at ordinary room temperature, must be allowed to issue in a stronger current from the containing bomb to obtain this cloudy look. If a brass spiral is attached to the mouth of the bomb, the cloud-formation is made very difficult; and if the spiral is then strongly cooled, the cloud reappears. With the spiral in boiling water, no cloud is formed, however free the stream of gas. This behaviour quite corresponded to the electrical effects. Even a weak stream of gas from the vessel of liquid carbonic acid gave a well-marked charge; a less effect was had with the bomb of compressed gas; still less when the spiral was added ; and least of all with the spiral in hot water, however violent the stream of gas. Prof. Wesendonck concludes that gaseous carbonic acid is not capable of generating electricity by mechanic al friction on metal.

HERR ANGSTRÖM has been lately engaged in examining with a bolometer the heat radiation of various rarefied gases under the electric discharge. He confined himself to the stronger positive light, using cylindrical glass tubes, with lateral electrodes, and rock salt plates at the ends. An accumulator of 800 Planté elements was the source of electricity. Briefly stated, the results are these:- With a given pressure the radiation is proportional to the intensity of the current. With constant current, the radiation does not vary while the pressure varies between o'r and 15 mm., but at higher pressures it increases somewhat. With the same gas and pressure, the composition of the radiation is constant, and does not depend on the intensity of the current. With varying density of gas, the ratio of the intensity of radiation of shorter wave-lengths to that of the whole decreases with increase of pressure. (This ratio varied, eg., from 46 to 15 per cent. in carbonic oxide between the above pressure limits.) Thus this ratio, at low pressures, reaches much higher values than in our ordinary light sources. The intensity of total radiation varies considerably in different gases, and stands in no simple relation to the molecular weight, nor to difference of potential in the gas; nor does it seem to depend on absorption of gas at ordinary pressure and temperature. DR. SYMES THOMPSON will deliver Gresham Lectures, on the nerves, on February 2, 3, 4, and 5. They will begin each evening at six o'clock, and will be free to the public.

PROF. H. G. SEELEY, F.R.S., will deliver a course of four lectures at Gresham College, in connection with the London Geological Field Class on the four Saturday afternoons in February. The subject will be: "The Physical Geography of the London District in relation to its Geological Structure." Particulars may be had of the Hon. Sec., Mr. J. Herbert Hodd, 78 Queen's Road, Finsbury Park.

THE third series of lectures given by the Sunday Lecture Society begins on Sunday afternoon, January 31, in St. George's Hall, Langham Place, at 4 p.m., when a lecture will be delivered by Mr. Sergius Stepniak. Lectures will subsequently be given by Dr. Andrew Wilson, Mr. George Wotherspoon, Mrs. Proctor (widow of the late Richard A. Proctor), Mr. Frank Kerslake, Miss Amelia B. Edwards, and Dr. E. E. Klein, F. R.S.

THE following gentlemen have arranged to give lectures at the Royal Victoria Hall during February: on the 2nd, Dr. James Edmunds on "An Emigrant in North-West Canada"; 9th, Prof. Oliver on "The Habits of Plants"; 16th, Prof. Carlton Lambert on "Gas, Paraffine, and Electricity" (with experiments); 23rd, Mr. J. W. Gregory on “Waterfalls.”

AT the last meeting of the Chemical Society, on January 21, Prof. Smithells gave a preliminary account of some novel experiments on "The Origin of Flame Coloration." At a previous meeting he described a method of widely separating the two cones of combustion which constitute the flame of a bunsen burner (see NATURE, vol. xlv. p. 214). Trying the effect of intro

