solve the question by means of drilling. Some coals, such as cannel coal, will yield about 20 gallons of petroleum to the ton, which may prove a valuable asset in our resources. A Report on a recent re-levelling of a line from the English Channel to the Bristol Channel shows very slight discrepancies from the former levelling which was carried out in 1838. In one length of 57 miles the difference is only .92in. The final conclusion arrived at is that there is no evidence of any change in the relative levels of the marks on the shores of the two channels in the past 80 years. A manufacture which has greatly developed in this country since the war is that of glass, in regard to which for some of the finer kinds, especially optical glass, we were to a great extent dependent on Germany. A new department of Technical optics has also been established at the Imperial College of Science and Technology to encourage and help forward this undertaking, and it is stated that samples of English optical glass have stood certain tests applied to them better even than that made at Jena. At the present time it is desirable to utilize all waste products as far as possible, and a patent has been taken out for making roads with a mixture of old boots, asphalt, and stone of some kind, the leather being said to make an excellent and lasting roadway, about 89,000 pairs of boots being required for a mile of road 8 yards wide.

GEOGRAPHY.

Little has been done in the way of exploration owing to the war, but news has been received of the American Crocker Land Arctic expedition, by the arrival of one of its members from N. Greenland, a sledge journey of 1,400 miles. The expedition had been doing geological and other scientific work and taken seismological observations. The only other expedition of which I have a note was along the Nile-Congo watershed in 1915, on which a paper has recently been published in the Geographical Journal, together with a map of the district, which forms a fairly level strip of high country,

suitable for a railway. About a quarter of the whole of India had been mapped in 1916 by the survey then being proceeded with, but this was stopped by the necessities of the war, and the rest must wait till its conclusion. The Australian transcontinental railway is now practically completed, and runs from Kalgoorlie in Western Australia to Port Augusta in S. Australia, a distance of about 1,050 miles. It opens out a large tract of country and will shorten the time of the journey from England to the Eastern parts of Australia by two or three days.

ARCHEOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY.

The completion of the second and concluding volume on the excavations at Glastonbury is an event upon which Mr. St. George Gray, who has so often been associated with our Club, and his co-editor, Dr. Bulleid, are to be congratulated. It forms one of the most full and interesting accounts that have been published in this country of a prehistoric people, as deduced from the various implements and other relics which have been found in and about their dwellings, and from the remains of the dwellings themselves. The 3rd report of the Committee for the exploration of the Irish caves deals with the Castlepook cave, Co. Cork, which yielded more than 30,000 bones and teeth, but no evidence of man's habitation. Among these are the remains of the cave hyæna and also of the lemming, which at the present day occurs in such vast numbers in Scandinavia, as well as of a new species of lemming. Bones of bear, reindeer, and mammoth were also found. A mammoth skeleton, associated with worked flints, was found in the course of military excavations near Bapaume. A human skeleton of Anglo-Saxon date, accompanied by a long sword, a large spear, and a small one all of iron, was unearthed at Horncastle recently. Swords of this period are very rarely found in burials, and this one has found a resting place in the Hull Museum. Attention

has also been called to some bronze-plated iron articles of pre-Roman times from the Pilgrims' Way near Canterbury, now in the Manchester Museum. The bronze covering or plating of iron at this early period is of great interest. Rock paintings found in Bushman caves in S. Africa are believed to represent historical incidents or possibly occurrences in hunting. The excavation of some of the wonderful ancient buildings in Mexico has been resumed and is expected to yield interesting results. A description of the human remains found at Boskop in the Transvaal in 1913 is published in the Transactions of the S. African Royal Society. The skull appears to represent an early phase in the development of a race of Neanderthal men. The habit of putting their kings to death, either at the end of a fixed term or on the failure of the king's health and strength, or on the happening of some great public calamity, has been practised by various races, and is now shewn to have been a custom of the Khazars, who dwelt on the Western shores of the Caspian and gave it their name. They reached a high degree of culture in spite of this barbarous practice.

