IT is stated that a crater of a new volcano has been formed on the mountain near Bivoria in the province of Girgenti in Sicily. THE Cyclone which visited St. Thomas and Antigua on the 21st of August, continued its course towards the Bahamas, and reached Turks Island on the 22nd. The storm occupied about eight hours in travelling from St. Kitts to St. Thomas, 150 miles, and so had a rate of progress of about 18 miles per hour, but from St. Thomas to Turks Island the velocity decreased to about 124 miles per hour, taking about 31 hours to travel 380 miles. ON the 11th of July a strong shock of earthquake was felt at Valparaiso in Chile, preceded by a loud rumbling noise. On the 20th, at II P. M., a very severe shock was felt at Santiago de Chile. THE following account of a hairy family appears in the Indus Daily News :-"The hairy family of Mandalay consists of a woman of about forty-five years of age, a man of twenty, and s girl of eleven, with hair over every part of their faces, forehead, nose, and chin, varying in length from three inches to a foot, and exactly the colour and texture of that on a skye terrier. The hair of their heads, on the contrary, is just the same as on any ordinary Burman; they appear to be quite as intelligent as the ordinary Burmans. The father of the woman was the first of the hairy progeny. He married an ordinary Burman woman, and the issue of the union was the present bairy head of the family. She married an ordinary Burman, and has issue, a son about twenty-three years of age, not hairy, and the boy and girl alluded to. The Burmese explanation of the phenomenon is, to say the least, curious, and might possibly possess a speca. interest for Mr. Darwin. These hairy people would be worth a fortune to the enterprising Barnum if he could get hold of them, but the King will not allow them to go out of his dominions." SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE FROM AMERICA* A SLIGHT shock of earthquake was felt at Kingston, Jamaica, THE fourth Annual Report of the Trustees of the Peabody at 4 P.M. on the 3rd of September. Museum of American Archæology and Ethnology has made its appearance, and presents a gratifying picture of the progress of this great establishment. The most important adle tions during the year have been a collection of stone implements from Cape Cod presented by Mr. Samuel H. Russell, a series of duplicates from the Christie collection of London, and specimens obtained from explorations in Tennessee by Mr. Dunning, and in Central America by Dr. Berendt. These are supplemented by numerous single donations of greater or less value. In the course of some critical observations upon the specimens received by the Museum, attention is called to the great value of a collection of crania and human bones obtained from certain mounds in Ken tucky by Mr. S. S. Lyon, in the course of explorations made under the combined auspices of the Smithsonian Institution and of the Peabody Museum. The peculiarities of the crania of the American Indians have already been referred to by various writers, but some curious facts are detailed in the report in regard to other portions of the skeleton. Thus the ulna and radius, as compared with the humerus, were found to be much larger i the mound Indians, while the length of the tibia, as compared with the femur, is longer in the whites. In quite an unusual number of Indian skeletons the two fosse at the lower end of the humerus were found to communicate, producing a perforation This feature, rarely met with in the white races, occurs quite frequently in the mound remains, while in the black race it ap pears to be still more frequent. An additional peculiarity of the mound bones consists in the flattening of the tibia, which, until the date of the present publication, has not been recorded as occurring in America, although remains from the dolmens of France, the quaternary drift of Clichy, and the burial caves Cro-Magnon and Gibraltar, exhibit this in a very marked degree. As regards the pelvis, the breadth in the Indian races is found to be less than in the whites, while the three diameters of the brin of the true pelvis are greatest in the Indians. The transverse diameter and the size of the outlet of the pelvis are much the largest in the Indian, while the sacrum is less curved, supplying conditions which in the process of parturition are more favourable to the Indian women.-We have already referred at various times to enterprises on the part of the Peruvian Government in exploring the less-known portions of that country, and we find in late South American hills, a thunderbolt fell on the 22nd of August after a heavy of the regions of the Ucayale and Urubamba. The object of journals details of a movement looking toward the examination THE star showers of the 10th and 11th of August last were attentively watched in America as in Europe. At Sherburne, New York, according to the American Journal of Science, a party of six persons watched between 11.40 and 12, and saw 48 meteors. In the next hour 143 were seen, and in the first eighteen minutes of the next hour 32. The latitude of the radiant point was 1° less than that of the nebula in Perseus. Les Mondes gives the particulars of a remarkable meteorite observed at Marseilles by M. Coggia, on the 1st of August. It made its appearance at 10h. 43m., Marseilles mean time, at a point situated near the centre of the triangle formed by Serpentis and and ʼn Ophiuchi. The course was remarkably slow, in an easterly direction; at 10h. 45m. 30s. it passed between μ1 and μ Sagittarii, and at 10h. 46m. 35s. it almost occulted Saturn. The course