4° 



HA RD WICKE'S SCIENCE- G OSSIF. 



Beaked Dolphin in the River Colne," by H. Laver ; 

 "Notes on the Geology of the District around 

 Chelmsford, with a List of the Mollusca, from the 

 Alluvium at Roxwell, Essex," by R. W. Christy; 

 6 ' Historical Notices of the Short-Tailed Field Vole and 

 Short-Eared Owl in Essex," by E. A. Fitch; "On 

 Some Recent Subsidences near Stifford, Essex," and 

 "The Geology of South Essex," by T. V. Holmes; 

 " Of Hawks and Hounds in Essex, in the Olden 

 Time," by J. E. Harting ; "Destruction of Ancient 

 Monuments in Essex." 



The last number of the " Transactions of the 

 Chichester and West Sussex Natural History and 

 Microscopical Society" contains, besides the usual 

 report, list of members, &c, the following papers : 

 "An Insect's Upas Tree," by A. Lloyd; "Finds 

 of Some Rare Sussex Plants," by Rev. F. H. Arnold ; 

 " Insects in Amber," by A. Lloyd ; " Vegetable 

 Monstrosities," by Dr. Paxton ; President's 

 Address, by J. Anderson, jun. ; " List of the 

 Lepidoptera of Bognor," by A. Lloyd. 



The January number of "The Journal of the 

 Cjuekett Microscopical Club " contains the following 

 papers — "On a Simple Tank Microscope," by C. 

 Rousselet ; " On Spurious Diffraction Images and a 

 New Apochromatic Object Glass," by E. M. Nelson ; 

 ■"On a New Rotifer," by T. Spencer; "On 

 Microscopical Drawing, and on a New Centring 

 Substage," by E. M. Nelson ; " On Smyuthiirus Aqua- 

 titus" by E. T. Brown ; " On Asplanchna Amphora" 

 by G. Western ; " Some Thoughts on a Bubble," by 

 H. Morland ; " On a Substage Illuminator, and on a 

 New Eye-Piece," by W. Goodwin. 



We have received No. 22 of Mr. W. P. Collins' 

 Scientific Catalogues, containing an excellent assort- 

 ment of books on Microscopy (including Petrography) 

 at very moderate prices. 



Mr. Bark. Ferree sends us his paper, reprinted 

 from "The American Antiquarian," entitled "The 

 Element of Terror in Primitive Art." Mr. Ferree 

 evidently knows what he is writing about, and his 

 ipaper will doubtless be much appreciated by students 

 of ethnology. 



A paper by Mr. J. D. Churchill, M.I.M.E., has 

 been republished on " Marine Engine Governors, 

 and the benefits derived from them," in which the 

 author shows the danger of neglecting to fit marine 

 engines with governors. 



The trustees of the Missouri Botanical Garden, in 

 accordance with the intention of its founder, propose 

 to provide adequate theoretical and practical 

 instruction for young men desirous of becoming 

 gardeners. The idea is a good one, and we should 

 like to see the same sort of thing carried out in 

 England. 



Professor Langley, the distinguished American 

 scientist, announces that he has completed his long 

 and careful observations on the temperature of the 

 moon, made at the Alleghany Observatory. His 

 conclusion is that the mean temperature of the sunlit 

 surface of our satellite is much lower than has been 

 hitherto supposed, and that it does not exceed the 

 freezing point of water. 



An important paper was read last week before the 

 Paris Academy of Sciences by the distinguished 

 palaeontologist, Professor Gaudry. No geologist 

 knows better what he is talking about. Hitherto, 

 the chief of the "missing links" in the geological 

 record have been those of the ape family. They 

 have only turned up, we believe, in the later Miocene 

 deposits of Pikermi in Greece. But at the meeting 

 aforesaid, M. Gaudry exhibited a fossil simial skull, 

 which has recently been discovered at Serrat d'en 

 Vasques in France. Many other fossils have been 

 discovered in the same place, which contains large 

 numbers of the remains of vertebrate animals. It is 

 just possible, therefore, that the remains of French 

 fossil apes will ere long throw some light upon " The 

 Descent of Man." 



American geological survey memoirs on the 

 Cretaceous strata of the south-west, and their relations 

 to the underlying and overlying formations, prove 

 that each represents an unbroken continuation of 

 Cretaceous time. The fossils in these formations also 

 indicate there has been no hitch in their continuity. 

 In Texas the Cretaceous system presses into the 

 Tertiary formation without a stratigraphical or 

 palseontological break. 



Insect-collectors in India and the tropics are 

 employing the electric light very successfully for the 

 capture of moths. 



Parts vi. and vii. of the "Transactions of the 

 Hertfordshire Natural History Society and Field 

 Club " are to hand, and are as usual rich in meteoro- 

 logical papers and notices. The following is the 

 list of papers:— Part vi. "Report on the Rainfall 

 in Hertfordshire in 1888," by John Hopkinson ; 

 " The Hessian Fly and its Introduction into Britain," 

 by Miss E. A. Ormerod ; "Report on Phenological 

 Phenomena observed in Hertfordshire during 1887 

 and 18SS," by John Hopkinson; "Some Notes on 

 the Lepidoptera of St. Albans and its Neighbour- 

 hood," by A. E. Gibbs; "Meteorological Observa- 

 tions taken at the Grange, St. Albans, during 1887," 

 by John Hopkinson; No. vii. "Meteorological 

 Observations taken at the Grange, St. Albans, during 

 1888," and " Climatological Observations in Hert- 

 fordshire in 1S87 and 1888" (with map), by John 

 Hopkinson ; " Notes on the Chalk Rock," by Dr. 

 J. Morison; "The Study of the Injuries and Diseases 

 of Plants," by Dr. A. T. Brett; "Notes on the 



