C. L. B.
Geology.
The gases expelled from the volcano of Kilauea, unmixed with air, have been collected on the spot, and examined by Day and Shepherd, who found them to consist chiefly of nitrogen, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, sulphuretted hydrogen, hydrochloric acid, and, of course, water vapour. No argon or other rare gases could be detected.
Mr. A. Brun, who has had the hardihood to descend about 1,000 feet into the crater of Vesuvius, found at that level a floor in which was an aperture some 200 feet deep, from which issued gases, steam, and other concomitants of volcanic action. His results are published in a monograph (1914) wherein he assigns to water vapour a less important part than had hitherto been ascribed to it. Mr. F. Burlingham, on the same occasion, took kinematograph pictures of the interior of the crater, which were exhibited in London early in the year.
At the British Association meeting in Australia a human skull was exhibited which had been found about thirty years previously in a cave near Warwick (north of the Darling range), but not till recently carefully examined. It was associated with Pleistocene animal remains, though the fauna of Australia has changed more rapidly than in most other countries, and the period must not be put too far back. The skull was of a more primitive type than even the Piltdown specimen (A.R., 1913, p. 55), the anterior width being greatest at the level of the nose, and the summit was peak-shaped instead of dome-shaped. Moreover, the facial angle was hardly 45 degrees, instead of being a right angle or more, and the upper canine teeth were disproportionately large, and conical. The race to which it belonged is supposed to have migrated from Western Asia, and to have died out before giving rise to any of the savage tribes inhabiting the continent since the historic period.
Mr. A. D. Hall, of the Development Commission, referred in the Agricultural Section of the Association to the large waste areas on the earth which might be made productive by drainage, manuring, tillage, or other treatment without excessive expenditure. Many of these occur in populous countries, and many more in remoter or uncivilised districts.
The occurrence of coal in Arctic regions is no new discovery, and for eight or nine years it has been exported from Spitzbergen, the amount in 1913 being some 40,000 tons. The coal is of tertiary age, and is of good quality for steam-raising purposes. It is found conveniently near the surface, close to Advent Bay, and the absence of liquid water, of dust and fire-damp, eliminates the ordinary risks of coal-mining. It is a problem still unsolved by geologists how the warm climate necessary for the vegetation of a carboniferous epoch could have been brought about, either in Spitzbergen or the high southern latitudes in which Sir Douglas Mawson (see "The Home of the Blizzard," 1914) discovered samples. Astronomical and geographical changes have both been invoked, but without furnishing a satisfactory demonstration.
Attention has recently been called to the great marble deposits in Spitzbergen, which yield stones of varied and often new colours, and suitable for building or ornamental purposes. As in the case of coal the situation of the quarries—in King's Bay and elsewhere—leaves nothing to be desired from the exporter's point of view.
C. L. B.