became then still slow er; at 10h. 49m. 50s. it passed a little below o Sagittarii, and at 10h. 50m. 403. south of the star fof the same constellation. At 10h. 52m. 30s. it passed between and Capricorni, where it remained for a moment stationary, then changing its course, it took a northerly direction, leaving at 10h. 57m. 50s. the star v Aquarii 1° 30' to the west, and again stopping, at 10h. 59m. 30s., a little south-west of 8 Aquarii. Regaining its original easterly direction, it then passed 8 Aquarii, stopping again near Aquarii, and then fell rapidly in a perpendicular direction near Capricorni, and leaving to the east the almost full moon. It finally disap. peared a little north of @ Pisc. austral. at 11h. 3m. 28s. The diameter, which was at first about 15', diminished rapidly, was a little over 4' when it approached Saturn, and finally had scarcely more than the apparent size of Venus. During its perpendicular fall to the horizon, it gave out vivid scintillations. THE Times of India gives the following story :—Advices from Ihangara state that at a place about forty miles distant on the downpour of rain. The ground was literally cut up in consequence, and the whole of the huts standing there as well as their inmates were swallowed up in the chasm. Such a catastrophe has never been known in Sind. Some fifty or sixty persons perished, the expedition is to find a port which will open up to the Depart ment of Cuzco a communication with the main branch of the Amazon, and thence to the Atlantic. The work is to be under the direction of Mr. Tucker, favourably known in similar enter* Communicated by the Scientific Editor of Harper's Weekly ses before. The present plan is for Don Raymundo Estrella a another commissioner to start from the port of Illapani in large canoes, and make their way by the Urubamba to itos, which is the Peruvian naval station on the Amazon. is is for the purpose of obtaining such a knowledge of the ers as may fit them to serve as pilots to the steamer which is ascend the Ucayale and explore the Urubamba. They are make their way back about thirty leagues from Cuzco.e daily papers of August 29 contain the latest reports from ptain Hall and his steamer Polaris, in the form of a teleaphic despatch from the United States ship Congress, dated at . John's, Newfoundland, August 28. It will be remembered at this vessel was detailed by the Secretary of the Navy to arry supplies of provisions and coal to be stored in Greenland or the use of the Arctic expedition. She left St. John's on her utward trip on the 3rd of August, reaching Disco on the 10th, assing hundreds of immense icebergs on the way. The Polaris as found at Disco, having reached that place only six days in dvance, although she started long before the Congress. Captain Tall and his party were in good spirits, and sanguine of success. The Congress reports that Captain Hall left Disco on the 17th of August for the north, where communication with him will, of ourse, be uncertain for some time to come, unless the object of he expedition in reaching the north pole can be accomplished in ime to return during the present year. It is understood that nstead of going by way of Jones Sound, as was the original inention, Captain Hall will proceed along the eastern side of Smith Sound. By all accounts the water is much more open han for many years past, there being comparatively little driftice to bar progress. To the surprise of the officers of the Congress, the summer temperature of Greenland was found to be quite elevated, and there was a luxuriant vegetation to be seen around the settlement of Disco.The Panama papers speak of the great success which several whaling ships are now meeting with in the Bay of Panama, quite a number of whales having been killed there every day for some time past. It is stated that at the time the steamship Chile passed Payta, a school of small whales had been there in such abundance that the boats were afraid to leave the harbour.-We have already referred to the hydrographical and other explorations in Alaska by Mr. William H. Dall, under the patronage of the Coast Survey; and we now learn that he left San Francisco for the north at the end of August, bound direct to Iliuliuk Harbour, Oonalaska, there to go into winter-quarters. It was his intention, according to his instructions, to make use of every favourable opportunity to survey the vicinity of that port, and in March to proceed westward, sounding and surveying as far as Kamtchatka, and then turning north and eastward to Cape Romanzoff, to return to Oonalaska, and thence proceed homeward. The vessel obtained for the expedition, although small, is conveniently adapted for its purpose, and can carry provisions for six months; and it is expected that fresh supplies will be forwarded from San Francisco in March next. The party, besides Mr. Dall, consists of Prof. Harrington, the astronomer, Captain W. G. Hall, sailing-master, with two mates and five men. ON THE STUDY OF SCIENCE IN SCHOOLS * II. count of an encounter with a dragon in one of the passes of the Alps, and illustrates his assertion by an exceedingly bold and imaginative woodcut. Metals were believed to be generated in the earth by the action of the sun. Gold had a large proportion of condensed sunbeams. A mine when exhausted was closed, and re-opened after some years in the hope that the metal would have been produced in the meanwhile. Many-among them Cardanus-believed that metals and minerals possessed a kind of life, and that certain changes in them, such as conversion into calx, were the result of their death. The air was peopled with invisible