GENERAL.

The war is naturally now the chief thought in the mind of everyone, and all our actions and new laws are directly or indirectly influenced by it. It afforded a justification for the introduction of Summer Time to those who opposed it, and this year the period has been extended by five weeks, to the saving of gas and other sources of light which, like so many of our necessities, have become scarce and dear. Many other economies have had to be introduced in regard to food and other things, and all waste products utilized as far as possible. For instance, from the waste fats from army camps, sufficient soap is now made for all Government requirements, as well as a large amount of glycerine for munitions and some other products. Our meat rations are being

reduced, and, considering the fact that it is stated to require at least 12lb. of grain to make 1lb. of meat even in such a profitable animal as a pig, it would seem better for us to eat the grain ourselves to the fullest possible extent. By a central London railway goods clearing house and ingenious machinery, it is hoped to dispense with a large number of railway wagons in use under the present system, and effect a great economy. Most of these new arrangements, to which we have been driven by causes arising from the war, will doubtless stay with us after it and affect for good our national prosperity. The metric system and decimal coinage both find favour in many quarters, and their introduction is probably only a question of time. A Bill for the establishment of decimal coinage has been introduced in Parliament with the sovereign as the unit, divided into 1,000 "mils," of which one "mil" would approximately equal a farthing. An Aerial Post has already been established between Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia. It was started on June 27th last, by two seaplanes flying between Naples and Palermo, each carrying 100 kilogrammes of mail bags. A scheme in connection with our mineral productions, which amount in value to £150,000,000, is the establishment of an Imperial Mineral Resources Bureau, which will deal with their development and utilization. Many large buildings, both public and private, have been taken over by the Government for war purposes, and it was seriously intended that the British Museum should be converted into offices for the Air Board, but the proposal, meeting with great opposition from scientists and others, was finally abandoned, as other premises were available. The plan could hardly have been carried out without great damage, if not destruction, to many of the priceless collections, and nothing but real necessity would justify it. Several attempts have been made at various times to produce a language suitable for universal use, but the idea has never been extensively adopted. The nearest approach to this state of things is Latin, which used to be a means of communication amongst the learned of different nations,and was doubt

less much more used than at present. Volapuk, Esperanto, Ido, and Simplo are all languages manufactured for this purpose, the two latter being probably the best. It has been suggested that Latin should be now taught as a living language, with this object in view, but a uniform pronunciation would be necessary. Another point nearly related to this would be uniformity of letters of the alphabet in writing; and ingenious plans have been proposed for turning Russian into Roman script. A curious instance of the desirability, at least in Mathematics, of not accepting a rule as universal without actual proof, in spite of its being apparently almost certain, is furnished by a theory in regard to prime numbers, that is, numbers which are indivisible by any other number. A rule as to the number of prime numbers less than any given number had been shewn to hold good when the given number was not greater than 1,000,000,000, and it was naturally supposed to hold good universally. But it has recently been shewn that for some very high numbers it fails. We are always pleased to hear of any distinction obtained by those connected with us, and I would offer our congratulations to our distinguished Honorary Member, Dr. Smith Woodward, on the award to him by the Royal Society of a Royal Medal for his researches in Vertebrate Palæontology, on which he is one of the highest authorities. He has always taken an interest in our Club, and has contributed to our volumes of Proceedings. I have always found him most kind in giving valuable help and information. I should like also to congratulate our Member and Vice-President, Sir Daniel Morris, whose papers we have listened to with the greatest interest on several occasions, on his election as President of the S.E. Union of Scientific Societies. Our Club is, with its individual members, like the nation, passing through an ordeal, and can only carry out the objects of its existence to a limited extent. We can only hope that before our Annual Meeting again comes round, the efforts of ourselves and our Allies may have been crowned with victory, leading to a lasting and universal peace.