SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



357 



Mr. "annington was led to recant this opinion by 

 the detailed study of specimens lent or given to 

 him by Mr. Benjamin Harrison. His reasons were 

 mainly based on the facts that the chipping is of 

 different dates even upon the same specimen, and 

 that it was produced by natural causes after the 

 specimens were embedded in the gravel. One 

 implement seemed to prove that Palaeolithic man 

 lived on the Kentish Plateau before or during the 

 deposit of the plateau gravels, and that the 

 " Eolithic "' chipping is not the work of man. In 

 the discussion that followed the paper, the greatest 

 differences of opinion manifested themselves, not 

 only as to whether " eoliths " were the work of man 

 at all, but also amongst those who admitted their 

 human workmanship, as to whether the •' Eolithic " 

 working was earlier or subsequent to the Palaeo- 

 lithic chipping. As illustrating the alleged 

 " Eolithic " working, one specimen which was 

 derived from the plateau gravels was selected as 



ling the following stages. First it appeared 

 to have been fashioned by man into a Palaeolithic 

 implement, then it was abraded, broken and chipped 

 along one edge in the same fashion as the alleged 

 " Eolithic" working, finally it was stained, marked 

 with glacial striae, and covered with a thin layer 

 of white silica. Mr. Cunnington has, we venture 

 to think, done well in arresting the rage for 

 attributing so much of what may, after all, be the 



of natural fracturing to the hand of man. 



The Work of Worms. During the above dis- 

 cussion, Mr. A. E. Salter, F.G.S., reminded those 

 present that as Darwin found a layer of chalk in the 

 field became gradually hidden to view through being 

 covered up by worm-casts, so ancient flint imple- 

 ments when cast away would tend similarly to 

 become hidden beneath the soil. 



Sctily Of Water from the Chalk. The 

 boring that was put down at Streatham Common 

 by the Southward and Yauxhall Water Company 

 eight years ago, which it will be remembered demon- 

 strated the tact that the Lower Greensand had 

 thinned out on the south, is yielding regularly two 

 and a-'juarter millions of gallons of water a day. 

 The bore-hole extends below Jurassic rocks, but it 

 is known that about a million gallons of this water 

 supply comes direct from the chalk alone. It is 

 hoped that with increased pumping-power, a supply 

 exceeding three millions will be obtained. The 

 level of the water has been lowered from the 

 normal of fifty feet to nearly one hundred feet 

 .round The chalk is 241J feel from the 

 surface. 



tes. — Ocean deposits may 

 be divided into | cumulating 



between tide-marks; (ii) infra -littoral and deeper 

 water deposits, accumulating bi water 



and depths ' ttboms, Th- 



miles. • :•:• from land. The approach of 



when 1 ■■■ and green 



mods thcTe accumulating . from 



lammellibr; 

 ■ fra littoral foraminifera Below 

 eldora any 

 hardly a 



/iii) 

 Abysmal or ind al 



red and grey clays, covering al illllon 



vjuar- Boot '1 hi- ! 



fathoms, as a pale 



and Irvine estimate that diatomaceous deposits 

 cover 10,420,600 square miles of sea-bottom. 

 Diatoms occur both in fresh and salt water, and 

 in surface waters, as well as at the bottoms of 

 oceans. 



Yorkshire Carboniferous Flora. — The Fossil 

 Flora Committee of the Yorkshire Naturalists' 

 Union has just issued its sixth report, being the 

 report for 1S96. It deals principally with the species, 

 thirty-nine in number, which were obtained from 

 a new railway cutting at Brightside, near Sheffield. 

 The rocks here exhibited were of a horizon of 

 which there are few records. Mr. Hemingway 

 determined the beds as being the "rock below the 

 Haigh Moor Coal," known locally as the Brightside 

 rock. Nine species not known previously from 

 Yorkshire, are recorded by Mr. R. Kidston, 

 F.R.S.E., F.G.S., from this cutting, of which seven 

 are thought to be new to Britain. The nine new 

 county records are : Sphenoptcris adiantoides L. and 

 H., Lonchopteris esehweileriana Andrae, Lepidodendron 

 peachti Kidston, Sigillaria scmipulvinata Kidston, 

 5. micandi Zeiller, S. davretixii Brongt, S. feistman- 

 teli Geinitz, S. sol Kidston, Carpolithus ellipticus 

 Sternb. 



London Geological Field Class. — Professor 

 Seeley, F.R.S., began the summer course of 

 lecture-excursions with the London Geological 

 Field Class on Saturday, the 23rd April. The 

 subject of the series is " The Physical Geography 

 and Geology of the Thames and its Tributaries." 

 This is the thirteenth annual course. Mr. R. H. 

 Bentley, 43, Gloucester Road, South Hornsey, N., 

 is the Honorary Secretary of the class, which 

 gives a systematic course of teaching in the 

 open country. The localities and further dates 

 of the excursions will be found in Notices of 

 Societies. 



Shale Oil. — There appears to be in Indiana an 

 inexhaustible supply of Genesee shales of Devonian 

 age rich in bitumen, from which it will be possible 

 to extract mineral oil. Mr. H. Duden found that 

 at New Albany eight and a-half pounds of the 

 shale, when analysed, yielded by distillation forty- 

 five gallons of gas, possessing a twenty-two candle- 

 power. Scotland yields annually sixty million 

 gallons of oil from shale; so that when the 

 approaching extinction of our supplies of coal at 

 home causes coal-gas to become an expensive 

 luxury, there will be a never-failing supply of 

 illuminating oil in these bituminous shales. 



A Submarine Triassic Outlier.— The exist- 



fria isic outlier in the sea, having its 



centre about ten miles south-east of the Lizard 



Head, was shown in an interesting manner i 



years since by Mr. R, N. Worth, I'.C.S. Its 



occurrence there bad been suggested earlier, but 



by means of numerous specimen'; broughl up by 



I lines," whose po iitions had been 



ermined befon band, the outlier was 



i,. r.n-i all doubt, 'I he 1 \ ideni 1 howed 



I faces ol the pieces of Ti tassii 



en bored b i id v< red with 



1 ,.. 1 1 1 1 ii thi ii undi 1 mii fai es 



free from them, the fragments 



k 1 . appa ' "ily toi " from ll "' "' , ' 1 ' 



rhi moil ii 1 1 Ihe ol piei es 



ll i. ii" 1 ' ii] J I lev 



ilarly with Ihi 1 In the vii Inlty ol 



th 'i hi dl m ovi 1 ■, enabli d ;i ologlsta to 

 orne fifty i lili fai 1 bi > to Ihe 

 vest. 