demons, who wrought all kinds of mischief, raised storms and whirlwinds, and warred against the works of man. Witches and wizards were in league with them, and could influ ence them, and were hence treated with extreme severity. In 1487 there was an unusually devastating storm in Switzerland, and two old women, who were believed to be witches, were arrested on the charge of having caused it. They of course denied the charge, but during the torment of the rack they confesssed they had raised the tempest. They were forthwith executed- "Convicta et combusta." These cases were by no means rare. Witches were believed to exist by the hundred and thousand, and to produce all kinds of supernatural effects. Pope Innocent VIII. issued a manifesto against them in 1488, and appointed inquisitors in all countries, armed with powers of arresting and punishing suspected sorcerors. In Geneva alone, no less than 500 persons were burned in 1515 and 1516. So late as the year 1716, two persons were executed in England for the practice of witchcraft. We can understand all this better if we bear in mind how much superstition still exists in the world. Not to mention those things which appear under pseudo-scientific names, we find in many out-of-the-way villages, specially in Ireland, a very firm belief among the uneducated in the power of charms, and the existence of witches. In a village not far removed from the outer world, a witch has been pointed out to me, and the laming of a horse and other disasters seriously attributed to her charge. Gaule, in his "Magastromancer," gives a list of fifty-two forms of divination, and he has omitted at least six which are found in the works of other writers. Among other forms we have divining by ashes, by smoke, by the lees of wine, by cheese, by figs, by knives and saws; you will remember also some of the forms of divination practised by the Romans. But perhaps the delusion which has most militated against the growth and progress of true natural science has been alchemy-a false science which flourished for more than 800 years, and which was firmly believed in by thousands. The alchemists devoted their lives mainly to the search for two palpable impossibilities; the Elixir Vita, which was believed to possess the power of conferring perpetual youth, and the Philosopher's Stone, which was believed to transmute everything that it touched into gold. The search for this substance, and the endeavours to make it by artificial means, occupied the attention of many notorious and eminent men. Albertus Magnus, who became Bishop of Ratisbon in 1259, and S. Thomas Aquinas, were particularly addicted to alchemy and magic. We hear most of their magical powers, although their writings on alchemy still remain. Between them they made a brazen statue and endowed it with the faculty of speech; but it was so garrulous that one day Thomas Aquinas, who was in vain trying to work out a mathematical problem, seized a hammer and destroyed it-at least, so say contemporary writers. Albertus WE now come to the second heading of our discourse, viz., the Magnus once changed a severe winter into a most splendid objects and aims of the experimental sciences, and the reason why we study them. Now the main object of science is the discovery of new truths, and the destruction of old errors. The human mind, much as it loves truth, has in the course of ages given birth to an infinite number of fallacies, specially in regard to the operations of Nature. Fallacies handed down by tradition; fallacies elaborated in the mind of dreamers, and theorists, and believers in magic; fallacies founded upon inaccurate observation, false experiment, perverted reasoning; these have ever been the barriers which have most retarded the progress of true science; and the earlier natural philosophers had to contend against a mass of such pre-existent opinion and superstition. scarcely realise in the present day the amount of superstition which existed among all classes even two hundred years ago, and at an earlier period it was far more prevalent. That same Athanasius Kircher, who was before mentioned as the author of a book on light, and who also wrote on magnetism, gives a detailed acConclusion of a Lecture delivered at Marlborough College as an introtion to the commencment of Science teaching, by G. F. Rodwell. We can summer within the space of his garden. Detailed accounts exist of the transmutation of lead and tin into gold. Raymond Lully states in one of his works that he converted 50,000 lbs. weight of quicksilver, lead, and pewter into gold. Pope John XXII. was a great alchemist, and had a laboratory at Avignon. He wrote a work on the transmutation of metals, and at his death left a sum of eighteen millions of florins, the existence of which according to contemporary alchemists, proved the possibility of transmutation. And thus one might continue to give a long list of known men who devoted themselves to these useless pursuits; and the unknown men could be counted by thousands. Here, then, we have some of the fallacies which it has been the object of science to disprove, and which, so long as they existed in full vigour, effectually prevented the progress of science. The disproval of these could only result in the discovery of new truths. There is an intense satisfaction in the discovery of absolute truth; truth which stands every opposition, which has been weighed in many balances and not found wanting; which has been submitted to every process of reasoning and of experiment, and has come out uninjured. Taking this discovery of new truths as the first and greatest aim of science, we may, perhaps, take