the cotton, and the extent of the disaster to the fact of the erly needless stowage of large quantities of the manufactured icle in the factory itself.

THE Zeitschrift für Ethnologie (1871, Heft iii.) begins with the nd number of a series of papers by A. Ermann, entitled Lahnographic Observations on the Coasts of Bering's Sea." ie author pisses in review the various articles of food and the sels and methods employed for its preparation among the merous tribes inhabiting the islands, coastlands, and interior of orth-Western America; and he endeavours from his observans of this phase of domestic life to deduce conclusions in ference to the identity, or differences of origin, of these races. en Ermann draws attention to the fact that the Aleutians, like e people of Kamtschatka, subject some kind of fish to a pro33 of fermentation before eating it, and that these, as well as the neighbouring races, show a decided repugnance to the use salted food, and ascribe to their abstinence from such a diet eir superiority over the Russians both as regards length of ision and the continuance of unimpaired sight to old age. Leated stones thrown by means of wooden tongs into a wooden, r basket-work vessel, were everywhere found to be in frequent not universal use as a substitute for our methods of boiling; nd where vessels of a large size were required for preparing hubber, their wooden boats were used for the purpose, and the poured into bladders to be kept, not only to light their dwelngs, but also to heat them by means of their bone lamps, known tirniki. The Aleutians are the most advanced of all the tribes, nd have amalgamated so thoroughly with the Russians, among hom they have lived, that it is difficult at first sight to detect heir national characteristics from those which they have borrowed rom their conquerors. In physiognomy they differ, however, ery strikingly, and their dark, yellowish-brown skins and obInquely cut eyes remind one of the Mongolian type. The author Treats of the sexual relations of the Aleutians, their early marriages, and the forms of polygamy and diandry practised among them; and describes their singular social houses, in which from 50 to 200 individuals live together in one house of considerable size (180 feet in length), sunk ten or fifteen feet below the surface of the ground. This paper, which is exhaustive as far as it goes, concludes with a notice of the boats, modes of navigation, and huning, and of the weapons of th-se people, whose history has, in the present day, acquired special interest since the purchase of Russian America by the Americans. We have next a paper on the "Archa logical Remains of Brandenburg," by the Prussian district judge, Ernst Friedel. It possesses scarcely more than a local interest, except in regard to the notice of the lost town in Blumenthal, the name and age of which are unknown, and whose history seems clouded in mystery. In 1689 the walls were still standing six feet above the ground, and the foundations of a church, of two large buildings conjectured to have been a castle, and of a townhall, could still be traced, with the well-defined positions of outer walls gates, fosses, main and transverse streets, &c. ; yet long before that time all knowledge of the place had been lost. When Prof. Beckman recorded its condition in 1751 (in his "History of the Margravate of Brandenburg "), a thick growth of trees had nearly obliterated the stone outlines of this lost town. Judge Friedel last visited the spot in 1870, at which time the walls had disappeared, but there remaine i traces of graves and of the foundati ins of Cyclopean walls, which, together with the presence of the so-called Semnonian stone, known in the district as the "Stone of the Marches," inclined him to the opinion that we have here the site of a prehistoric seat of worship, with i s surrounding habitations. The stone, which lies at the foot of an oak, is about seven feet in length and six feet in width. The author is of opinion that the traditions and remains of the lost town of Blumenthal may re'er to two widely separated periods; and that it may be a station of the ancient Semnones re-occupied in the 10th, 111b, and 12th centuries, or later; many German villages having become extinct in tho e troubled times, and even during the Hussite and other religious wars.

THE A. Danske vid. Selsk Forh, contains an interesting paper, incorporated in the Z. f. Ethnologie, by Prof. A. C. Oersted, on the Silphium of the ancients, which formed the staple commerce of the Roman colony of Cyrene, in North Africa, the present Barka. It was esteemed a great luxury by Greek and Roman epicures, who used its milky juice, mixed with meal, to give piquancy to their food, and employed it likewise medicinally. Under the rule of the Ptolemies the trade fell off, until at length, under the Emperor Nero, the consignment of one plant of the

Silphium was deemed worthy of record. From a careful examination of the representations of this plant with its fruit on the coins of Cyrene, Prof. Oersted is led to infer that the much coveted Silphium was nearly allied to the Narthex asafotida, found by Falconer in Northern Kaschmir, and since cultivated with success in the Botanical Gardens in Edinburgh, and he gives two plates in illustration of his opinion, one of which shows the Narthex reduced to the size of the plant delineated on the Cyrenian coin, the other being a facsimile of the coin itself. The resemblance between the two is most striking.

SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES

PARIS

Academy of Sciences, October 16.-M. Chasles commu⚫ nicated some theorems concerning the determination of a series of groups of points on a geometrical curve.-M. P. A. Favre read a continuation of his thermic investigations upon voltaic energy, in which he described the results obtained under various

conditions with batteries consisting of a plate of the alloy of palladium and hydrogen in dilute sulphuric acid and of a plate of plati num in solution of sulphate of copper. He tabulates his results, and also gives the results of experiments on the electrolysis of the acids employed.-M. Lecoq de Boisbaudran presented a memoir on some points of spectrum-analysis and on the constitution of induction-sparks.-M. F. M. Raoult presented a memoir giving the results of investigations of the calorific coefficients of the hydro-electric and thermo-electric currents, from which he concludes that the heat evolved by an electric current is independent of the nature of the battery employed, the calorific coefficient Ke being the same for all sources of voltaic electricity.-M. Delauny noticed the reappearance of Tuttle's comet, which was discovered at Marseilles by M. Borelly on the night of the 12th13th October. The reappearance of this comet at the time calculated is important as confirming its supposed identity with the second comet of 1790.-M. Chasles replied to the remarks made by M. Bertrand at the last meeting on the subject of the Arabian astronomer, Aboul Wéfa.-M. Berthelot communicated a further note on his researches upon the ammoniacal salts of the weak acids, relating chiefly to certain thermic phenomena observed when a solution of carbonate of ammonia is mixed with solutions of other alkaline carbonates.-A note by MM. C. Friedel and R D. Silva on the action of chlorine upon various bodies of the series in C3 and on the isomers of trichlorhydrine was read.--M. Marey communicated a note on the duration of the electric discharge in the torpedo, in continuation of a note presented by him to the last meeting.

PHILADELPHIA

Academy of Natural Sciences. -April 18.-Mr. Vaux, Vice-President, in the chair.-Prof. Leidy made the following remarks on some extinct turtles from Wyoming Territory. Several species of extinct turtles from the tertiary deposits of Wyoming differ from those previously described by me from the same formation. They are indicated by imperfect, though sufficiently characteristic, remains, sent to me by Dr. J. Van A. Carter, of Fort Bridger; and by others obtained during Prof. Hayden's exploring expedition the last year."Anosteira ornata." One of the turtles is founded upon a number of isolated plates and fragments of others of the carapace of about four different individuals, obtained from Church Buttes and Grizzly Buties, Wyoming. The specimens are mainly marginal, including two pygal plates. The latter are remarkably thick at the fore part, where they are holowed into a concavity directed forward, and bounded below by a projecting ledge. This concavity continues outward and forward upon the contigu ous marginal plates as a groove, bounded by an inferior ledge, which would appear gradually to become narrower, and disappear at the third marginal plates in advance. The upper part of the pygal plate slopes on each side from a median acute ridge, or carina, which subsides at the posterior third. The marginal and pygal have all been conjoined with the costal plates by suture, and the former in addition by gomphosis, as in living emydes. The free surfaces of the plates are closely covered with radiant elevations. These centrally form rounded tubercles and peripherally more or less interrupted ridges with more or less interrupted branches. Apparently in younger plates the elevations form more continuous radiant and branching ridges, which would ap pear in older animals to have become more and more broken so as to form rounded tubercles. In some specimens the radiant

ridged appearance is more conspicuous on the under surface of the marginal plates, while the rounded tuberculous condition is more obvious above. In two marginal plates, conspicuously tuDerculated above, the lower surfaces are perfectly smooth. These probably pertain to a different species. None of the plates exhibit scute impressions, generally so evident in the emydes. Anosteira ornata was almost the size of the palm or middle hand. A pygal plate measures about eleven lines in length and breadth; and its height or thickness in front is seven lines. Another plate from a younger animal measures about seven lines long, eight broad, and four lines thick in front.-"Hybemys arenarius.' The second turtle, almost as large as our common Emys picta, is founded on two specimens obtained by Prof. Hayden from a tertiary formation on Little Sandy Creek. They consist of a marginal plate and the portion of a costal plate. The bones are proportionately thicker than in our common emydes, but like them are smooth and deeply impressed by the scutes. The marginal plates appear to be the ninth of the series. From the groove of the costal scute impression it is directed quite as abruptly outwardly as in any recent emys. Its peculiarity, upon which I have founded the genus, is a striking character. The surfaces, separated by the groove of the marginal scute impressions, present each a half circular boss at the fore and aft borders of the bone. Thus from this specimen we may infer that the margin of the carapace was ornamented with a series of hemispherical bosses, each of which was situated in the position of and divided by the sutures of the marginal plates. The breadth of the specimen fore and aft and transversely is half an inch.

