328 THE POPULAR SCLEXCE MONTHLY. 



us to form some kind of an idea of the curious appearance of the fauna 

 of that epoch. The Stuttgart Museum is also one of those in which 

 the lias is best represented ; and it contains the Holzmaden collec- 

 tion, which is celebrated for its entire skeletons of reptiles. M. Fraas 

 had the kindness a few Tears as:o to conduct me to the locality of the 

 fossils and show me the condition in which they were discoyered. 

 They were generally incrusted by the rock, and only bulges were per- 

 ceptible, which taught nothing to the untrained eye. But my guide 

 was able to diyine where the head, the limbs, and the tail could be 

 found, and could eyen tell me what kind of an animal was concealed 

 in the stone. Those complete skeletons which adorn many museums 

 are brought out by the skillful use of engravers' tools. The Stuttgart 

 collection contains seyeral icthyosauri with their younsr within their 

 bellies. As a rule, the head is turned toward the anus, as with other 

 yiyipares ; but I saw one fossil containing two young turned toward 

 the head, and another that had six, turned in as many directions. Is 

 it supposable that the icthyosaurus had sometimes one young one, like 

 the salamander, and sometimes seyeral, like the yiper and the slow- 

 worm ? 



Munich has seyeral important collections under the care of Professor 

 Zittel ; that of ammonites, for instance, which is said to be the most 

 complete in existence, and the series of admirable preparations of fos- 

 sil sponges, the skeletons of which M. Zittel has isolated by steeping 

 them in acidulated water. I was pleased to see there the Pikermi fos- 

 sils which AVagner first made known. But the principal curiosity of 

 the Paleontological Museum of Munich is the collection of lithograph- 

 ic stones from the oolite of Solenhofen. If we haye to go to Stutt- 

 gart to study the trias and the lias, it is to Munich we must go to 

 admire the oolite. All geologists are aware that the Solenhofen stones 

 were originally mud deposited on a shore where the inhabitants of the 

 sea and of the continent met. In this mud the most diyerse and most 

 delicate beings of the oolite haye been preserved with a wonderful 

 perfection. There are to be found in it acalephs, a multitude of crus- 

 taceans, insects that haye preserved the reticulations of their wings, 

 their feet, and their antenna?, and ammonites with their aptychus, and 

 fishes in course of transition from the ganoid to the teleostean state. 

 Here especially we come to study flying reptiles. They present them- 

 selves in all positions. "We can see here also the little compsognathus 

 which, long before the discovery of entire iguanodons in Belgium, 

 enabled us to understand the gait of those dinosaurians. The paleon- 

 tologist might dream, while contemplating this collection of beings, 

 that he could imagine himself in the midst of the secondary period 

 almost as much as if it were still with us ; and after seeing it we may 

 readily believe that the day will come when our successors shall have 

 a clear idea of the grand history of past ages. 



Vienna, which has long been famous for its life and gayety, has 