ducing metallic salts into the two cones separately, he has found that in most cases no marked differences of coloration are produced. But in the case of copper salts the inner cone assumes merely a general yellowish luminosity, whilst the outer cone is brilliantly tinged with the green colour commonly ascribed to the vapour of copper or copper salts. Of the two cones the inner one is by far the hotter. The chief difference between them, apart from this, is that the inner one is surrounded by an atmosphere containing carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, water, and hydrogen, but no uncombined oxygen, whereas the outer one is bounded by atmospheric air. The only explanation of the phenomenon that has yet offered itself is that the production of the green colour is connected with the act of oxidation. Further support is lent to this view by the fact that if copper oxide dust be introduced into the inner cone, a general luminosity devoid of green is produced, but at the same time the outer cone is coloured green. It would appear as if the copper oxide were reduced to metal in the inner cone, and simply glowed as a solid body, the copper being thereupon reoxidized in the upper flames in contact with the air. The hypothesis is therefore tentatively put forward that some flame colorations at any rate are due to ether disturbances accompanying the act of chemical combination, and are not to be ascribed to the mere incandescence of single substances. Further experiments made with the apparatus are conformable to this view, but Prof. Smithells has commenced a spectroscopic study of the subject, and has in view the prosecution of independent methods of inquiry. Understanding that the flamedividing apparatus is likely to come into general use, he has been led to give this preliminary account of the experiments.

A NEW liquid compound of carbon, oxygen, and chlorine was described by M. Troost on behalf of M. Fauconnier at the last meeting of the Académie des Sciences. It may be considered COCI

as oxalyl chloride, |, the dichlorine derivative of oxalic COCI

acid, and has been prepared by M. Fauconnier by the action of phosphorus pentachloride upon ethyl oxalate. Prof. von Richter has previously shown that when these two substances are allowed to react upon each other, a compound of the composiCOCI

tion |

is formed. This substance, which has been

COOCH termed chloroxalic ether, is a fuming liquid possessing a pungent odour, and boiling at 131°5. The new compound is produced by varying the conditions of Prof. Richter's experiment in the following manner. A mixture of phosphorus pentachloride and ethyl oxalate, in the proportion of two molecules of the former to one of the latter, is heated by means of an oil-bath in a flask fitted with a Le Bel-Henninger fractional distillation apparatus and condenser. When the temperature of the bath reaches 125°, a lively reaction commences, accompanied by evolution of When the temethyl chloride vapour and hydrochloric acid. perature is slowly raised to 150°-155°, a liquid mixture distils over, consisting of oxalyl dichloride, phosphorus oxychloride, and ethyl chloride. When this mixture is subjected to repeated fractional distillation, the oxalyl dichloride is eventually isolated as a mobile, strongly-fuming liquid boiling at 70°. It is endowed with an odour more irritating even than those of the chlorides and oxychloride of phosphorus, and which reminds one somewhat of carbonyl chloride, COC1. It reacts violently with water, forming oxalic and hydrochloric acids. With anhydrous alcohols it reacts in an extremely energetic manner. Thus with methyl alcohol it forms methyl oxalate, which may be obtained crystallized from the solution, and hydrochloric acid is evolved, great rise of temperature being manifested during the reaction. The formation of this second oxychloride of carbon is of considerable interest, as emphasizing once more the disap

pearance of the line of demarcation between organic and inorganic compounds; for here we derive what may truly be considered as an inorganic compound from a substance so purely organic as an ethereal salt.

IN our chemical note of last week the experiments of Dr. Merz upon magnesium nitride, Mg,N2, were described. It will be remembered that magnesium was shown to combine with nitrogen in a most vigorous manner when heated to redness in a stream of the gas. M. Ouvrard, in the current number of the Comptes rendus, shows that lithium too combines energetically with nitrogen. A quantity of this metal was placed in a small boat constructed of iron, the only convenient substance which will withstand the action of fused lithium, and the boat was placed in a combustion tube through which a stream of nitrogen was driven. Upon gradually raising the temperature of the tube and contents, a point was attained, in the neighbourhood of low-redness, when combination suddenly occurred, the metal becoming brilliantly incandescent and increasing rapidly in volume, while the nitrogen in the apparatus was almost entirely absorbed. On continuing the stream of nitrogen until the apparatus became quite cold, the lithium nitride was found in the form of a black spongy mass. Its composition was proved by analysis to be Li,N, analogous to magnesium nitride, Mg,N,, and to ammonia, H,N. Indeed, it may readily be converted into the latter gas by heating it in a stream of hydrogen. It behaves with water very similarly to magnesium nitride, at once decomposing that liquid with liberation of large quantities of ammonia and formation of a solution of lithia.