April 25.-" Morphology of Carpellary Scales in Larix, by Thomas Meehan. The facts which I have from time to time contributed, verbally or in papers, to the Academy, in regard to longitudinal series of axillary buds, and adnated and free leaves in coniferous plants, will, I believe explain something of the structure of the flowers of coniferæ, which, if not quite distinct from any view before taken, will at least have reached the conclusion by an original line of argument. I have shown that in the cases where there are longitudinal series of buds, one of the buds, and generally the upper supra-axillary one, is the largest. So far as this longitudinal series of buds is concerned, I find by extensive observation that there are very few of our American trees or shrubs which do not produce them under some circumstances, although they are more generally apparent in some than in other. In many cases they do not break quite through the cortical layer, but continue to grow from year to year, just as the wood grows, always remaining just under the outer bark. It is from th-se concealed but living buds that the flowers of the Cercis, or the spines of Gleditschia, will often appear from trunks many years old. In Magnolia and Liriodendron these concealed buds are easily detected by a thin shave of the outer bark with a sharp knife. In very vigorous shoots of the latter, a series of twoone supra-axillary-is not rarely found prominently above the bark. In many cases one of these buds, usually the lower, and really axillary one, never pushes into growth. In Gymnocladus neither upper nor lower wou d probably ever push, only for the fact that it matures no terminal bud, and thus the laterals have to renew the next season's growth. But for this, Gymnocladus would go up like a palm, or, more familiarly, as Aralia spinosa, does, without a single branch. Failing in the terminal, but two laterals push, giving the branches their dichotomous character. The two which push are always the upper ones in the series of 2, 3, or 4, which appear in this species. The purpose of this duplication of axillary buds will interest all who study this part of botany. I find that they are not for the duplication of parts, but are separately organised from one another. Thus in Cratagus and Gleditschia, the upper bud produces a spine, the lower is organised to grow as an axillary shoot the next season. But the best illustration of the distinctive organisation is in those cases where both upper and lower buds sometimes push the same season, as in Itea, Lonicera, Caprifolium, or Halesia.

Here we

find that one is organised for floral organs, and the other for axillary prolongation. The upper bud always has the same function, and the lower its own, in the same species. A flower being a modified branch, in which the bract is the leaf and the peduncle the axillary bud, it follows that the laws of axillary stem-production will be more or less reproduced in the inflorescence. What I have proposed to myself in this paper is simply to show that the scales in the male catkin of Larix are modified true leaves; while in the female they arise from buds of another organisation, being the morphologised secondary leaves, or phylloidal shoots, as I term them, of other coniferous genera,

BOOKS RECEIVED

ENGLISH-A Systematic Handbook of Volumetric Analysis, md ec F. Sutton (Churchill).-Text-8ook of Geometry, Part 1: J (Deighton and Bell).-Introductory Notes on Lying in Hoopt Nightingale (Longmins)-Notes of a Naturalist in the Nils Vases Malta: A. L. Adams (Edmonston and Douglas). - The Scence o metic: Cornwell and Fitch (impkin and Marshall).-The Schoo metic: Cornwell and Fitch (Simpkin and Marshall.-Partial DifEquations: an Essay: S. Earnshaw (Macmillan and C.-Thong : Life Science: E. Thring (Macmillan and Co),

AMERICAN-Earthquakes, Volcanoes, and Mountain Building = ] Whitney (Cambridge, University Press).

FOREIGN-Physique Sociale, ou essai sur le développement des ac- de l'homme: A. Quetelet (Brussels, Muquardt) -Anthro outine mesure des différentes facultés de l'homme: A. Quetelet (Brussels, quardt).-Medizinische Jahrbücher: S. Stricker.