Arts, but representing more directly the business and thought of the City. The managers do not intend to restrict the reading and discussion of papers to the proprietors of the Institution, cr to limit the range of subjects otherwise than by the provisions of the charter, which precludes politics and theology.

ON Saturday last, the 17th, the Rugby School Natural History Society made an excursion through Charnwood Forest. Mr. Hambly, the manager of the Mount Sorrel granite works, conducted them over his workshops and quarries; and Mr. Ellis showed them his slate pits at Swithland. They also visited Woodhouse Eaves, the Beacon, the Monastery, and Bardon Hill. The geologists, botanists, and entomologists were alike well content with the results of a very pleasant day's excursion. The party numbered forty-one.

SIR JOHN PAKINGTON, as President of the Institution of Naval Architects, has addressed a letter to the President of the Board of Trade, in which, among other suggestions, he proposes as an additional clause in the "Prevention of Accidents Act" that in future adjusters of compasses shall be duly certified by the Board of Trade, after examination, as properly qualified.

WE are requested to state that the value of the Natural Science scholarship at Magdalen College, Oxford, will be 957., and not So, as stated last week, and that the name of the successful competitor for the Johnson Memorial Prize Essay is John G. Gamble, not James S. Gamble.

DR. MURCHISON, F.R. S., has been this week recommended by the Grand Committee for election by the Governors as Physician to St. Thomas's Hospital, Mr. Croft for election as Surgeon, Dr. John Harley and Dr. Frank Payne as Assistant Physicians, and Mr. Francis Mason and Mr. Henry Arnott as Assistant Surgeons.

DR. HOOKER reports that the upper valleys of the Atlas range are very steep and picturesque, and are thickly inhabited by a fine race of people called Shelloos. The first positive indication of ancient ice action met with was a stupendous moraine at about 6,000 feet-a perfectly unmistakeable one, but, curiously enough, with no traces above or below it, no roches moutonnées, no striated or grooved surfaces, and no perched blocks, except on the moraine itself. The height of the peaks of the axis is very uniform for a considerable distance, and they have very steep faces; there are no glaciers nor perpetual snow, properly so called; but snow lies all the year in steep gullies of the north face, stretching downwards for probably 5,000 feet from the summit. The vegetation is chiefly Spanish.

Books I. and II. From S. Low, Son, and Co.-a complete treatise on the "Distillation and Preparation of Alcoholic Liquors," translated from the French of M. Duplais, by Dr. M. McKennie; a treatise on "The Manufacture of Vinegar," by Prof. H. Dussance. From Cassell, Petter, and Galpin-"Selected Obstetrical and Gynecological Works of Sir J. Y. Simpson," edited by Dr. J. Watt Black; "Model Drawing," by Ellis A. Davidson, being the new volume of Cassell's Technical Manuals, with numerous illustrations and drawing copies; the "Technical History of Commerce," by Dr. Yeats, LL.D. ; the "Natural History of Commerce" (second edition), by Dr. Yeats, LL.D.

WE reprint the following sentence from the recently published address of the President of the Tyneside Naturalists' Field Club, commending it to the notice of similar institutions throughout the country now that the season for excursions is commencing :"We have no law excluding ladies from our club, but yet we have no lady members. Ladies, however, sometimes attend our meetings, and it would, I think, be an advantage to the club (may I hint also that it might be an advantage to the ladies?) if more of them came, and oftener. It is of infinite importance that mothers should be able to impart to their children an intelligent interest in Nature. They cannot do this unless they first possess that interest themselves, and in what way can it be more pleasantly developed and refreshed than by meetings such as ours? It may perhaps be objected that the length and occasionally the rugged character of our walks prove an obstacle to the presence of the weaker sex ; but my impression is that this is not the case to any very serious extent, and in many of our excursions ladies have proved themseves quite equal to walks as long and as arduous as are at all desirable for our purposes. I would therefore recommend-not any new rule, which is needless-but simply that we should persuade our lady friends to join the club as members, and not as only casual visitors."

WE have received the prospectus of a proposed American Archæological Review and Historical Register, devoted to Archeology, Anthropology, and History, to be devoted to the rapidly increased interest displayed in these subjects in America, and designed not to meet the wants of men of science only, but of all interested in the Origin and Antiquity of Man. Its contents will include original contributions, the reports of learned societies in America and abroad, and a department of "Notes and Queries." The Review is intended to be published either monthly or quarterly in New York, and will be edited by Dr. Wills de Hass.