next some of Francis Bacon's more practical ideas about the objects and aims of science; to increase man's sovereignty over Nature, to compel Nature to be subservient to his will, and to minister to his wants; to restore his lost sovereignty over Creation. And, indeed, when the new truths are discovered, they are soon applied to practical purposes, and to furthering the material good of mankind; but to study science with this object alone is usually pernicious, and always to be avoided. I Some of you will ask me the more direct use of science. fear I cannot tell you much about this; I would rather refer you to some of the enthusiastic-I hope not exaggerated- articles which have appeared from time to time during the last few years in various journals and magazines. It is directly useful for the purpose of science scholarships at the Universities, which are much on the increase; also it forms a part of the examinations at Woolwich, and for the Civil Service. Scientific appointments are year by year becoming more numerous in this country and in India. Indirectly, science is useful to every one. I say I cannot tell you much about its direct and practical uses, because I believe that the main use of it is to cultivate a certain set of mental faculties, to induce a certain mode of thought. The modes, and tones, and phases of mental action are as diverse as the modes of bodily action, and just as we exercise one set of muscles by rowing, another by riding, and a third by walking, so do we exercise a certain set of faculties when we study classics, another set when we study mathematics, and a third when we study sciences. The cultivation of this habit of thought engenders among other things a habit of observation and a spirit of inquiry. Questions suggest themselves daily, for an answer to which we must apply to science. Why do winds blow and storms rage? What are day and night, summer and winter, sunshine and frost? Of certain common things we rarely think, or if we do we assign the simplest meaning to them. For how many centuries did not mankind believe the world to be flat, the sun to be a globe of fire quenched nightly in the western sea, the sky to be solid, and the stars set into it like gems! Savages still believe that the firmament is a solid dome, and the sun and moon living creatures who walk across it. The third of our four divisions concerns the methods we shall follow in our study of the sciences discussed above. Firstly: lectures. It is essential that you should see the various changes wrought upon or within matter; not alone hear about them or read of them. You must not only observe, but you must think of the experimental results; understand them; understand the means by which they are brought about. It will be well for you to take notes, roughly at first, to be copied out afterward, and extended from memory. It is a mistake to take very full notes during a lecture. They may become an almost verbatim report of the lecture; the spirit of the matter is lost because the mind is fixed upon a detail. Experiments also are often lost; and at the end a mass of writing remains, but no knowledge of the work done. It is preferable to write down headings of subjects; the pith and marrow of the subject matter only ;-in a word, to make merely an outline of the picture, and to fill in the details afterwards from memory. Sketches of apparatus are always desired among the notes, also any general remarks, and queries. At the end of each lecture you will be questioned, and at the commencement of each lecture the matter of the preceding lecture will be recapitulated; at this time also your own queries will be answered. It is important that you should not allow any subject to be partially understood, or misunderstood. Make a note of any difficulty, and let it be cleared up at the commencement of the next lecture, or at some intermediate time. The misunderstanding of one important fact may render the right understanding of succeeding matter nearly impossible. Then, later in the half, I should like you to read in text-books about the subject of your lectures, and thus to supplement the lecture-work by book-work. The advantage of this will be very apparent when you are examined. It What we desire is that science shall grow up side by side with your other subjects of study, and enter into your daily life. is thus only that it can possess any real vitality. And if any subject of study possesses not vitality-intense, active, exuberant vitality-it languishes, becomes unhealthy, weak, and ultimately useless. It resembles a tree which loses first one branch, then another, and then dies entirely. And when upon the tree of knowledge a new branch is grafted, we desire to see it growing up side by side with the great branches already there. Our school knowledge-the knowledge which in its entirety ful fils the conditions of that comprehensive word tur one and undivided; hence a new subject can only Hoere it is woven completely into our school life, when it c regarded as a something extraneous and beyond the pale none of you are like the doctors of Salamanca when the confronted with Columbus, or like the cardinals judgment upon Jordano Bruno and Galileo. In 1 I must add one word in conclusion as to the attitu most conducive to a right study of natural science. place it is necessary to free the mind from previras ide conjectures, and to neglect the evidence of the senses an by extraneous means; thus the earth seems to be at = sun to be a glowing disc which moves around it, wet has proved that our senses here deceive us. Again, howit is to realise the fact that two sounds may