THE additions to the Zoological Society's Gardens during the past week include two Macaque Monkeys (Macacus cynomolgus ¿ 9 ) from India, presented respectively by Mr. B. H. Heald and Mrs. E. Day; a Rhesus Monkey (Macacus rhesus) from India, presented by Mr. Alfred J. Hayward; two Common Squirrels (Sciurus vulgaris), British, presented by Master Fred Corfield; two Ring-necked Parrakeets (Palæornis torquatus) from India, presented by Miss Heinekey; six Mantell's Apteryx (Apteryx mantelli) from New Zealand, deposited.

A NEW JOURNAL.-The Sidereal Messenger has ceased to exist under this title, and has merged into Astronomy and Astro-Physics. The first copy of this new journal has recently been published in America. Its production is the natural result of the development of astronomical physics. One portion of the journal is to be devoted to general astronomy, whilst the other deals with astro-physics. The editor of the former is Mr. W. W. Payne, who so ably conducted the Sidereal Messenger, and the latter section is under the charge of Prof. G. E. Hale, whose excellent works on solar prominence photography are known to all spectroscopists. If the editors can fill future numbers of the journal with so many interesting and important articles and notes as make up the first number, they will attain a well-deserved success. Many of the articles have been published in other journals, but this, of course, does not in the least detract from the value of the new journal. The literature of spectroscopy is truly said to be widely scattered, and Prof. Hale is doing a meritorious work in bringing it all together.

KOREA.

AT the meeting of the Royal Geographical Society on Monday night, the paper read was on a journey through North Korea to the Ch'ang-pai Shan, by Mr. Charles W. Campbell. Ch'ang-pai Shan, or "Ever White Mountain," is the same as Peik-tu San, or White Head Mountain, and "The Long White Mountain," so graphically described by Mr. James in his book of that title. It lies in Manchuria, just beyond the Korean boundary, and is remarkable for the deep-blue lake which lies in a deep hollow on the ridge joining two of its peaks. It was not till August 1889 that Mr. Campbell succeeded in leaving Seoul, the capital of Korea. He journeyed east and north along the coast. The country traversed is typical of the centre and north of the country. "Korea," Mr. Campbell said, "is a land of mountains. Go where you will, a stretch of level road is rare, and a stretch of level plain rarer still. The view from any prominent height is always the same; the eye ranges over an expanse of hill-tops, now running in a succession of long billowy lines, now broken up like the wavelets in a choppy sea, often green with forest, but just as often bare, brown, and forbidding. Clear mountain brooks or shallow streams rushing over beds of gravel are never wanting in the valleys below, where a rude log bridge, or curling smoke, or the presence of cultivation, leads you to observe the brown thatch of some huts clustered under the lea of a hill. These hamlets are of two distinct kinds-the purely agricultural, and those which depend as much on the entertainment of travellers as on farming. The site of the agricultural village is a hill-slope facing the south. Over this, low, mud-walled, straw-thatched hovels, each standing in its own patch of garden, which is protected by a neat fence of interlaced stems, are scattered at random, and there is not much attempt at a street anywhere. Every house has its threshing-floor of beaten clay, the workshop of the family. The stream which runs past the foot of the hill, or courses down a gully in its side, is lined with women and girls washing clothes with sticks instead of soap, preparing cabbages for pickle, or steeping hemp. Seen from a distance, these places are quite picturesque. The uneven terraces of thatch are brightened by the foliage and flowers of gourds and melons which climb all over the huts. In the gardens surrounding each house are plots of red chilli, rows of castor-oil plants, and fruit trees, such as peach, apricot, pear, and persimmon.

