INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS DURING THE YEAR 1874. civ 



guished by a flat cranium, truncated beak, and a broad 

 bridge between the foramina obturatoria. 



3. All the other examples of gigantic tortoises preserved 

 in our museums, and said to have been brought from the 

 Mascarenes, and likewise the single species which is known 

 still to survive, in a wild state, in the small island of Alda- 

 bra, have a convex cranium, truncated beak, and a narrow 

 bridge between the obturator foramina; and therefore are 

 specifically, if not generically, distinct from the extinct ones. 



4. On the other hand, there exists the greatest affinity be- 

 tween these contemporaries of the dodo and solitaire and the 

 tortoise still inhabiting the Galapagos archipelago. 



These unexpected results induced the author to subject to 

 a detailed examination all the available material of the gi- 

 gantic tortoises from the Mascarenes and Galapagos which 

 are still living, or were believed to be living, and are com- 

 monly called Testudo indiea and Testudo elephantopus, and 

 to collect all the historical evidence referring to them. 

 Thus in the first (introductory) part of the paper a selection 

 from the accounts of travelers is given, by which it is clearly 

 shown that the presence of these tortoises at two so distant 

 stations as the Galapagos and Mascarenes can not be ac- 

 counted for by the agency of man, at least not in historical 

 times, and therefore that these animals must be regarded as 

 indigenous. 



A finely illustrated work on the Cetaceans and Pinnipeds of 

 the Pacific Ocean has been published by Captain Scammon, 

 which gives many interesting and original statements re- 

 garding their habits. 



Professor Marsh lias presented an interesting contribution 

 to natural history in a paper upon the genesis of the horse, 

 as based upon his own observations in the Rocky Mountains. 

 He finds the sequence unbroken through six or eight forms, 

 and in succeeding geological ages from the Eocene Orohippus 

 down to the JZquus of the modern epoch. 



The birds have continued to enGrao'e the attention of natu- 

 ralists. A good many specimens have been collected by our 

 Western expeditions. Dr. Yarrow has published a list of those 

 obtained by himself and Mr. Henshaw on Wheeler's expedi- 

 tion in Utah and Nevada. The most notable ornithological 

 publication of the year is Messrs. Baird, Brewer, & Kidgway's 