produce siles lights darkness, until it is experimentally proved that case. It is hard to believe that the force which manifes by attracting light bodies when amber is rubbel, u with lightning, yet such has been proved to be the fact must clear our minds from preconceived opinions before profit much by the teachings of science. Do not be discouraged by the apparent difficulty of s starting; all things newly presented to the mind req exercise of some effort before they can be grasped. If th rent of our thoughts is to be diverted into a new char must needs require some time to change it from its old Comfort yourselves with the knowledge that at the oate know more true natural science than did Aristotle and great philosophers of antiquity. The very science wh learn almost as soon as you know the alphabet, the funda ideas about the earth, the sun, the moon, the air, places r starting ahead, in the matter of science, of the flower of A Age erudition: Professors of the Sorbonne, Doctors a manca, Monsignori of the Sacred College. If, at first, the of science seems to wind uphill all the way, remember the r the toil is over the view from the summit is very glonca sun rises upon a new land infinitely vast, infinitely ferte: of streams by the side of which you may wander, and at. nature reflected in their pure depths. Above all things, I would ask you to study science revers Many of our studies concern the works of man, here dealing with the works of God, governed directly by His Surely then it behoves us to bow our heads as we enter the of Nature, to be possessed of infinite humility, to assa prying spirit of curiosity, to have no intellectual pride of you no doubt remember Rembrandt's picture of the "A tomic Lesson," and the calm, reverent, inquiring look at students who surround the dead man; a sort of are presence of the wonderful mechanism of the microcs M as we must have awe in the presence of the macrocosm Vitae A something almost akin to the deisedaimonia of the Ande a reverential fear of that which is obscure, and but partly fest. I know not whether the smaller and more obscure #. of God do not convey this even more than those which are measurably greater. S. Augustine says, "Deus est magne magnis, maximus autem in minimis." We are scarcely > awed by the myriad stars and suns and systems around us by the myriad atoms of which the smallest mass of matter ze sists, and which possess functions, attributes, actions, as de in character, as varied in form, and as absolutely goverme immutable laws, as the members of systems comprising a m worlds, ten million miles away. ZOOLOGICAL RESULTS OF THE 1870 DREDG ING EXPEDITION OF THE YACHT“ NORNA* OFF THE COAST OF SPAIN AND PORTUGAL AT the last meeting of this Association, held at Liverpool, exhibited as one of the trophies of the Norna Expolin a new silicious sponge, to which I gave the name of Pherom Grayi, or "the Portuguese Bird's-Nest Sponge ;" and on the occasion the following is a brief synopsis of other leading novel ties and more general results of the dredging cruise. A few preliminary remarks on the origin and object of the expedition may preface this synopsis. * Communicated to the Biological Section of the British Associati Edinburgh, August 8, 1871. o Mr. Marshall Hall, F.G.S., &c., who personally supernded the expedition, are due the thanks of the scientific world having so generously devoted his yacht Norna to the purpose scientific discovery. This gentleman had early in the year ceived the project of rendering science that service it is to regretted so few owners of yachts are disposed to contribute; to him I feel myself under the deepest obligations for opportunities afforded me during this cruise of acquiring t practical information so keenly appreciated by every working uralist. Nor must I forget here to associate with his the me of Mr. Henry Lee, F.L.S., the worthy president of the ydon Microscopical Society, as one of the chief instigators of scheme, and the person to whom I am especially indebted for introduction to Mr. Marshall Hall, as one likely to make the st of the opportunities that would be afforded. Having accepted the last-named gentleman's kind invitation accompany him as naturalist in a small way to the expedition, was decided I should memorialise the Council of the Royal ciety for a grant to defray the heavier expenses of dredging d collecting apparatus. My application was most favourably ceived, thanks to the numerous kind scientific friends who suported it, and a sum of 50/. was immediately placed at our sposal for the purpose required. My indebtedness to the Royal ociety for this liberal assistance has already been acknowledged, ongh I cannot permit so fit an occasion as the present to pass ithout once more endorsing it. By the middle of May everything was prepared, the Trustees I the British Museum, on the especial recommendation of Professor Owen and Mr. Waterhouse, extending me an extra three eeks' leave of absence. The companionship and services of Mr. Edward Fielding were also fortunately secured, whose earlier redging experiences with Mr. M'Andrew in the Red Sea seemed alculated, as they afterwards proved, to be of the most valuable ssistance. Our time being limited, the west coast of Spain and Portugal was decided upon as a locality likely to yield is the most satisfactory zoological results, and on the recommendation of Mr. Henry Woodward we resolved first to proceed to Vigo Bay, where, in company with his lamented rother, Dr. S. P. Woodward, and Mr. M'Andrew, he had in he year 1856 obtained such abundant and valuable material. From thence it was proposed we should work our