"The roadside village, on the other hand, is generally a most unlovely spot. The only street is the main highway, which is lined on both sides by a straggling collection of the huts I have mentioned. Heaps of refuse, open drains, malodorous pools, stacks of brushwood for fuel, nude sun-tanned children disporting themselves, men and women threshing grain, and occasionally a crowd of disputants, all combine to make it a very indifferent thoroughfare. Most of the houses are inns or eating-shops. The main gate of the inn leads directly from the street into a quadrangle bounded on two sides by open sheds, which are provided with troughs for the feeding of pack animals, and on the other two sides by the guest rooms and kitchen. The courtyard is untidy, often dominated by a powerful pig-stye, and littered with fodder or earthenware pitchers and vats, whose contents are usually the strong-smelling pickled cabbages and turnips so dear to Korean stomachs.

"The main industry, of course, is agriculture, carried on under

disadvantages inseparable from the mountainous character of the country. In Japan and China we know that persevering care and energy have overcome similar disadvantages, but it is not so in Korea. The terrace cultivation, the irrigation works, and above all the patient, almost fastidious labour, which make the hills of Japan and South China yield their share of the earth's good fruits, are practically unknown. Where water is abundant and easily manageable, the lower reaches of the valleys are taken up with rice, the higher portions with millet, beans, buckwheat, &c. A particularly favourable slope, all the better if it faces the south, is usually as much as the sides of the valley are called upon to contribute to cultivation. There is considerable waste about the paths and paddy-dykes, weeds are rank and numerous, and the prim neatness so conspicuous in Japanese farming is entirely wanting. Much of the newly broken ground is naturally stony, and little effort is exercised to make it less so. However, considering the small amount of labour expended on agricultural operations, the crops are good, and speak eloquently for the fertility of the soil."

Mr. Campbell reached the River Yalu in October, and although he made every endeavour to reach his goal, the snow was so deep, the passes so overhung with accumulations of snow, and his guides so terrified, that he was compelled to turn back when within a mile or two of the summit. Nevertheless, he succeeded in making observations of considerable interest.

"Peik-tu San, or Lao-pai Shan (Old White Mountain) as it is at present called by the Chinese of Manchuria, is the most remarkable mountain, naturally and historically, in this part of Asia. The perennial whiteness of its crest, now known to be caused by pumice when not by snow, made the peoples that beheld it from the plains of Manchuria give it names whose meanings have survived in the Chinese Chang-pai Shan, or Ever White Mountain. This designation, obviously assigned to the White Mountain alone, has been extended to the whole range without apparent reason, for no other peak of it, so far as is known, can pretend to perpetual whiteness, whether of pumice or snow. Some 100 miles south-east of Peik-tu San there is a Ch'ang-peik San (Ever White Mountain) which must approach, if it does not exceed, the White Mountain in height, but the Koreans do not credit it with a snowy covering for more than nine months of the year, and a European traveller who has seen it informs me that it is wooded to the summit, quite unlike Peiktu San, which is bare of forest for the last 1000 feet of its height, The great point of interest in the mountain, apart from its whiteness, is the lake-12 miles in circuit according to Mr. James and his party, the only Europeans who have seen itwhich lies in the broad top of the mountain at a height of 7500 feet above sea-level, and is supposed to be the source of the three rivers, Yalu, Tumen, and Sungari. The Tei Tei-ki, Great Lake, as the Koreans call it, is the nucleus of a mass of legend and fable. It is a sacred spot, the abode of beings supern tural, and not to be profaned by mortal eye with impunity. Curiously enough, neither Chinese nor Koreans have the faintest notion of the real character of Peik-tu San. The Chinese say that the lake is an eye of the sea,' and the Koreans tell you that the rock of which the mountain is composed floats in water, for lumps of pumice were common on the Yalu at Hyei-san." Mr. Campbell's crude geological explanations, that this cho-san (ancestral mountain) of Korea was a burnt-out volcano, whose crater had been filled with water by springs, were listened to with polite wonder, and treated with much less credulity than they deserved. He pointed to the black dust, to the clinkers, and to the rocks lining the banks of the Yalu for miles, many of which looked as if they had been freshly ejected from some subterranean furnace, bnt to no purpose. If the occurrences he spoke of had taken place, they must have been handed down by tradition; and it was useless to cite lapse of time-Koreans are ignorant of geological periods-to people whose history extends as far back as 4000 years ago. According to Mr. Campbell's observation, most of the forest between Po-ch'on and Peik-tu San grows on volcanic matter, which was without doubt ejected from Peik-tu San during successive eruptions. The general inferiority of the timber hereabouts to that which he saw elsewhere in Korea led him to examine the soil wherever an uprooted tree or a freshly-dug deer-pit furnished the opportunity. "Beyond a thin coating of leaf-mould on the surface, there was seldom anything else but pumice, broken to the size of a very coarse sand. According to the hunters, this was the subsoil everywhere in the forest, and to my knowledge it extends for forty miles at least to the south from Peik-tu San.