WE learn from the American Naturalist that Messrs. J. A. Allen and Richard Bliss, jun, of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Cambridge, Mass., with Mr. C. W. Bennett, of Holyoke, Mass., started late in April on a six months' collecting trip to the Plains and the Rocky Mountains. The primary object of the expedition is to collect the larger mammals of the West.

of the results. This survey is under the direction of Prof. Newberry himself; and his corps, which has been employed for some time, will be increased by Prof. J. T. Hodge, Prof. J. H. Stevenson, and others, for the purpose of more speedily finishing the work.

MANY scientific societies have been desirous of taking advan tage of the International Exhibition and of the Albert Hall to hold meetings in connection with the Exhibition, and to bestow attention on scientific visitors. The small theatres have, how

ever, been occupied by specimens exhibited, and the Albert Hall is considered too large.

A BRILLIANT meteor of unusual form was seen at Panama on the morning of May 1 at half-past two. It was due south and

On the

A SCIENTIFIC Sanitary question has arisen in India. ground of necessity, public offices have been supplied with antithermic arrangements; but the economical fit, still strong, has led to a government decree that it cannot afford such provision, and that kuskus windows and their essentials must be provided at the expense of the officials. This will afford an additional pressure on the agitation for transferring the public departments to the English towns, sanitaria, or tea plantations in the hills. IT is stated that Assurance Companies in India have declined to accept the lives of the off cers of the Geological Department there on account of the exposure to which they are subjected.

A UNITED Service Institution for India has been formed, and it is gratifying to observe that it is to be established at Simla in the Himalayas, in a healthy district instead of an unhealthy place.

THE severe earthquake of the 25th of February in Chile has called attention to the views of Mr. Darwin and Prof. Rudolph Falb of Prague. Mr. Darwin was in Chile in the great earthquake of February 20, 1835. It is observed that the recent earthquake began at the same time, 11.30 A. M. Mr. Darwin considered that the space from under which the volcanic matter was erupted in Chile was 720 miles in one line and 400 in another, and that the existence was indicated by a subterranean table of lava of the area of the Black Sea. Prof. Falb maintained that the influence of the moon is the chief cause of earthquakes, and in a letter to NATURE of the 14th of April, 1870, he explained and defended his doctrine, and referred to the earthquakes of Manilla, the volcano of Puraco in Columbia, and convulsions in Peru. His prophecies of a great earthquake in Peru, which occasioned so much alarm, were not realised. The Manilla earthquake, he says, took place two hours and a half after the culmination of It is affirmed that the late earthquake in Chile had no relation to the culmination of the moon. It is to be noted that the great earthquake in Honolulu in the Hawaian Islands took place on the night of February 19, six days before that of

the moon.

Chile.

AN earthquake was felt at Rawul Pindee and Murree, in the Himalayas, in April.

THE Russian Government are believed to be organising an expedition to New Guinea for the purposes of scientific research and exploration. It is, however, believed in Australia that this is only an indirect method of obtaining a foothold in that country, and it is proposed that the Government of Victoria should send an expedition to New Guinea, in order to obtain by treaty certain portions of territory for purposes of settlement. Should this design be carried into effect, it is to be hoped that every facility will be given to Naturalists to accompany the expedition into this large and comparatively unknown country. THE Friend of India states that from the report on the general

state of the weather in the North-West Provinces and Oudh

during March, it appears that the direction of the wind, as in the preceding two months, was for nearly the whole month from the north-west in the N.W. portion of the provinces, and west elsewhere. During the first half of the month a tendency to change to the east was occasionally perceptible, and this was especially the case during the time of the barometric depression

from the 13th to the 20th. The month as a whole was much drier than usual.

TO THE LINNEAN SOCIETY
(Continued from page 114)

