796 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVI. No. 936 



cineum (Pursh.) A. Gray, Fentstemon sp., Ar- 

 temisia frigida Willd., Brauneria pallida (Nutt.) 

 Britton, Grindelia squarrosa (Pursh.) Britton and 

 Eusby, Astragalus sp., Psoralea floribunda Nutt., 

 Erigeron sp., Kuhnistera purpurea (Vent.) MacM., 

 Lithospermum sp., Batiiida columnaris (Sims.) 

 D. Don., Antennaria campestris Eydb., Verbena 

 hastata L., Verbena bracteosa Miehx., Helianthus 

 scaberrimus Ell., Cardmis altissimus L., Bcebera 

 papposa (Vent.) Eydb., SoUdago (two species, 

 unidentified). Aster sp., Solanum carolinense L., 

 Bosa arkansana Porter. 



Chables E. Besset 

 The tjNrvEESiTT of Nebraska 



PALEOLITHIC MODELESS IN CLAY 

 The discovery, on July 20 last, by Count 

 Begouen and his two sons, of a new French 

 cavern with paleolithic mural decorations has 

 already been noted in Science." This cavern, 

 called Tuc d'Audoubert, situated near St. 

 Girons (Ariege), was visited by the writer 

 five days after its discovery, but did not even 

 then yield up aU its secrets. We noted cer- 

 tain small openings leading apparently to 

 other galleries then closed against us by de- 

 posits of stalactite and stalagmite. At Geneva 

 in September Count Begouen informed me 

 that he had entered one of these and found 

 additional parietal engravings. In a com- 

 munication to me dated October 23, he an- 

 nounces that at the end of still another long 

 and difficult upper gallery, reached only after 

 breaking away stalagmite pillars, he and his 

 sons have found two clay statuettes intact, 

 representing the Bison, male and female 63 and 

 / 61 centimeters long respectively. In an ante- 

 chamber as well as the upper gallery these 

 Magdalenian artists also left their footprints 

 on the soil superimposed on footprints of the 

 cave bear, whose skeletal remains were strewn 

 upon the cavern floor. All the canines were 

 missing, however, from the jaws, having evi- 

 dently been removed as Magdalenian trophies. 

 A perforated tooth (Bovidse) and several flint 

 implements were found on the cavern floor. 



The artist races inhabiting southern Europe 

 in later paleolithic times were sculptors of 

 real merit. They worked laboriously in stone, 

 'August 30, 1912, p. 269. 



ivory, bone, and horn with excellent results 

 and without the use of metal tools. That paleo- 

 lithic man had realized any of the possibilities 

 of clay as a plastic medium has always been 

 denied. Absence or presence of pottery has 

 been universally invoked as a chief factor in 

 distinguishing paleolithic and neolithic hor- 

 izons. The clay figures found by Count 

 Begouen are unbaked, to be sure; but they 

 prove that only the accident of firing stood 

 between the Magdalenian races and one of the 

 great inventions of all time. These figures 

 were never wholly separated from the matrix 

 out of which they were fashioned. They seem 

 to stand out of a clay talus slope that flanks a 

 fallen rock, the male following the female. 

 For the present no attempt will be made to re- 

 move them from this shrine. 



George Grant MacCurdy 



Yale- University 



THE PBOGBESS OF MOUNT BOSE 

 OBSEBVATOBY, 1906-1912 



Mount Eose Observatory, although the 

 youngest of the meteorological observatories 

 in America, has an environment so unique that 

 its staff has not only obtained a series of prob- 

 lems of prime importance to pure science and 

 to agriculture but has also found such abun- 

 dant material that rapid progress has been 

 possible in their solution. A brief statement 

 of plans and progress at this observatory may, 

 therefore, not be without interest to workers 

 in the meteorological field. 



Mount Eose is a peak of the Sierra Nevada 

 Mountains at the western edge of the Great 

 Plateau. The observatory on the summit, 

 which is 3,292 meters above sea level, at pres- 

 ent is the highest meteorological station in the 

 United States, and was established privately 

 for the purpose of ascertaining the winter 

 minimum temperatures at the summit of the 

 Sierra. Later it was made a department of 

 the University of Nevada and the Agricultural 

 Experiment Station and through these insti- 

 tutions has received financial aid from the 

 state and from the Adams Fund of the Office 

 of Experiment Stations. 



