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HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



and M. L. Soret, issued an " Appel aux Suisses " 

 for the preservation of erratic blocks. He said 

 that in existing glaciers two parts may be recog- 

 nized—an upper one, the reservoir or feeding 

 glacier, and a lower one, the flowing glacier. 

 Applying this division to the old glaciers, it appears 

 that in the glaciers of the Rhone and Rhine the 

 flowing glacier which occupied the plain had a 

 surface nearly equal to that of the feeding glacier 

 which was situated in the mountains. By means 

 of several tables M. Eavre showed the height 

 attained by these glaciers, their thickness, the 

 slope of their upper surface, &c, at various points 

 in the Alps, the Jura, and Swabia, and deduced as 

 the result of the comparison of these numbers : — 



1. that the Rhone glacier passed over several of the 

 chains of the Jura, and that the ice covering these, 

 far from being an obstacle to the extension of the 

 glaciers of the Alps, actually reinforced them, and 

 served them as relays, the glaciers of the Jura 

 having carried far on the Alpine erratic blocks; 



2. that the slopes of the upper surface were 

 variable, and were null, or nearly so, over consider- 

 able spaces. At the Calanda, near Coire, there are 

 erratics which seem to be at a higher level than that 

 attained by the glacier. This may be explained by 

 the formation in the glacier of a sort of eddy, which 

 would elevate the ice to a certain amount over 

 a limited space. During their greatest extension 

 the Swiss glaciers came in contact with those of 

 central Erance near Lyons ; they united with those 

 of the'Jura, the Black Forest, and the Austrian and 

 Italian Alps ; they stretched from the plain of the 

 Po to that of the "Danube ; and further, for distances 

 of 50 or 100 kilometres they nearly approached 

 horizontality. Hence they resembled the glaciers 

 of the interior of Greenland and Spitsbergen, so far 

 as can be judged from the descriptions. 



Evolution of the Mammalia. — Professor 

 Huxley, in the course of a lecture recently given 

 on the Genealogy of the Horse, said the evidence 

 proved that the existing species of horse had arrived 

 at its present form by evolution, that is, by the 

 gradual modification of a lower and less specialised 

 form. "This case, moreover," he continued, "is 

 not isolated. Every new investigation into the ter- 

 tiary mammalian fauna brings fresh evidence tend- 

 ing to show how the rhinoceros, the pigs, the 

 ruminants, have come about. Similar light is being 

 thrown on the origin of the carnivora, and also, in a 

 less degree, on that of all the other groups of mam- 

 mals. It may well be asked why such clear evi- 

 dence should be obtainable as to the origin of mam- 

 mals, while in the case of many other groups — 

 fish, for instance— all the evidence seems to point 

 the other way? This question cannot be satis- 

 factorily answered at present, but the fact is pro- 

 bably connected with the great uniformity of con- 



ditions to which the lower animals are exposed ; 

 for it is invariably the case that the higher the 

 position of any given animal in the scale of being, 

 the more complex are the conditions acting on it. 

 The accurate information obtained in this depart- 

 ment of science has put the fact of evolution 

 beyond a doubt. Formerly the great reproach to 

 the theory was, that no support was lent to it by 

 the geological history of living things ; now, what- 

 ever happens, the fact remains that the hypothesis 

 s founded on the firm basis of palseontological 

 evidence." 



The Geology of Derbyshire. — We have re- 

 ceived a nicely got-up handbook to the geology of 

 this most interesting county, written by the Rev. 

 J. M. Meilo, F.G.S., and published by Bembrose & 

 Sons, London, at a cheap price. It contains a 

 geological map and sections, and is indispensable to 

 the geological tourist. Mr. Mello's name is quite a 

 sufficient guarantee for its scientific accuracy, as 

 well as for its literary composition. 



NOTES AND QUERIES- 



Brick Burning.— Can any of your readers 

 inform me how it is that a clay burnt in an open 

 kiln will burn bricks red, and the same kind of clay 

 burnt in the new kiln (Hoffman's and others), will 

 burn them a whitey colour ? — John Smith. 



Anatomical Preparations.— I have no doubt 

 many of your readers who are fond of investigating 

 the structure of the smaller vertebrata and the 

 invertebrata will, with me, be very glad^of some 

 practical instructions as to the mode of " putting 

 up" and preserving anatomical preparations for 

 future study and reference. None of ihe books to 

 which I have access contain any directions under 

 this head; even Professor Rolleston's classical 

 "Forms of Animal Life," which is mainly occupied 

 with descriptions of specimens in the Oxford 

 Museum, gives no hints as to the way in which they 

 may be imitated; nor does Huxley & Martin's, 

 more recent work, " Elementary Biology," supply 

 the void. It is not very encouraging to the amateur 

 anatomist, after having spent some hours in dissect- 

 ing and carefully pinnirg out the organs ot a beetle 

 or°slug, to be obliged to throw away the marvellous 

 structure in default of some method of preserving 

 the dissection so as to exhibit the parts in situ ; 

 and I cannot-but think some notes on the subject 

 would be welcomed in Science-Gossip. In the 

 biological section of the " Loan Collection of Scien- 

 tific Apparatus," now on view at South Kensington, 

 is a series of beautiful preparations of the frog 

 exhibited by Prof. Huxley, which should be seen by 

 all who take any interest in the subject, as they are 

 perfect models of what such specimens should be. 

 Of course these preparations owe great part of their 

 charming appearance to the skill of the dissector, 

 but no young anatomist can examine them without, 

 wishin? to learn how to imitate such beautiful and 

 instructive objects, even in a very humble manner. 

 These preparations are pinned out on slabs of 

 wax (?) and immersed in a fluid (spirit ?) contained 