IN geographical biology Denmark proper is of no greal im
portance except as a connecting link, on the one hand, be-
tween the Scandinavian peninsula and Central Europe, and, on
the other, as the separating barrier between the Baltic and the
North Seas. Low and flat, without any great variety in its
physical features, it is unfavourable for the production or main
tenance of endemic organisms, and forms an inseparable portion
of the region of Central Europe. But the Arctic possessions in
cluded in the kingdom, Greenland, Iceland, and the Faroe
for the number of eminent naturalists, zoologists as well as
Islands, are of great interest; and Denmark itself is remarkable
botanists, produced by so small a state. Its reputation in this
respect, established by the great names mentioned in my review
of Transactions in my Address of 1865, is being well kept up by
Bergh, Krabbe, Lütken, Mörch, Reinhardt, Schiodte, Steen-
strup, and others in zoology; whilst Lange, (Ersted, and
Warming are among the few who now devote themselves more
or less to systematic botany. Their general zoological collection,
when I last visited it, many years since, was not extensive,
although rich in northern animals, and very well arranged under
the direction of Steenstrup, and the insects in the Storm Gade
Museum were very numerous; whilst at the University was
deposited the typical collection of Fabricius. The Herbarium
at the Botanic Garden, valuable for the types of Vahl and
other early botanists, has been in modern times enriched by
the extensive Mexican collection of Liebmann, the Brazilian
ones of Lund and others; whilst Ersted's Central-American
and Warming's Brazilian plants are also at Copenhagen, bat
whether public or private property I know not. The botanical
and zoological gardens are of no great importance, but the
biological publications are kept up with some spirit, especially
the Transactions of the Royal Society of Science, Schiodte's
continuation of Kröyer's "Tidsskrift," and the "Videnskabelige
Meddelelser" of the Natural History Society; and some of
the authors have adopted a practice strongly recommended
to those who write in languages not understood by the great
mass of modern naturalists, that of giving short résumes of
their papers in French. On the most important contributions
to systematic zoology since those mentioned in my address of
1868, I have received the following memoranda :-Prof. Rein-
hardt, in publishing in the Transactions of the Royal Danish
Academy (1869) nine posthumous plates, executed under the
direction of the late Prof. Eschricht, illustrating the structure of
Prof. Reinhardt has further published, in the "Videnskabelige
various cetacea, has accompanied them with short explanations.
Meddelelser" for 1870, a list of the birds inhabiting the Campus
district of central Brazil; notes on the distribution, habits, and
synonymy are copiously added; and the introductory remarks on
the geographical distribution, &c., are very suggestive, and ought
to be translated for the benefit of the friends of ornithology in
England and elsewhere. The same 66
"Videnskabelige Med-
delelser" contains an essay by Dr. Lütken on the limits and
classification of ganoid fishes, chiefly from a paleontological point
of view, accompanied by a synopsis of the present condition, in
systematical and geological respects, of that important branch of
Kröyer's "Tidsskrift" for 1869, one of his elaborate, anatomical,
palichthyology. In Mollusca, Dr. Bergh bas published, in
and systematic monographs of the tribe Phillider, with many
plates, of which a detailed notice is given in the Zoological
Record," vol. vi. p. 559. In insects, Prof. Schiödte, in the same
journal for 1869, has given an elaborate essay containing new facts
and views on the morphology and system of the Rhynchota,
analysed in the "Zoological Record," vol. vi. p. 475. To
Dr. Krabbe we owe the description of 123 species of tapeworms
plates, and printed in the Transactions of the Royal Danish
found in birds, an elaborate monograph accompanied by tea
Society for 1869, with a French résumé. (Noticed in "Zoologi
cal Record," vol. vi. p. 633.) In Echinoderms, Dr. Lütken's
valuable essays on various genera and species of Ophiuride, re-
cent and fossil, with a Latin synopsis of Ophiurida and Eury
his Additamenta ad Historiam Ophiuridarum," in the Transac
alidæ, and a general French résumé, forming the third
part
tions of the Royal Danish Society for 1869, have been analysed
in the " Zoological Record," vol. vi. pp. 369, 462, &C.

of

No

contribution to systematic botany of much importance has appeared in Denmark since those mentioned in my Address of 1868. There exists no general Danish Fauna; but I have a rather long list of detached works and essays from which the Danish inhabitants of the different classes of animals may be collected. Of these the most recent are Collin's Batrachia, in Kröyer's "Tidsskrift" for 1870, and Mörch's marine Mollusca, publishing in the "Videnskabelige Meddelelser" for the present year.

With regard to Iceland, the only works mentioned are Steenstrup's terrestrial mammals, or rather mammal, of Iceland, in the "Videnskabelige Meddelelser" for 1867; and Mörch's Mollusca in the same journal for 1868. C. Müller's account of the b rds of Iceland and the Faroe islands dates from 1862, and Lütken's of the Echinoderms from 1857, and I find no mention of any special account of the insects of the island; whilst in botany, C. C. Babington has given us, in the eleventh volume of our Linnean journal, an excellent revision of its flora, the phænogamic portion of which may now be considered as having been very fairly investigated; and E. Rostrup, in the fourth volume of the Tidsskrift of the Botanical Society of Copenhagen, has enumerated the plants of the Faroe Islands.

