Beviews — Brief Notices. 475 



word Plumbago. But it has required 47 pages of the Philological 

 Society's Transactions for 1908 to tell the story. The earliest use of 

 the word seems to occur in Pliny (Hist. Nat., v, 95), where, quoting 

 from Dioscorides, he says, " quidam limatum plumbum sic terunt, 

 quidam et plumbaginem admiscent." ' Plombagine ' occurs in Cotgrave, 

 French and English Dictionary, 1611, but the first English use of 

 'plumbago' is believed to be seen in John Woodall's "Surgion'sMate," 

 1617, p. 113, where the word is explained as "Plumbago, or red 

 leade, hath the force of binding, mollifying, filling up hollow ulcers 

 with flesh." The paper is of extreme interest, not only from the care 

 with which it has been prepared, but from the light it throws on the 

 early history of mineralogy, for the history of Plumbago may be taken 

 as a type of that of any other mineral. 



2. Local Societies. — Mr. W. G. Clarke has a paper on the "Dis- 

 tribution of Flint and Bronze Implements in Norfolk," and Mr. Frank 

 Leney writes on " Some Additions to the Norwich Castle Museum in 

 1906," in the Trans. Norfolk and Norwich Nat. Soc, vol. viii, pt. 3. 

 None of these accessions are of geological interest. Mr. Clarke's 

 paper is most useful, as it gives information as to the present resting- 

 place of the specimens and where they were described. The Trans. 

 Edinburgh Geological Society, vol. x, pts. 1 and 2, includes papers 

 " On the Mineralogy of the Faeroes, arranged topographically," by 

 James Currie ; " Volcanic Tuffs on Ben Nevis," by Wm. Mackie ; 

 "Fossils and Conditions of Deposit, a theory of Coal formation," by 

 C. B. Crampton; "Contemporaneous Volcanic Action in the Banff- 

 shire Schists," by Wm. Mackie; "New Localities for Oil-bearing 

 Shale near Edinburgh," by Crampton & Tait ; " Eecent Progress 

 in Seismology," by C. O. Knott ; " Geology of Malcolm," by 

 E. Campbell & A. G. Stenhouse ; and " Egg-shaped Stones dredged 

 from "Wick Harbour," by D. Tait. These curious egg-shaped stones 

 are considered by Mr. Tait to be rolled concretionary nodules of 

 Jurassic age. 



3. MusEiTMS. — We call the attention of our readers to an able 

 article on the present position at the British Museum (Natural 

 History), which appears in the August number of the Museums 

 Journal, a propos of the letter signed "Wilfred Mark Webb" which 

 appeared in the Times, 10th July last. 



The Report of the Borough of Colchester Corporation Museum, 1908, 

 shows a good deal of activity chiefly in an archaeological direction. 

 Many important local finds are listed, and some of the more interesting 

 have been photographed and sold as postcards. This photography of all 

 objects of interest cannot be too greatly persevered in, as the pictures 

 are valuable to others who cannot obtain the real thing. When, more- 

 over, they are utilized as postcards, there is every chance of their 

 paying for themselves, and thus confounding one of the chief difficulties 

 of local authorities. 



The Eeport of the Euskin Museum for 1908 lists as an accession to 

 the mineral collection a " specimen of laminated talc containing 

 arborescent pyrolusite." Beyond that all additions have been artistic 

 or literary. 



