January 15, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



93 



(where tlie size and bright coloring of 

 " Aaron's tomb " were a distinct aid in the 

 observation of rays over 55 miles in length) 

 was fixed, relatively to the Siani survey, with 

 a probable error of only 30 feet. The other 

 results of the survey are mainly concerned 

 with archeology, in the interests of which 

 Messrs. Woolley and Lawrence, archeologists 

 connected with the British Museum, were at- 

 tached to the expedition for part of the time. 

 Special care was devoted to the accurate col- 

 lection of names of localities, which were 

 taken down, as pronounced by the guides, by 

 an educated Syrian of the party. That of 

 " Theigat el-Amirin," thought by Professor 

 Palmer to be possibly a relic of the Amorites, 

 turned out to refer to a tribal fight of about 

 150 years ago between the Azazma and Amiri 

 tribes. The Bedawin of this desert region 

 seem to have moved there only within the last 

 500 years. All roads have been inserted in 

 the new map, and a point of interest is the 

 discovery that the direct route from Kadesh 

 to Mount Hor is an easy road, though thought 

 by earlier writers to be impossible. 



The Royal Engineers' Journal for May of 

 this year contains, according to The Oeograph- 

 ical Journal, an account by Captain C. W. 

 Biggs, E.E., of a recent somewhat serious en- 

 croachment of the sea at Fort Eicasoli, Malta, 

 and of the measures taken to cope with it. 

 The paper is illustrated by plans and photo- 

 graphs. The site of the encroachment is a 

 line of weakness, due apparently to a fault in 

 the rock structure, traversing the peninsula 

 on which Port Ricasoli is placed, on the north- 

 east of the Grand Harbor. The trace of the 

 bastion walls built by the knights of Malta 

 about 16Y0, shows that even then the inlet on 

 the line of fault existed. The winter storms 

 have gradually eaten into the fault and bur- 

 rowed a tunnel beneath the cliff, from which 

 a sort of chimney was formed leading to the 

 parade grounds above. Measures were there- 

 fore necessary to stop the encroachment, the 

 proposal adopted being one for the creation 

 of a breakwater across the mouth of the inlet 

 by means of a number of concrete blocks 

 chained together. The work has been con- 



tinued for several successive years, the com- 

 paratively small blocks used at first proving 

 inadequate to withstand the heavy seas. Some 

 were washed out to the front, while others 

 sank in the sand. The weight of the blocks 

 was progressively increased until at last it 

 reached fifty tons each, and this seems to have 

 had a satisfactory result. Although some of 

 the blocks have been shifted by the winter 

 storms, this has now taken place inwards, 

 while the sea has helped to defeat itself by 

 piling up material behind the breakwater. 

 All that is thought necessary for the future 

 is the addition of more large blocks from time 

 to time, and continued filling in behind them. 

 In the thirty-fifth annual report of the 

 United States Geological Survey, Mr. Geo. 

 Otis Smith, the director, discusses partic- 

 ularly the province of the federal survey. An 

 amendment which was offered in Congress to 

 last year's appropriation bill would, if passed, 

 have restricted the geologic work of the survey 

 to the public lands. As the amendment failed 

 the only result was to attract more attention 

 to the basic investigative work of the survey, 

 which embraces all the lands of the United 

 States, the privately owned as well as the pub- 

 lic lands. The examination of private prop- 

 erty for private purposes is forbidden by the 

 organic act of the survey, but the examina- 

 tion of private lands must be included in any 

 general investigation. The determinative fac- 

 tor in the whole matter is whether the inves- 

 tigative work on privately owned lands yields 

 results that are merely of local and personal 

 interest or results that are of general and 

 national value. Land ownership is only an 

 incident when large questions of natural re- 

 sources are considered. The special interest 

 of the government in its own lands — the pub- 

 lic lands — being granted, it must be added, as 

 was suggested last year by Representative 

 Sherley at a hearing before the House Appro- 

 priations Committee, that " So far as the 

 development of the mineral resources of the 

 country is concerned, it is just as important 

 to know the resources of privately owned land 

 as of government-owned land." When it is 

 remembered that in the First Annual Report 