The Scandinavian peninsula is, on several accounts, of great interest to the biologist. It includes a lofty and extensive mountain-tract, with a climate less severe than that of most parts of the northern belt at similar la itudes, and the uniformity of the geological formation is broken by the limestone districts of Scania, It thus forms a great centre of preservation for organic races beween the wide-spread tracts of desolation to the east and the ocean on the west, and has therefore been treated as a centre of creation, whence a Scandinavian flora and fauna has spread in various directions. As the home of Linnæus it may also be considered as classical ground for systemane biology, the pursuit of which is now being carried on with spirit, as evidenced by such names as Holmgren, Kinberg, Liljeborg, Malm, Malmgren, G. O. Sars, Stal, Toreil, and others in zoology; and Agardh, Andersson, Areschoug, Fries, Hartmann, and others in botany. Two of the academies to whose publications Linnæus contributed, those of Upsala and Stockholm, continue to issue their Transactions and Proceedings; and to these are now added the memoirs published by the University of Lund. They lost Linnæus's own collections, and the Zoological Museum at Upsala, when I saw it many years since, was poor, that of Stockholm better, and in excellent order. In the herbaria, Thunberg's and Afzelius's collections are deposited at Upsala, and Swarz's at Stockholm, where the herbarium of the Academy of Sciences has been of late years considerably increased under the care of Dr. Andersson.

I

The Scandinavian Fauna and Flora have been generally well investigated. The numerous Floras published of late years show considerable attention on the part of the general public. observe that Hartmanu's Handbook is at its tenth edition; Andersson has published 500 woodcut figures of the commoner plants, taken chiefly from Fitch's illustrations of my British Handbook; and my lists contain many papers on Swedish Cryptogams. The relation of the Scandinavian vegetation to that of other countries has also been specially treated of by Zetterstedt, who compared it with that of the Pyrenees, and by Areschoug, Andersson, Ch. Martins, and others, as alluded to in more detail in my Address of 1869. Many works have succeeded each other on the Vertebrate Fauna since the days of Linnæus; amongst which those of Liljeborg as to Vertebrata in general and of Sundeyall as to Birds are still in progress. The Crustacea, Mollusca, and lower animals have been the subjects of numerous papers, the marine and freshwater faunas having been more especially investigated by the late M. Sars and by G. O. Sars; and Th. Thorell, in the Upsala Transactions, has given an elaborate review of the European genera of spiders, evidently a work of great care, preceded by apposite remarks on their generic classification, and a general comparison of the Arachnoid fauna of Scandinavia and Britain, all in the English language although published in Sweden. This work, however, does not extend to species, beyond naming a type (by which I trust is meant an example. not the type) of each genus; nor is the geographical range of the several genera given. There appears to be no general work on Scandinavian insects

The fauna and flora of Spitzbergen have specially occupied Swedish naturalists. To the accounts of the Vertebrata by Malmgren, and of the Lichens by T. M. Fries, have now been added, in recent parts of the Transactions or Proceedings of the

Royal Swedish Academy, the Insects by Holmgren, the Mollusca by Mörch, the Phænogamic Flora by T. M. Fries, and the Alga by Agardh.

An excellent and elaborate monograph of a small but widely spread genus of Plints, entitled "Prodromus Monographiæ Georum," by N. J. Scheutz, has appeared in the last part of the Transactions of the Academy of Upsala. Several interesting features in the geographical distribution of some of the species are pointed out, amongst which one of the most curious is the almost perfect identity of the G. coccineum from the Levant and the G. chilense from South Chile, the differences being such only as would scarcely have been set down as more than varieties had both come from the same country. The whole memoir is in the I atin language; the specific diagnoses are rather long, but the observations under each section and species point out the connection with and chief differences from the nearest allies.

The whole of the botanical literature published in or relating to Sweden has been regularly recorded in annual catalogues, inserted by T. O. B. N. Krok in the "Botaniske Notiser" of Stockholm.