Nearing the mountain we get the clearest evidence of the character and recency, geologically speaking, of the eruptions which spread this vast quantity of volcanic material over such a wide area. Ten miles due south of the White Mountain, the Yalu, now 8 or 10 yards broad and very shallow, flows between banks like a railway-cutting, sheer, clean, and absolutely devoid of vegetation, for denudation was too rapid to permit the slightest growth." The sections thus exposed were often over 100 feet in depth, and at one of the deepest portions Mr. Campbell counted thirteen layers of black volcanic dust, all varying in thickness, and each separated from the layer above by a thin layer of light coloured mould. So fine was this dust that the least breath of wind caught it and scattered it freely over the adjoining snow, to which it gave a grimy, sooty appearance.

"The forests of South Manchuria, though uninhabited now, were, we learn from Chinese records, the home of many races in ages past. The comparatively recent kingdom of Ko-ku rye, which arose in the first century B.C., is said to have occupied the Ch'ang-pai Shan and the head-waters of the Valu river. Anyone who has travelled through the forests might be inclined to doubt such records, for, excepting hunters' lodges, one never notices a vestige of human occupation. But it must be remembered, on the other hand, that the word kuk (Chinese kuo), country or kingdom, was applied in the early history of Korea and Manchuria to very limited communities, often to mere villages. The word "tribe" better expresses what the so-called kingdoms actually were; and when we bear in mind their low civilization and the impermanent character of their dwellings, it is not surprising that my hasty journey failed to throw any light on the ancient inhabitants of these forests." Since his return, however, Mr. Campbell was informed by Mr. Fulford that Chinese hunters told him of the discovery by them of human implements-of what kind Mr. Campbell cannot say when digging deer-pits near the White Mountain.

Mr. James, in a paper read before the Royal Geographical Society in June 1887, described very fully the guild of hunters which practically owns and rules the forests to the north and west of Peik-tu San. The Koreans have no such guild, probably because they have not so much to fear from bandits, but each hunter has a recognized right of ownership over a rudely defined district in the neighbourhood of his hut. Over this he hunts and traps deer in summer, and sable at the begining of winter, altogether spending about five months of the year in the forest; the remaining seven are passed at his home on or near the Yalu, either tilling his ground or living in idleness on the proceeds of hunting seasons. Besides sable and deer, tiger leopard, bear, pig, and ermine are found here; bear, probably the common brown species (Ursus arctos), are said by the hunters to be very numerous in summer. In mid-Korea Mr. Campbell has seen a small black bear with a white patch on his chest (Ursus tibetanus), but the Yalu trappers did not seem to know it. Hazel-grouse were the only game-birds he noticed. Throughout the forests insect pests abound in the summer months. Mosquitoes, gnats, and gad-flies make the lives of the settlers perfectly burdensome for two or three months of the year, and ponies and bulls quickly succumb to their attacks. The houses are kept constantly filled with birch-smoke to drive them off; cattle are protected by fires of greenwood in the open; and men working the clearings carry coils of rope made from dried Artemisia, which burns slowly and emits a pungent odour, for the same purpose.

