390 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



tianity gains ground, this form is modified ; new art seeks and finds 

 new modes of representation. It now not only furnishes the thought ; 

 it expresses that thought in a language which is its own. 



The collections, drawings, &c., of M. Ferret have been purchased by 

 the French Government and an appropriation of 7,500 made for 

 their publication. 



ANTIQUARIAN RESEARCHES IN WISCONSIN. 



MR. LAPHAM'S surveys of the Indian mounds of the State of 

 Wisconsin, which for some years he has prosecuted at the expense of 

 the American Antiquarian Society, are brought to a conclusion. His 

 report, accompanied with full and beautiful drawings of these singular 

 monuments, will soon be published, under the direction of the Anti- 

 quarian Society, among the " Smithsonian Contributions." They 

 form an appropriate addition to the volume by Messrs. Squier & Da- 

 vis. These mounds in Wisconsin present in many instances the 

 curious feature, not observed till a few years since, of outlines bearing 

 a rude resemblance, on a gigantic scale, to different animal figures, - 

 bears lizards, buffaloes, &c. 



SCULPTURES FROM NINEVEH. 



WILLIAMS COLLEGE has recently received, through the instrumen- 

 tality of Rev. D wight N. Marsh, American Missionary at Mosul, two 

 of the wonderful slabs excavated at Nineveh under the directions of 

 Dr. Layard. The specimens are large, one being seven and the other 

 seven and a half feet in height, are cast in bas-relief, and are covered 

 with inscriptions of the oM cuneiform character. Both represent 

 human figures, one, however, bearing an eagle's head, the other that of 

 a man. The slabs were necessarily sawn into several parts in order 

 to allow of their transportation. They are said to be as great curios- 

 ities as any which have been sent to the British Museum, and the 

 liberality of Dr. Layard is therefore the more highly to be praised. 

 The slabs have actually arrived at the College. 



RECENT EXPLORATIONS AND EXPEDITIONS IN THE ARCTIC RE- 

 GIONS. 



THE Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society has been 

 awarded to Dr. John Rae for his unexampled explorations of various 

 parts of the Arctic regions. His survey of the Inlet of Boothia in 

 1848 was unique in its kind. With a boldness never surpassed he 

 determined on wintering on the proverbially desolate shores of Re- 

 pulse Bay, where one expedition of two ships had previously wholly 

 perished, and two others were all but lost. There he maintained his 

 party on deer, shot principally by himself, and spent ten months of an 

 Arctic winter in a hut of stones, the locality not even yielding drift 

 timber, with no other fuel than a kind of hay made of the Andromeda 