The chief interest in the biology of Russia consists in its comparative uniformity over an enormous expanse of territory. Extending over more than 130 degrees from East to West, and above 20 degrees from South to North, without the interposition of any great geological break in mountain,* or ocean, all changes in flora or fauna, in the length and breadth of this vast area are gradual; whilst the mountains which bound it to the south and to the east, and the glacial characters of the northern shores, offer to the Russian naturalist several more or less distinct biological types, such as the Caucasian, the Central Asiatic, the Mantchurian and the Arctic, all blending into the great EuropeoAsiatic type, and the three first-named, at least apparently, constituting great centres of preservation. By the careful discrimination of the various races which give to each of these types its distinctive character, the study of their mutual relations, of the areas which each one occupies without modification, of the complicated manner in which these several areas are interwoven, of the gradual changes which distance may produce, of the cessation of one race and the substitution of another without apparent physical cause, the Russian, even without travelling out of his own country, can contribute, more than any other observer, valuable materials for the general history of races. In botany I have on former occasions referred to Ledebour's "Flora Rossica" as the most extensive complete flora of a country which we possess, and to the numerous papers by which it has been supplemented. Several of these are still in progress, chiefly in the bulletin of the Society of Naturalists of Moscow, and I have notes of local floras and lists from various minor publications. The last received volume of the Memoirs of the Academy of Petersburgh include the botanical portion of Schmidt's travels in the Amur-land and Sachalin, in which the geographical relations of the flora are very fully treated of; and the first part of a very elaborate "Flora Caucasi" by the late F. J. Ruprecht, which may be more properly designated Commentaries on the Caucasian Plants than a flora in the ordinary sense of the word. It is an enumeration of species, with frequent observations on affinities, and a very detailed exposition of stations in the Caucasus, but without any reference to the distribution beyond that region; above 300 large 4to pages only include the Polypetale preceding Leguminose, and the lamented death of the author will probably prevent the completion of the work. N. Kaufmann, Professor of Botany at the University of Moscow, an active botanist of great promise, whose death last winter is much deplored by his colleagues, had published a Flora of Moscow in the Russian language, which had met with much success. In the zoology of Russia the most important recent work is Middendorff's "Thierwelt Sibirias," analysed in the "Zoological Record," vi. p. I, which, with the previously published descriptive portion and the botany of the journey by Trautvetter, Ruprecht, and others, forms a valuable exposition of the biology of N. E. Siberia, a cold and inhospitable tract of country, where organisms, animal as well as vegetable, are perhaps poorer in species and poorer in individuals than in any other region of equal extent not covered with eternal snows. Middendorff's observations on this poverty of the

*The celebrated chain of the Oural, which separates Asia from Europe is, in the greater part of its length too low, and the ascent too gradual to have much influence on the vegetation. The so-ca led ridge between Perm and katerinburg is, according to Ermann, not 1600 feet above the level of the sea, and rises from land which, for a breadth of above 120 miles, is only 700 feet lower.

fauna of Siberia, its uniformity and conformity to the European fauna, on the meaning to be given to the species, on their variability and on the multiplicity of false ones published, on the complexity of their respective geographical areas, on their extinction and replacement by others, &c., are deserving of the careful study of all naturalists. L. v. Schrenck's Mollusca of the Amur land or Mantchuria (reviewed in the "Zoological Record," iv. p. 504) is equally to be recommended for the manner in which the specific relations, the variability, affinities, and geographical distribution of Mantchurian Mollusca are treated. The publications of the first meeting of the Association of Russian Naturalists include a review of the Crustacea of the Black Sea by V. Czerniavski, an account of the Annulata Chætopoda of the Bay of Sebastopol by N. Bobretzki, and a paper on the zoology of the Lake of Onega and its neighbourhood by K. Kesslar, including a review of the fishes, Crustacea, and Annulata of the Lake of Onega, and of the Mollusca collected in and about the Lakes Onega and Ladoga, and a list of the butterflies of the Government of Olonetz. The historical and scientific memoirs published by the University of Kazan, of which several volumes have recently reached us, include a systematic enumeration and description of the birds of Orenburg (329 species), with detailed notes of their habits, &c., by the late Prof. E. A. Eversmann, edited after his death by M. N. Bogdanoff, forming an 8vo volume of 600 pages in the Russian language.

