128 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. HI. No. 56. 



neously called ' tidal waves,' by which 

 vessels are overwhelmed on the open ocean. 

 ■C. E. Stromeyer gives brief account of some 

 examples in Nature (li., 1895, 437), describ- 

 ing them as strong enough to carry masts 

 and funnels by the board, and to smash 

 bulwarks, lifeboats and deck houses. He 

 suggests that the waves may be due to vol- 

 canic action in the submarine bank known 

 as the Faraday reef, northeast of New- 

 foundland, for in a number of cases the 

 coui'se of the waves is away from the reef. 

 The same subject is continued by W. Al- 

 lingham in the (London) Nautical Magazine 

 (Ixiv., 1895, 539-545), many examples be- 

 ing given. The Vancouver, of the Dominion 

 line, was badly mauled by a solitary sea 

 while crossing the North Atlantic in 1890. 

 The Holyrood, in June, 1892, 20°N, 35°W, 

 encountered a solitary sea which looked 

 like a wall of water as it approached ; it 

 flooded the decks, but before and after this 

 sea broke, the water was comparatively 

 smooth under a light northeast trade wind. 

 The St. Denis, New York to Yokohama, in 

 September, 1893, 28° S, 8° E, was boarded 

 by a solitary sea which swept her decks 

 and carried away three seamen. The Nor- 

 mannia, 750 miles out from New York, Jan- 

 uary, 1894, suddenly encountered a sea 

 'running masthead high,' submerging the 

 vessel up to her bridge, and doing great 

 damage. 



Similar phenomena of smaller dimensions 

 are reported on our great lakes. So little 

 is known of them that no satisfactory ex- 

 planation of their occurrence can be at 

 present adopted. W. M. Davis. 



Habvaed University. 



types of lowland coasts. 

 As the opening paper to the Eichthofen 

 Jubilee volume (Festschrift Ferdinand 

 Freiherrn von Eichthofen, von seinen 

 Schiilern. Berlin, 1893), Dr. Alfred Philipp- 

 son, of Bonn, contributed a discussion of 



type forms of coasts, particularly of alluvial 

 coasts (Uber die Typen der Kiistenformen, 

 insbesondere der Schwemmlandkiisten). 



Under ' die ciiste' he includes a zone on 

 either side of the shoreline. He describes 

 as ' Isohypsenkiisten ' those coastal forms 

 which have been produced by the various 

 constructional processes, such as deform- 

 ation, depression of land, uplift of sea bot- 

 tom, volcanic and glacial aggradation. 

 These forms vary so greatly that one can 

 make of them as many tj^pes as one pleases. 



The present writer prefers to call this 

 class of shore forms ' Constructional,' for in 

 cases of tilted or warped crustal movement 

 the new shoreline does not coincide with a 

 former contour (Isophypse). Philippson 

 recognizes that development must follow 

 the constructional stage, and coastal irreg- 

 ularity from differential marine erosion is 

 therefore explained, and the minute forms 

 of beach profile are illustrated with five 

 diagrams. He amplifies with illustrations 

 his terms, potamogenous or river-made and 

 thalassogenous or sea-made coasts, first in- 

 troduced in connection with his work on 

 Greece.* Though he introduces the idea 

 of systematic change in the geographic form 

 of coasts, as in ' incompletely potamogen- 

 ous ' and ' completely potamogenous ' al- 

 luvial coasts, he does not fully carry out 

 this idea and make a systematic account of 

 all successive stages of development. It 

 would make the comprehension of the vari- 

 ous forms of coasts much easier to intro- 

 duce the terms already applied to land 

 forms and speak of a coast as young, 

 adolescent or mature. F. P. G. 



CURRENT NOTES ON ANTHROPOLOGY. 

 SKIN PAINTING IN SOUTH AMEEICA. 



At the last session of the Italian Geo- 

 graphical Congress, an interesting paper 

 was read by Guido Boggiani, on the sup- 

 posed tattoo marks on Peruvian mummies. 



* Peloponues, Berlin, 1892, p. 509. 