THE GEOLOGY OF THE HIMALAYAS. THE twenty-third volume of the Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India, consisting of some 250 pages, is wholly taken up by an account of the geology of the Central Himalayas, by the Superintendent of the Survey, Mr. C. L. Griesbach, C.I.E. The carefully written text is illustrated by some of the most exquisite and instructive photographs of synclinals, folded beds, faults, glaciers, &c., which have ever been produced, to say nothing of the numerous maps and sections.

We have thought it best to give Mr. Griesbach's conclusions on the important subject with which he deals in his own words:

The Himalayan region forms part of the vast structure of the Central Asian elevation; it is so closely connected with the latter, both structurally and geographically, that it is very

Central Himalayas, occurred after the deposition of the sandstones which overlie the nummulitics of Húndés, and which are probably of miocene age. A considerable gap seems to exist between the latter and the ossiferous younger tertiaries which fill the Húndés basin.

There is clear evidence, therefore, of very early disturbances having taken place in the Himalayan area. There are abundant proofs that minor changes in the distribution of land and water have occurred not only frequently, but we can scarcely believe otherwise than that the forces which have resulted in the intricate folding and crumpling of the great sequence of sedimentary and crystalline strata must have been of very long duration, and were probably existent from the very earliest date when the first grain of sediment was deposited in the Himalayan seas. We can go further. Whatever other-and as yet only dimly understoodforces were at work to produce this contraction and folding of the earth's crust, we know of two forces about which there can scarcely be the slightest doubt. The first is the gradual cooling of our earth, and consequent lessening and shrinking of the surface of it. Secondly-and this is a force which may be mathematically expressed-we know that the centrifugal force endeavours to move every point on the surface of the earth in a direction opposite to that in which gravitation attracts it.

The actual force exerted is the resultant between the centrifugal and tangential forces, and it has the tendency, if I may so express it, of gradually moving each point on the surface of the earth towards the equator. It may be supposed that an enormous sequence, of to a certain extent pliable deposits, trying to move bodily, as it were, towards the equator, but en route arrested and banked up against a rigid mass of which the peninsula of India is a small remnant only, must necessarily have suffered wrinkling, and lateral crushing.

These forces operated since the earth existed, and must be active now. But throughout the great sequence of the paleozoic, mesozoic, and kainozoic deposits, we search in vain for an internal explanation of the great unconformities and disturbances of coast-line which have taken place at certain intervals, such as I have sketched out above. That these changes were not local overlaps only is apparent when we compare the Central Himalayan area with the Perso-Afghán region. In the latter the physical changes are far more clearly marked. At the close of the carboniferous epoch, which was one of pelagic conditions in the Hindu Kush area, Khorassán and Persia, the distribution of land and water must have considerably changed, as we find immediately above the carboniferous limestone, shaly beds with coal-seams, and conglomerates and partly littoral, partly freshwater conditions prevailed in that area till late into jurassic times. These disturbances, which are slightly indicated in the Himalayas, are clearly shown and occur on a larger scale in the West Central Asian area.

The next great change in the Perso-Afghán area is the great overlap of the upper cretaceous (hippuritic) limestone over the neocomian, already alluded to. It has resulted in a great and often strongly expressed unconformity. Again, another and strongly marked change occurs in the middle tertiaries of the Perso- Afghán area. The purely marine miocene beds are overlaid, often with isoclinal bedding, at other localities distinctly unconformably, by upper tertiary freshwater deposits. If the folding and crushing process were alone the cause of these shall I call them cycles of disturbances-then at least some evidence of it should be observable within the sequences of

rocks as we see them.

On the other hand, there is no direct evidence to show that the raising of the Himalayas as a mountain system was in any way due to these periodical fluctuations of sea-level, or, as Suess terms it, the "positive" and "negative" movements of the liquid covering of the earth. The evidence of the transverse valleys in the Himalayas points even to the probability that the raising up of the chains of hills forming them, i.e. the folding and crumpling of its rock strata, must have kept pace, step by step, with the erosion by rivers which we now find traversing the whole width of this mountain system.