way down to Lisbon, our particular ambition being to reach the deep-sea fishing ground off Setubal, some twenty miles further south, from whence Prof. du Bocage, the talented conservator of the Lisbon Museum, had obtained specimens of the "Glass Rope Sponge (Hyalonema), and numerous other novel treasures. On starting, we touched and remained a couple of days at Guernsey, and at that spot a few hours spent in shore-collecting rewarded us with the earliest substantial fruits of the expedition; seven more days brought us to Vigo, the point which constituted the first basis of our practical dredging operations. A detailed list of the numerous species collected throughout the cruise being in course of preparation for the more technical and exhaustive report to be presented to the Royal Society, I here propose, commencing at the lowest animal group, to briefly enumerate some of the more important forms taken, adding such remarks on the characters or connecting circumstances which render them more especially deserving of attention. Of all, the subkingdom of the Protozoa has perhaps furnished us with the most abundant and valuable material, the sponge class in particular contributing many novelties. Before leaving British waters even, the few hours spent in shore-collecting at Guernsey, already alluded to, resulted in the accession of three new species of the genera Isodictya and Hymeniacidon, which I have placed at the disposal of my kind friend Dr. Bowerbank to be described by him in his supplementary volume of the "British Spongiada," now closely approaching completion. The moderate depths within the Laminarian and Coralline zones, from the shore line down to fifty fathoms, at which we collected and dredged in Vigo Bay, and afterwards further south in the neighbourhood of Setubal and the Sado river, proved remarkably productive of species belonging to the same group, as also to that of the Calcarea or calcareous spiculed sponges including Sycon and Grantia, &c. The most interesting of any, however, were the species belong ing to the Hexactinellidæ, or hexradiate spiculed sponges, of which the beautiful Euplectella and Hyalonema form familiar examples. Nine species belonging to this group were obtained at a depth varying from 400 to 800 fathoms off Cape Espichel and Cezimbra, including Hyalonema, Dactylocalyx, Aphrocallistes Bocagii, Lanuginella pupa, and four other species new to science, three out of which necessarily constitute the types of new genera, the residue | again furnishing data enabling us better to appreciate the characters and distinctions of those previously made known to us. The form belonging to the same group, and described by myself as Pheronema Grayi, and exhibited at the last meeting of this Association, is the most conspicuous among all these on account of its size, and I would here add a few more words in reference to this particular type. Since last year I have been afforded the opportunity of examining and comparing my own with numerous specimens of Prof. Wyville Thomson's Holtenia Carpenteri taken in the North Sea and also in the Atlantic, and from an evolu. tionist's point of view, this examination has led me to regard my specimens as holding rather the rank of a well-marked local variety than of a distinct species as I at first premised. parison of the specimens, now placed side by side in the British Museum collection, will, I think, suffice to prove to all those interested in this subject how strongly marked as varieties these two forms are. Meanwhile, the generic name of Pheronema adopted by myself I still retain, as I consider both Prof. Wyville Thomson's form and my own to be local varieties of another species first described by Dr. Leidy of Philadelphia as Pheronema anna, and a letter recently received from Dr. Leidy himself more fully convinces me of this, though he has not yet bestowed on it the minute microscopical investigation of its structure needed for the effectual clearing up of this, at present, doubtful point. A com In my description of other sponges belonging to this same Hexactinellate group, read before the Royal Microscopical Society, and published in their "Transactions" for November 1870, I have, in creating a new genus and species, Askonema setubalense, erroneously associated Prof. Thomson's name with it as having once pronounced the form to be of vegetable and not animal organisation. The mistake arose from the misconception of a name singularly similar in euphony as pronounced to me by Prof. du Bocage, and I here avail myself of the opportunity of rendering Prof. Wyville Thomson that amende honorable I feel myself in duty bound to accord to him. Passing next to the class of the Foraminifera, our gatherings have been remarkably rich both from the coralline and abyssal zones, the latter furnishing us with numerous arenaceous types (Rhabdomina, &c.), and the former being notably abundant in species and varieties of Lagena and Cristellaria. Many of these forms are new to science and await description, and I must not forget to acknowledge here my indebtedness to Mr. Henry Lee for the very great assistance he has rendered me in his skilful preparation of the various gatherings of these minute organisms. To Mr. Henry Hailes also my best thanks are due for similar services. The Coelenterate sub-kingdom has likewise furnished several new and rare forms, including among the latter category an example of Hyalopathes pyramidalis, M. Edw., one of the Antipathiidae now represented for the first time in our national collection, if not in this country. In the Alcyonarian group, Veritillum cynomorium, first taken sparingly