\ 
February 9, 1894. 
better methods, those who have already found good ways, 
and all who are interested in botanical progress in the 
United States will do well to correspond with the mem- 
bers of this committee,—Douglass H. Campbell, Palo 
Alto, California; N. L. Britton, New York, and Jno. M. 
Coulter, Lake Forest, Ill. 
EMBRYOPHYTA ZOIDIOGAMA, 
A RECENT double number of Die Natiirlichen Pflansen- 
familicn begins consideration of the higher cryptogams, 
the Embryophyta zoidiogama or Archegoniataeé. ‘This 
grand division of the vegetable kingdom is defined as 
follows: 
“Plants seldom thalloidal, mostly differentiated into stem 
and leaves (cormophytic), and having two distinct genera- 
tions. “The proembryonal or sexual generation bearing an- 
theridia in which spermotozoa are developed and Archegonia 
enclosing the egg cell, which is to be fecundated, and the 
canal cells, which change into slime prior to the act of 
fecundation. After fecundation the non-sexual embryonal 
generation or embryo arises by division of the egg cell 
and further growth, remaining a long time in con- 
nection with the proembryonal generation and being 
nourished by it.” 
The following subordinate groups are recognized, and 
the progress of systematic botany during the last forty 
years cannot be better understood at a glance than by 
comparing this system of classification with that given in 
Lindley’s ‘‘ Vegetable Kingdom.” 
(1) SUBDIVISION. BRYOPHYTA (MUSCINE!). 
1. Class Hepaticae (Liver mosses). 
1. Sub Class Marchantiales. 
2. Sub Class Jungermaniales. 
Class Musci (Musci frondosa, or Leafy mosses). 
. Sub Class Sphagnales. 
Sub Class Andreaeales. 
3.. Sub Class Archidiales. 
4. Sub Class Bryales. 
(2) SUBDIVISION PYERIDOPHYTA. 
1. Class Filicales. 
1. Sub Class Filices. Genuine ferns (Isosporae). 
2. Sub Class Hydropterides (Two sorts of spores). 
Class Equisetales. 
1. Sub Class Isosporeae. 
2. Sub Class Heterosporeae. 
3. Class Sphenophyllales. 
4. Class Lycopodiales. 
1. Sub Class Isosporeae. 
2. Sub Class Heterosporeae. 
This double number (91 and g2) brings Division 3 of 
Part I down to page 93, and deals with the following 
groups of liverworts: Reccvaceac, MWarchantiaceae, Junger- 
mantaceae anakrogynae, and /. akrogynac. All by v. 
Schiffner, with many illustrations. 
SOUTH KENSINGTON. 
THE Kew Gardens are well known in the United States 
as the centre of an enormous amount of a conservative 
kind of botanical energy, mostly floristic, but it is not so 
generally known that Kew has a formidible rival at South 
Kensington. Indeed, in many ways, according to all 
accounts, and notably in the facilities offered to visiting 
botanists, and in the extent of its library, it is far ahead 
of Kew. The botanical library at South Kensington is 
now one of the best in the world, nearly $100,000 having 
been spent onit within the last decade, and the collections 
are also valuable. The director, Mr. Carruthers, wishes 
it understood that South Kensington 1s in full sympathy 
with the new botany and that specialists from every 
quarter of the globe are welcome and will be given every 
possible facility, in the way of books and collections, for 
the pursuit of original investigation, whether of phzno- 
gams or cryptogams, 
iS) 
= 
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SCIEN Chas 8. 
CURRENT NOTES ON ANTHROPOLOGY: — 
NO. XXXIX. 
(Adin hy DG: Briniguw nl 2D: SEED DD So) 
INSCRIPTIONS ON FRENCH MEGALITHIC MONUMENTS. 
THE megalithic monuments of France are divided into 
great upright stones, menhir, groups of these, eromlech, 
and large flat stones superposed on others which are 
upright, do/men. 'Vhere are about thirty-five hundred of 
the latter in France, and still more of the former varieties. 
They used to be attributed to the Celtic Druids, but later 
writers hesitate to accept this identification. Some of 
them have figures inscribed upon them, not generally of 
men or animals, but apparently of a symbolic or éven 
alphabetic character. 
During the year 1893 two suggestive articles on these 
“alphabetiform ” and other inscriptions appeared in the 
Bulletins de la Societe d’Anthropologie of Paris, the first 
by Ch. Letourneau, the other by A. de Mortiilet. In 
comparing the characters on the dolmen ‘‘ des Marchands,”’ 
in Brittany, with similar remains elsewhere, M. Letourneau 
made the interesting discovery that many of them were 
identical or very similar to those found in what are called 
the ‘‘rupestrian inscriptions” of Tunisia and southern 
Algeria. ‘Vhese are of Libyan origin, and by most recent 
scholars are held to preserve a form of writing older than 
the Punic alphabet, and akin to that which is seen on 
ancient Numidian mortuary tablets. This discovery is 
the more important, because the megalithic monuments 
can be traced from Brittany into northern Africa in an 
almost continuous line, indicating that those who con- 
structed them followed this path, either in one direction 
or the other. = 
The figures reported upon by M. de Mortillet are from 
a series of these monuments in the vicinity of Paris. 
They do not present the ‘‘alphabetiform’”’ appearance, 
but are crude representations of human beings, ‘in 
which the principal aim of the artist was to indicate the 
” 
Sake, 
RELATION Of THE GLACIAL AGE TO MAN. 
THE great event of the glacial period, or Ice Age, bears 
an important relation to the calculations of the appear- 
ance of man on earth. The most recent studies in post- 
pliocene geology are, however, far from unanimous on 
glacial questions, and this has reacted forcibly on writers 
about the origin of man. One who is generally very 
careful, the Marquis de Nadaillac, has actually been led 
in a recent article, of great merit, entitled ‘‘lLes Dates 
Préhistoriques,”” to the extreme conclusion that ‘‘the 
remotest epoch to which we can assign the appearance of 
humanity on the globe can scarcely exceed 10,000 years.” 
He bases this conclusion largely on the writings of 
American geologists, as Warren Upham, Gilbert and 
Winchell, who from their observations of the gorge of 
Niagara, and other so-called ‘‘ geologic chronometers,” 
have reduced the period since the final teparture of the 
great 1ce mass to six or seven thousand years. 
Both these conclusions have very much the air of a 
reductio ad absurdum. ‘Yhey are in conflict with so many 
known facts and high probabilities in other directions 
that they disprove themselves, and indicate some radical 
error of theory. A much more plausible theory, which 
accounts for the *‘chronometers,” and does not violate 
probability, is that which is advanced by Mr. F. B. 
Taylor, of a prolonged subsidence posterior to the ice 
age, the proof of which is in a continuous coast line from 
the Atlantic to Duluth, He is preparing to present the 
full evidence for this, ; 