Such transverse valleys, however, can only date since the last of the periodical changes spoken of, i.e. since the middle tertiary epoch. Before that time, up to the point when the last marine tertiary deposits were laid down along the margin of the Himalayas, the relative position of Peninsular India and Central Asia must have been the reverse of what we know them to be now; that is to say, the surface of the Central Asian elevated massif must have been nearer the centre of our earth

than the surface of the continent, of which the Peninsula of India forms only a portion of the remains.

It is improbable that the folding action alone has been the cause of the present structure and orographical features of Central Asia and the areas south of it: for the final great changes which have resulted in the draining of Central Asia of the tertiary seas, of which nothing now remains but isolated saltwater lake-basins, such as the Aral and the Caspian are, we must look for other causes.

Possibly such may be found in the sinking in of large portions of the southern hemisphere which caused the submergence of the Indo-African area below what is now the Indian Ocean. With it the part now known to us as the Peninsula of India may have partially broken down, though of that we have no direct evidence, unless the improbability that the Central Asian area could have been pushed up to its present elevation above the Peninsula entirely through being folded might be adduced as. proof. Large tracts of Central Asia we know could never have suffered folding to any but very slight extent, as, for instance, the greater part of the tertiaries of the Turkistán region which are often in undisturbed horizontal position. On the other hand, these latter are but little raised above-some are even depressed below-the level of India.

In all these considerations and speculations two points seem probable almost beyond doubt, namely: First, that the last and main disturbance of physical conditions of the Central Asian area has taken place in post eocene, perhaps in middle tertiary times, and is most likely still continued to the present day. Secondly, that this period of disturbance coincides with the sinking in of the Indo-African continent, which "breaking down "caused the final draining of the tertiary seas from the Central Asian area.

Not so certain is whether the raising en bloc of the Central Asian mass above the level of the Indian Peninsula is due only to the folding process, or whether some movement downwards of the Peninsula, in connection with the sinking in of the IndoAfrican region, may not have had a share in producing the present configuration of the Húndés plateau. Some such movement may be conjectured. Certain supposed elevations of the Peninsula may possibly be owing to "negative" movements of the area of the Indian Ocean-in other words, to the sinking in of the ocean bed.2

SCIENTIFIC SERIALS.

American Journal of Science, January.-Theory of an interglacial submergence in England, by G. Frederick Wright. The theory of deep interglacial submergence which has been propounded to account for the shell-beds at Moel Tryfaen, near Snowdon, and at Macclesfield, is opposed by several formidable objections, viz. (1) the subsidence must have been one which affected North Wales and central England without affecting the region south of the the Thames and Bristol Channel; (2) there is in other places a considerable absence of marks of subsidence over the northern part of the centre of England, where it is supposed to have been the greatest; (3) the Pennine Chain is not more than 25 or 30 miles wide from east to west, yet east of Macclesfield there is an entire absence upon its flanks both of glacial deposits and of beach lines; (4) the shell beds are strictly confined not only to the area which was demonstrably covered by glacial ice, but to those more limited areas which were reached by ice that is known to have moved in its way over shallow sea-bottoms; (5) the assemblage of shells is not such as could have occurred in one place in the ordinary course of The author develops a system of glaciers which will explain the facts at present known, upon the supposition of a single glacial epoch.-The Permian of Texas, by Ralph S.

nature.

Tarr. It is shown that the Permian of Texas is, like other areas of Permian, a deposit in large measure made in an inland sea.— The chemical composition of iolite, by O. C. Farrington. The formula obtained from two analyses of exceptionally pure specimens of the mineral is H,O 4(MgFe)O 4Al,O,10SiO2, the ratio of MgO to FeO in the two cases being as 7: 2.-On a series of caesium trihalides, by H. L. Wells; including their crystal lography, by S. L. Penfield. Upon adding bromine to a concentrated solution of cæsium chloride, a bright yellow precipitate was obtained, from which crystals were formed having the composition Cs. Cl. Br. An attempt has been made to "Manual," pp. lvi., 680, &c.

2 See "Manual," p. 681.