There is not in Russia at the present moment sufficient encouragement on the part of the public to induce the publication of independent biological works beyond a few popular handbooks; but the Imperial Academy of Petersburg has, on the other hand, been exceedingly liberal in the assistance it affords, and active in its issue of Transactions with excellent illustrations, as well as of its bulletin of proceedings. The volumes recently received include J. F. Brandt's "Symbole Sirenologica" and researches on the genus Hyrax (reviewed in "Zoological Record," v. p. 3, and vi. p. 5), A. Strauch's Synopsis of Viperidae, with full details of their geographical distribution, E. Metschnikoff's studies on the development of Echinoderms and Nemertines, and N. Miklucho-Maclay's Memoir on Sponges of the N. Pacific and Arctic Oceans, with remarks on their extreme variability inducing the multiplication of false species. In botany, Bunge's Monograph of the Old-World species of Astragalus is the result of many years labour and careful investigation. The eight sub-genera and 104 sections into which this extensive genus is divided appear to be very satisfactory; but the species (971) are probably very much too numerous, and we miss that comparison with American forms which, considering the very numerous cases of identity or close affinity, is essential for the due appreciation of the N. Asiatic species. Bunge has also published a monograph of the Heliotropia of the MediterraneoOriental region in the Bulletin of the Society of Naturalists of Moscow, which continues its annual volumes. The parts recently received continue several of the botanical enumerations already noticed, together with various smaller entomological

AT the request of Mr. E. Billings, of Montreal, I have recently examined the specimen of Asaphus platycephalus belonging to the Canadian Geological Museum, which has been supposed to show remains of legs. Mr. Billing, while he has suspected the organs to be legs so far as to publish on the subject, + has done so with reserve, saying, in his paper, "that the first and all-important point to be decided, is whether or not the forms exhibited on its under side were truly what they appeared to be, locomotive organs." On account of his doubts, the specimen was submitted by him during the past year to the Geological Society of London; and for the same reason, notwithstanding the corroboration there received, he offered to place the specimen in my hands for examination and report.

Besides giving the specimen an examination myself, I have submitted it also to Mr. A. E. Verrill, Prof. of Zoology in

*From the American Journal of Science and Arts, Vol. 1, May, 1871. +Q J. Geol. Soc., No 104, p. 479, 1870, with a pate giving a full-sized view of the under surface of the trilobite, a species that was over four inches in length.

Yale College, who is well versed in the Invertebrates, and to Mr. S. I. Smith, assistant in the same department, and excellent in crustaceology and entomology. We have separately and together considered the character of the specimen, and while we have reached the same conclusion, we are to be regarded as independent judges. Our opinion has been submitted to Mr. Billings, and by his request it is bere published.

The conclusion to which we have come is that the organs are not legs, but the semi-calcified arches in the membrane of the ventral surface to which the foliaceous appendages or legs were attached. Just such arches exist in the ventral surface of the abdomen of the Macrura, and to them the abdominal appendages are articulated.

This conclusion is sustained by the observation that in cne part of the venter three consecutive parallel arches are distinctly connected by the intervening outer membrane of the venter, showing that the arches were plainly in the membrane, as only a calcified portion of it, and were not members moving free above it. This being the fact, it seems to set at rest the question as to the legs. We would add, however, that there is good reason for believing the supposed legs to have been such arches in their continuing of nearly uniform width almost or quite to the lateral margin of the animal; and in the additional fact, that although curving forward in their course toward the margin, the successive arches are about equidistant or parallel, a regularity of position not to be looked for in free-moving legs. The curve in these arches, although it implies a forward ventral ex tension on either side of the leg-bearing segments of the body, does not appear to afford any good reason for doubting the above conclusion. It is probable that the two prominences on each arch nearest the median line of the body, which are rather marked, were points of muscular attachment for the foliaceous appendage it supported.

With the exception of these arches, the under surface of the venter must have been delicately membranous, like that of the abdomen of a lobster or other macruran. Unless the under surface were in the main fleshy, trilobites could not have rolled

SCIENTIFIC SERIALS

Annales de Chemie et de Physique. The whole of the last part of the "Annales" is occupied by M. Berthelot's Méthode univeralle pour réduire et saturer d'hydrogène les composés organiques, which is a résumé of the elaborate and exhaustive researches on the action of hydriodic acid on organic substances in which he has been engaged for the last three or four years. Most of the results have been already published from time to time in the Bulletin de la Société Chimique de Paris, and this classical re search is now completed by the publication of the details of the methods of analysis and the thermochemical considerations in volved. The author has found that any organic compound can be transformed into a saturated hydro-carbon, having, in general, the same number of atoms of carbon as the original substance, by heating it for a sufficient length of time to a temperature of 275 ̊C., with a large excess of an aqueous solution of hydriodic acid of the specific gravity of 20. The proportion of the acid is varied according to the nature of the substance submitted to its action, twenty or thirty parts being sufficient to reduce an alcohol of the fatty series, whilst a member of the aromatic series and such substances as bitumen, wood charcoal, and coal, require, at least, one hundred times their weight; the large excess of acid serving the purpose of dissolving the iodine set free during the reaction, thus preventing its destructive action on the organic compound, and also in allow ing the quantity of hydriodic acid necessary for the reduction of the substance, to be withdrawn from the solution without re ducing its strength so far that the reaction ceases. One of the most remarkable results exhibited in the application of this method is that of the direct transformation of benzene into the saturated hydrocarbon, hexylene hydride, C, H, +8HI= CH11+ 81, affording, as it does, an instance of a direct passage from the aromatic to the fatty series. When other members of the phenyl series are treated with hydriodic acid, the ultimate product is the same; but there is an intermediate step in the reaction, resulting in the formation of benzene, which, by the continued action of the acid, is transformed into the corresponding saturated hydrocarbon. The fifth and last part of the paper