in Vigo Bay, and afterwards abundantly in the Laminarian zone near Setubal, excited our warmest admiration. Nothing can exceed the beauty of the elegant opaline polypes of this zoophyte when fully expanded, and clustered like flowers on their orange-coloured stalk; a beauty, however, almost equalled by night when, on the slightest irritation, the whole colony glows from one extremity to the other with undulating waves of pale green phosphoric light. A large bucketful of these Alcyonaria was experimentally stirred up one dark evening, and the brilliant luminosity evolved produced a spectacle too brilliant for words to describe. The supporting stem appeared always to be the chief seat of these phosphorescent properties, and from thence the scintillations travelled onwards to the bodies of the polypes themselves. Some of the specimens of this magnificent zoophyte measured as much as ten inches from the proximal to the distal extremity of the supporting stalk, while the individual polypes, when fully exserted, protruded upwards of an inch-anda-half from this inflated stalk, and measured as much as an inch in the diameter of their expanded tentacular discs. Numerous polyzoa were also dredged up from the various depths, many of which remain yet to be identified; but the allied group of the Tunicata has perhaps furnished by far the most interesting material of the whole molluscoidan sub-kingdom; surface-skimmings one morning near the mouth of the Sado river having rewarded us with numerous specimens of an Appendicu laria, which, from notes and sketches made at the time of their capture, I have since found to have presented phenomena seemingly not yet observed by any other naturalist. Hitherto these organisms have been presumed to constitute a distinct genus of Tunicata inter se, or otherwise to be the larval conditions of higher forms. My own observations, however, recorded in the ast July number of the "Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science," have led me to believe that they are the free swimming reproductive Zooids of higher Tunicates, bearing the same relation to them as many free swimming Medusa do to some stationary hydroid colony. At the greater depth of 600 and 800 fathoms, various species of Terebratula were taken as representative of the class Brachiopoda. Ascending yet higher to the subkingdom of the Mollusca, a large variety of interesting species rewarded our researches. In cluded among these were-Fusus contrarius, a common fossil of the Norfolk crag recently discovered in the living state in Vigo Bay by Mr. M'Andrew, and dredged by us in the same locality; also a species of Cassis, remarkable from its being more closely allied to C. Saburon and other species inhabiting the Japanese and Chinese seas than to any of its Mediterranean or Atlantic congeners. This circumstance of its affinity is the more remarkable when associated with the occurrence of a species of Hyalonema (H. lusitanica) off the samecoast, likewise scarcely distinguishable from the more familiar Japanese form H. Sieboldi. The Annelida and Crustacea have also furnished a fair quota of new and interesting species, to be reverted to hereafter; and neither taking a step further onwards to the higher vertebrate sub-kingdom has good fortune entirely deserted us Availing ourselves, through the kind assistance of Prof. du Bocage, of the aid of the native fishermen and their appliances, we secured examples of several rare species of the deep-sea ground-sharks frequenting the Portuguese coast line; and among others a fine specimen of Pseudotriakis microdon, a species recently discovered and described by Prof. du Bocage and his gifted collaborateur, Felix de Brito Capello. Generalising from the whole amount of material collected during our cruise off the Iberian coast, our plunder may be separated into two very distinct groups. One of these, including that collected from the shore line down to a depth of 100 fathoms, presenting an interblending of Mediterranean species with those prevalent on our own more temperate coasts. Among these former I may more especially mention the occurrence of Dendrophyllia ramea, a well-known Mediterranean branching coral in great luxuriance at the mouth of the river Sado, this being, I think, the first record of this coral being taken so far north, and also from the same locality Calappa granulata, Maia verrucosa, Murex trunculus and brandaris, Cestum veneris, Veritillum cynomorium, and numerous other species belonging to the various Invertebrate divisions usually regarded as confined to the same more southern area. The residue and far smaller assemblage of species embraces those derived from the abyssal depths of from 400 to Soo fathoms, and all these, including many forms new to science, are characterised by their boreal or cold area facies, and in this respect contribute further evidence in support of the deductions arrived at by Dr. Carpenter, from his own more extended researches into the fauna of these same great depths in connection with the important expeditions of the Porcupine and Lightning, and with which his name and those of his indefatigable colleagues, Prof. Wyville Thomson and Mr. Gwyn Jeffreys, are so worthily connected. In conclusion, it is my sincere hope that the rich reward attending our own humble efforts may stimulate other yacht owners to follow the example of my esteemed friend, Mr. Marshall Hall, influencing them likewise to devote their craft for one or a portion of a season to the cause of science, and to the explo ration of those new deep-sea fields of discovery, now waiting to yield up the richest treasures to each