786 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIV. No. 624. 



1906, 529-539), Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Jr., 

 notes that during her trip in June-August, 

 1905, the weather was very fine. The maxi- 

 mum temperature was 77°. In the higher 

 lake country the clear nights were frosty, and 

 on August 10 a coating of ice an eighth of an 

 inch thick formed on a basin of water out- 

 doors. Snow flurries occurred on three days. 

 Thunderstorms were rare and very mild. 

 Passing showers gave rise to remarkably beau- 

 tiful rainbows. The clearness of the atmos- 

 phere made objects miles away seem very near. 

 The plague of flies and mosquitoes, which is 

 a well-known characteristic of some northern 

 lands in summer, is noted as one of the dis- 

 agreeable features of the trip. 



AFRICA AND THE WHITE MAN. 



Reports from Africa note the increase of 

 the white populations in regions which have 

 hitherto been occupied by natives only. Boer 

 farmers are immigrating into the northern 

 part of German East Africa, which is de- 

 scribed as an * elevated and healthful region.' 

 These Boers are chiefly cattle-raisers. Mr. H. 

 Buttengach, a mining engineer who has spent 

 two years in Katanga, the southeastern prov- 

 ince of the Congo Free State, is convinced 

 that European colonization is warranted by 

 the climate of this high plateau (Bull. Soc. 

 Beige df Etudes Coloniales, No. 6, 1906), and 

 that agriculture may have great development 

 on these wide alluvial plains. M. Auguste 

 Chevalier believes that the cultivation of cacao 

 will have enormous growth in French West 

 Africa. The seventh report on the German 

 cotton experiments in German Africa {Der 

 Tropenpfianzer, No. 6, 1906) shows that the 

 natives are making good progress under Ger- 

 man tuition. The prospects in the Camer- 

 oons are encouraging in certain districts, as 

 they are in the northern part of German 

 Southwest Africa. 



R. DeC. Ward. 



PALEOISITOLOGICAL N0TE8. 

 FOSSIL CHRYSOCHLORID.^ IN NORTH AMERICA. 



The Chrysochloridse, or golden moles, are 

 one of the several mole-like types which take 

 the place of the true naoles in the southern 



continents. True moles (family Talpidae) 

 are found in the subarctic and temperate 

 zones of all the northern continents, but not 

 in or south of the tropics. But in the south 

 temperate zone several animals are known 

 which have adopted mole-like habits, and 

 superficially resemble the true moles to a 

 greater or less degree. In Australia there 

 is a marsupial mole, Notoryctes; in Mada- 

 gascar certain members of the Centetidse are 

 mole-like; and in South Africa we have the 

 Chrysochloridae. The latter two families are, 

 like the true moles, included in the order In- 

 sectivora, but belong to the primitive or 

 archaic division of Zalambdodonta, while the 

 true moles belong to the more progressive, 

 modernized and dominaht group of Di- 

 lambdodonta. In South America there are 

 at present no mole-like Insectivores or Mar- 

 supials, but in the Upper Miocene (Santa 

 Cruz formation) of Patagonia have been 

 found remains of an extinct mole, Necrolestes, 

 of the Chrysochlorid family, most nearly re- 

 lated to the modern Golden Mole of South 

 Africa. 



The geographical range of these Chryso- 

 chloridae, limited to the southern extremities of 

 the two southern continents, and their sup- 

 posed absence from any of the modern or fossil 

 faunas of the northern continents, is not 

 easily explained with the present distribution 

 of land and water on the earth's surface. 

 They form one of several peculiar elements 

 common to the fauna and flora of the two 

 continents which have suggested former land 

 connection, probably via the Antarctic conti- 

 nent at a time when the polar climate was 

 comparatively warm and Antarctica a habit- 

 able region. There is a considerable weight 

 of evidence for the former connection of Aus- 

 tralia and South America via Antarctica, but 

 the evidence that South Africa was formerly 

 connected is much weaker, and the geological 

 and physiographic difficulties in the way are 

 much more serious, as a much broader ocean 

 intervenes, of abyssal depth and evei^ indica- 

 tion of long permanency. 



The discovery of Chrysochlorid moles in a 

 Lower Miocene formation in North America, 