of great interest from a theoretical point of view, since it comprises the results of the author's experiments on bitumen, wood charcoal, and coal. The former of these substances, under the influence of hydriodic acid, yields hexylene hydride, the saturated hydrocarbon corresponding to benzene, from which it may be inferred that bitumen is a derivative of benzene, produced by condensation and loss of hydrogen, Charcoal and coal, when treated according to M. Berthelot's method, are transformed into a mixture of various saturated hydrocarbons, identical with those found in petroleum oil. In fact the coal is changed into petroleum

oil.

THE most important paper in the first three numbers of vol. xiii. of the Atti della Societa Italiana di Scienze Naturali (April and November 1870, and January 1871), is a continuation of Prof. Delpino's article on "Dichogamy in the Vegetable Kingdom.' In this paper the author passes in review the various modes in which the impregnation of plants is effected, with especial reference to the provisions for the impregnation of one plant by the fecundating organs of another.-M. A. Curò publishes a note on parthenogenesis among the Lepidoptera.M. F. Sordelli contributes a note on the anatomy of the genus Acme, and on some of the hard parts of Cæcilianella acicula, illustrated with a plate; and further an anatomy of Limax Doriæ, Bourg., also illustrated, and including a tabular arrangement of the species of the genus Limax, for the elucidation of the characters of two new species, which the author describes under the numes of L. punctulatus and L. Bettonii.-The Secretary of the Society, Dr. C. Marinoni, notices some remains of Ursus selaus from the Cave of Adelsberg.-M. G. Bellucci gives an account of some evidences of prehistoric man in the territory of

Terni.-M. L. Ricca communicates

some observations on

dichogamy in plants made by him upon the Alps of Val Camonica in 1870; and also a systematic catalogue of the vascular plants growing spontaneously in the olive-zone of the valleys of Diana, Marina, and Cervo, with indications of the special conditions of growth, times of flowering of each species, and occasional remarks upon their characters.-At p. 130 is the description of a supposed hybrid Orchis, O. coriophoro-laxiflora, -From M. C. Beilotti we have some observations on the disease of flaccidity, which destroys so many silkworms (morts-flats) in France and Italy; and from Dr. Taramelli a memoir, illustrated with an elaborate coloured plate, on the ancient glaciers of the Drave, Save, and Isonzo.

SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES

LONDON

Geological Society, June 7.-Mr. Joseph Prestwich, F.R.S., president, in the chair. Messrs. Henry Collinson and Thomas Milnes Favell were elected Fellows, and Dr. J. J. Kaup, of Darmstadt, was elected a foreign member of the society. The following communications were read :-I. "On the persistence of Caryophyllia cylindracea Reuss, a Cretaceous Coral, in the Coral-fauna of the Deep Sea." By Prof. P. Martin Duncan, F.R. S. The author first referred to the synonyms and geological distribution of Caryophyllia cylindracca, Reuss, which has hitherto been regarded as peculiar to the White Chalk, and as necessarily an extinct form, inasmuch as it belonged to a group possessing only four cycles of septa in six systems, one of the systems being generally incomplete. The distribution of the Caryophilie of this group in the Gault and the Upper Chalk, the Miocene, and the Pliocene, was noticed, and also that of the species with the incomplete cycle. The falsity of this generalisation was shown to be proved by the results of deep-sea dredging off the Havannah, under Count Pourtales, and off the Iberian peninsula under Dr. Carpenter and Mr. Gwyn Jeffreys. The former dredged up Caryophyllia formosa with four complete cycles, and the latter obtained, from depths between 600 and 1090 fathoms, a group of torms with four complete and incomplete cycles. This group had a Cretaceons facies; one of the forms could not be differentiated from Caryophyllia cylindracea, Reuss; and as a species of the genus Bathycyathus was found at the same time, this facies was rendered more striking. The representation of the extinct genera Trochosmilia, Parasmilia, Synharia, and Diblasus, by the recent Amphihelia, Paracyathi, and Caryophyllie was noticed, and it was considered that as the Cretaceous forms throve under the same external conditions, some of them only being persistent, there must be some law

tion.