earnest worker. Such men will find themselves more than compensated for the sacrifice of time or other interests by the fascinating nature of the work they undertake, in addition to earning for themselves the lasting gratitude of the scientific world. Our well-appointed and expensively-fitted-out Government expeditions should explore the remoter depths; but British pluck and private enterprise should esteem it their especial privilege to unfold to us the yet hidden mysteries of the ocean world nearer home; and if, again, all shall not succeed in discovering new phases of animal life, there is much and even more impor tant work to be effected in ascertaining accurately the bathy metrical range and geographical limits and distribution of those forms already known to us. W. SAVILLE KENT PROF. BASTIAN ON THE GERM THE EPIDEMIC and acute diseases have many characte mon; they constitute a family the members of = united by a certain bond of unity, though at the same are in other respects strikingly different from one anoth"general" character of the symptoms originally gave re notion that these affections were in the main depes changes in the nature and quality of the blood Ta still the one most commonly entertained, and which tre likely to be true. And seeing that particular sets of recur with as much definiteness as individual differences. stitution will permit, we have a right to believe that the in the blood-however induced and of whatsoever 17 may be--are definite and peculiar for each of these diva. successive changes in the blood which are the immedar of the phenomena of small-pox, must be quite differ those giving rise to the morbid state known as typh Variable as these several groups of symptoms are amongs selves in individual cases, yet is there a general re which suffices to maintain the distinctive nature of each In this broad sense they are undoubtedly entitled to "specific" diseases. They may be presumed to be ar with definite changes in the blood, though we have notary infer that such changes of state can only be induced in cre Many well-known chemical changes are capable of being about by more than one agency. And just as there is reason for believing that cancer or tubercle may be initur novo by the operation of irritants upon the tissues of certa viduals, and that such growths may subsequently be within the body by the contact-influence exerted by their disseminated particles; so may we suppose, not specific substances (contagia) may be capable of initiating changes in the blood, but that certain combinations of stances may by their action upon the human body entail definite changes and states of blood. Having to do with a verted nutritive activity and mode of growth in a line of tissue, cancer or tubercle may make their appearance: ** having an altered nutritive activity and set of changes o in the blood, this all-pervading tissue may lapse into the sive states peculiar to one or other of the specific diseases, is by no means a forced analogy. Can cancer or tuber give rise to the symptoms by which they are characterised, i in the individual without any pre-existing "hereditary t Can the states of blood peculiar to the several specific di arise de novo, or independently of contagion? These are tions whose import is really similar. † specific diseases is their "contagiousness." One of the great and distinguishing peculiarities of the Although differently marked in the several affections, this property interesting as it is important. The fact of its existence always to have had a large share in determining the nature the general views which have been held concerning these a tions. Even in remote periods, by Hippocrates and others, were commonly compared to processes of fermentation; since the time of Linnæus, more especially, attention has bee often prominently directed to the many apparent similarities a isting between the commencement and spread of epide diseases, and the "flight, settlement, and propagation of the sect-swarms which inflict blight upon vegetable life." The * Extracts from Introductory Lecture on Epidemic and Specific Conta Diseases: Considerations as to their Nature and Mode of Origin le vered at University College, October 2, by H. Charlton Bastian, MA, M.D., F.R.S. Particular chemical changes may occur under the influence of + This double mode of causation is perfectly familiar to the chemist general determining conditions, which at other times (in the absence of introduction of a crystalline fragment into a saline solution, and its der conditions) may be even more easily initiated by a single specific cause. The nation of the crystallisation of all the isomorphous salts coutamed me solution, seems to be exactly comparable with the diseases. But, under the influence of certain favouring conditions, or sation may occur without the contact of a crystalline fragment-the pri may be " spontaneous "in the same sense that the occurrence of the change may be "spontaneous. contagious" Sir H. Holland's Medical Notes and Reflections," 2nd edition P. 584. On the following page, the same author writes:-"Connected wit these facts is the observation, seemingly well attested, that the cholerase times spreads in face of a prevailing wind, and where no obvious h communication is present-a circumstance difficult, if indeed possibis, a explained, without recourse to animal life as the cause of the phenorsen. No mere inorganic matter could be so transferred, nor is vegetable life lenn provided with means for overcoming this obstacle" Whilst on page, the "animal species" had been admitted to be “* reach of all sense. the preceding minute, beyond |