MISCELLANY 



63J 



this sea, but sufficient to show that it is 

 " possible in the still bottom water, although 

 such conditions in the Mediterrauean do 

 not seem to favor life." 



The deepest water was found on the 

 line from Admiralty Islands to Japan, one 

 sounding giving the enormous depth of 

 4,575 fathoms, or five and a half miles. 

 This is said to be the deepest trustworthy 

 sounding yet made, excepting two by the 

 Tuscarora off the east coast of Japan, 

 where a depth 600 feet greater was found. 



One of the results of this expedition has 

 been to extend a knowledge of the fauna 

 of the deep oceans, and the forthcoming 

 work of Prof. Thomson will be brilliant 

 with illustrations of new and beautiful 

 forms. 



The great voyage is divided into four 

 sections. The first is from Sheerness, Eng- 

 land, to the Cape of Good Hope, but by the 

 very roundabout course of St. Thomas, 

 Bermuda, Halifax, and St. Vincent. The 

 second section is from the Cape of Good 

 Hope to Hong-Kong by the way of Austra- 

 lia and the Polynesian Islands. The third 

 section is from Hong-Kong to Valparaiso, 

 touching at Japan, the Sandwich Islands, 

 Tahiti, and Juan Fernandez. The fourth 

 section is from Valparaiso to Sheerness, ar- 

 riving on the 26th of May last. 



Recently-Discovered Fossils. In an ap- 

 pendix to the American Journal of Science 

 for June, Prof. 0. C. Marsh gives notices 

 of a new sub-order of Pterosaurians, Ptera- 

 nodontia, and of three new species of Odon- 

 tornitkes. The distinctive feature of the 

 sub-order Pteranodontia is the absence of 

 teeth (hence the name). The new genus 

 Pteranodon is readily distinguished from 

 any pterodactyls hitherto described by the 

 cranial characters, which are well shown in 

 a nearly perfect skull and portions of 

 others in the Yale Museum. The cranium 

 is very large, and the facial portion greatly 

 elongated. There is a high sagittal crest 

 which projects backward some distance 

 beyond the occipital condyle. The maxil- 

 lary bones are closely coossified with the 

 premaxillary, and the whole forms a long, 

 sleuder beak. There are no teeth or sock- 

 ets for teeth in any part of the upper jaws, 

 and the premaxillary shows some indica- 



tions of having been incased in a hornv 

 covering. The lower jaws also are long 

 and pointed in front, and entirely edentu- 

 lous. In several other respects the jaws in 

 this genus are more like those of binls 

 than of any known reptiles. 



From the same localities, and from the 

 same geological horizon, the Upper Cre- 

 taceous of Western Kansas, which have 

 yielded the specimens constituting the sub- 

 order of edentulous Pterosaurians, come the 

 remains of the Odontornithes, or birds 

 with teeth, and the two doubtless lived to- 

 gether in the same region. The remains 

 of one of these birds with teeth indicate a 

 bird fully six feet in length from the apex 

 of the bill to the end of the toes. The 

 femur and the tibia resemble those of some 

 modern diving-birds, but the toes are 

 shorter and stouter. 



The Prehistoric Pig. In an essay on 



"The Prehistoric Pig of Britain," Prof. 

 Rolleston arrives at the following conclu- 

 sions : 1. The domesticated pig of pre- 

 Roinan times he refers to the wild variety 

 of Sus scrofa. 2. The Indian wild-hog 

 (8. cristatus) differs mainly by the retention 

 of structural conformations which are only 

 temporarily respresented in the European 

 wild species. 3. Taking the changes which 

 domestication produces into account, 8. 

 Indicus he conceives to be a modified S. 

 cristatus, and not derived from S. leucomys- 

 tax, or other species. 4. The skull of a 

 wild-sow from the alluvium at Oxford pos- 

 sesses such a combination of characters as 

 to cause the author to hesitate in accepting 

 the Torfschwein (S. scrofa), variety palu&tris 

 of Riitimeyer, as a distinct species. 5. Sim- 

 plicity of third molars in a large skull of 

 the Bornean pig (S. barbatus) has no value. 

 6. The 8. verrucosus, in its tear and cheek 

 bones, differs from the S. barbatus, and 

 these peculiarities obtained in the old Irish 

 "greyhound pig" figured by Richardson. 



Appropriation of Silica by Plants. Prof. 

 P. B. Wilson, of Washington University, 

 Baltimore, having, in a chemical examina- 

 tion of the ash of grasses, discovered that 

 the silica contained in such ash differs es- 

 sentially from silica reduced from natural 

 silicates that, in fact, it had been assimi- 