He

which determines the life-duration of species like that which restricts the years of the individual. It was shown that deep-sea conditions must have prevailed within the limits of the diffusion of the ova of coral polyps somewhere on the Atlantic area ever since the Cretaceous period. Mr. Gwyn Jeffreys remembered that at the spot where the coral in question was dredged up the sea-bottom was extremely uneven, varying as much as fifty fathoms within a quarter of a mile. It was also not more than forty miles from land. The species of mollusca dredged up were extremely remarkable, and many were totally different from what he had previously seen. They were, however, living or recent; none of them were Eocene or Miocene, much less Cretaceous, like Terebratula caput-serpentis. quoted from Mr. Davidson other instances of the persistence of forms, especially of the genus Lingula from the Silurian formaThe persistence of this species of coral, as well as that of Foraminifera, from the Cretaceous to the present time, was therefore not unique, and other cases of survival from even earlier times might eventually be recognised. Dr. Carpenter, after commenting on the reductions that extended knowledge enabled naturalists to make in the number of presumed species, could not accept the mere identification of species as of the highest importance in connecting the Cretaceous fauna with that of our own day. The identity of genera was, in his opinion, of far more importance. He instanced Echinothuria and Rhizocrinus as preserving types identically the same as those of a remote period, and as illustrating the continuity of the deep-sea fauna from Cretaceous times. The chemical and organic constitution of the deep-sea bottom of the present day was also singularly The low temperature at the analogous to that of the Chalk sea. bottom of the deep sea, even in equatorial regions, was now becoming universally recognised, and this temperature must have had an important bearing on the animal life at the sea-bottom. Prof. Ramsay thought that there was some misapprehension abroad as to the views held by geologists as to continuity of conditions. They had, however, always insisted on there having been an average amount of sea and land during all time; and the fact of sea having occupied what is now the middle of the Atlantic since Cretaceous time would create no surprise among them. If, however, the bed of the Atlantic were raised, though probably many Cretaceous genera, and even species, might be found, there would on the whole be a very marked difference between these Atlantic beds and those of the Chalk. Mr. Seeley had already, in 1862, put forward views which had now been fully borne out by recent investigation. His conviction was that, from the genera having persisted for so long a time, the genera found in any formation afforded no safe guide as to its age, unless there were evidence of their having since those formations become extinct. Mr. Etheridge maintained that the species in different formations were sufficiently distinct, though the genera might be the same. Recent dredgings had not brought to light any of the characteristic molluscan forms of the Cretaceous time; and it would be of great importance to compare the results of future operations with the old Cretaceous deep-sea fauna. Prof. Rupert Jones, with reference to the supposed sudden extinction of chambered Cephalopods, remarked that Cretaceous forms had already been discovered in Tertiary beds in North America, and also that cold currents could not have destroyed them, seeing that icebergs came down to the latitude of Croydon in the Chalk sea.-2. "Note on an Ichthyosaurus (I. enthekiodon) front Kimmeridge Bay, Dorset." By J. W. Hulke, F.R.S. In this paper the author described the skeleton of an Ichthyosaurus from Kimmeridge Bay, agreeing in the characters of the teeth with the form for which he formerly proposed the establishment of the genus Enthekiodon. The specimen includes the skull, a large portion of the vertebral column, numerous ribs, the bones of the breast-girdle, and some limbbones. The first forty-five vertebral centra have a double costal tubercle. The coracoids have an unusual form, being more elongated in the axial than in the transverse direction, and this elongation is chiefly in advance of the glenoid cavity. The articular end of the scapula is very broad. The paddles are excessively reduced in size, the anterior being larger than the posterior, as evidenced by the comparative size of the proximal bones. The species, which the author proposed to name I. enthekiodon, most nearly resembles the Liassic I. tenuirostris. The length of the preserved portion of the skeleton is about 1oft., the femur measures only 2in., and the humerus 27in.-3. "Note on a Fragment of a Teleosaurian Snout from Kimmeridge Bay, Dorset." By J. W. Hulke, F. R.S. In this