660 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. LVI, No. 14.58 



Iowa Hospital, Iowa City, to take up the 

 teaching o£ nntiition at the University of Cali- 

 fornia. 



Dr. William E. Blatz has been appointed 

 instriijctoi' in psychology at the Univei'sity of 

 Chicago. 



Leopoldo B. Uichanco, Se.D. (Harvard), 

 has resumed his foitner work in the University 

 of the Philippines, wliere he has been ap- 

 pointed assistant professor of enltomology at 

 the College of Agriculture, Los Banos, P. I. 

 Dr. Uichanco had been on leave for albout three 

 yeaffs, as a traveling fellow of the University 

 of the Philippines in the United States, spend- 

 ing the larger portion of this period in post- 

 graduate work at the Bussey Institution of 

 Harvard Universitv. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPOND- 

 ENCE 

 WEATHERING UNDER CONSTANT 

 CONDITIONS 



During the past summer the writer visited 

 a number of the paleolithic oaves of southern 

 Pi-iajiee and northern Spain, and there had an 

 opportunity to study the effects of weaithering 

 upon rocks and upon the works of mian where 

 conditions have apparently remained un- 

 changed during a time which is variously esti- 

 mated at from 18,000 to 30,000 years. 



Every geologist from his own observations 

 and reading can give many 'examples of rapid 

 weathering, such as that on the western front 

 of the Amiens Cathedral probably not an orig- 

 inal stone placed there by the buildei-s in the 

 fifteenth century can be found ;i that the out- 

 side stones of Westminster Abbey have been 

 renewed five times over; that the stone of which 

 the British Houses of Parliament are built has 

 crumbled so rapidly that already it has been 

 necessary to replace many of the stone orna- 

 ments with east iron. 



On the other hand, so many objects showing 

 almost no evidence of weathering have been 

 taken from tombs in Egj'pt where they were 



buried for many centuries that little surprise 

 was evinced when the Metropolitan Museum 

 Expedition of 1919-1920,- announced the dis- 

 covery at Thebes, in the chamber of the tomb 

 of a man of great wealth, of a large number 

 of remarkably preserved small wooden models 

 illustrating the daily life of Ms household: 

 brewers making beer, cooks making bread, 

 boats with their boatmen, cattle fattening in 

 their stable. These w^ooden models, which are 

 "practically as perfect as the day they were 

 made," were carved and stored away about 

 4,000 years ago, but so little have they been 

 ag;ected by the agents of the weather that even 

 the fingei- and thumb prints of the men who 

 carried the figures up to the tomb are pre- 

 served as well as fly specks on the models and 

 spider-webs with dead spiders still in them. 



It is perhaps because of the many archeolog- 

 ical discoveries in arid countries that we have 

 become accustomed to think of the agents of 

 the weaither !as working slowly only where 

 there is little or no moisture, but the wonder- 

 fully preserved paintings, engravings and clay 

 models which are to be seen in the moist caves 

 of southern Trance and northern Spain, and 

 which antedate the \vorks of the Egyptdans by 

 thousands of j^ears, compel a modification of 

 these views. 



When the polychrome paintings on the ceil- 

 ings of the great chamber of the cave of Alta- 

 mira, near Santander, Spain, were discovered, 

 careful observere doubted theii' authenticity be- 

 cause they shoAved so little evidence of great 

 antiquity: the paint is so fresh that it can 

 easily be rubbed off with the finger, the colors 

 are pivbably nearly las bright as when first 

 laid on, and there is no conspicuous flaking of 

 tlie surface. Notwithstanding theu- modem 

 appearance it is generally agreed that the 

 paintings were made by paleolithic artists 

 thousands of years before the p3rriamids were 

 built' or Babylon founded. 



In the cave of Combarrelles and in other 

 caves in the Dordogne region of southern 

 Prance the same absence of conspicuous weath- 



1 J. W. Gregory, "Geology of To-daj', " pagg 



2 Bull. Metropolitan Museum of Art, XV, De- 

 cember, 1920, pp. 12-40. 



