. net, Dulau & Co., 191 1), a report that 

 had been specially compiled by members of the Society for use during 

 the Sixteenth Annual Congress of the South-Eastern Union of Scientific 

 Societies. The report contains an account of the Topography, Geology, 

 Hydrology, Climate, Flora, Fauna, and Archaeology of the district, 

 with a guide to the Hertfordshire County Museum. It is edited by 

 Mr. John Hopkinson, who has contributed a concise account of the 

 geology, as well as several other articles, the area described being 

 a radius of 5 miles from the Town Hall at St. Albans. The work is 

 accompanied by several topographical maps and pictorial views. 



2. In a pamphlet entitled The Stone Age and Lake Lothing (Norwich, 

 Norfolk News Co., 1911), Mr. J. Chambers describes an excavation 

 made recently in the bed of the channel which lies between Oulton 

 Broad and Lowestoft Harbour. The section showed, beneath the 

 harbour mud, "a bed of peat about 2 feet thick. Below this about 

 5 feet of sand. In the middle of this sand was a layer of vegetable- 

 looking mould 1A- inches thick. On this were roots of bushes, the 

 branches of which, well-preserved, penetrated the sand above. These 

 roots would be 4 to 6 feet below low-water mark. Below the sand 

 was a bed of coai'se gravel 2 or 3 feet in thickness, in which flint 

 implements were found. And below this was sand like that of the 

 sea shore." The implements are not figured, and they appear to be 



