XVI NOTES BY THE EDITOR 



our knowledge of one of the obscurest departments of Palaeontology. 

 Besides Cystideas and Star-fishes, a new genus called Cyclocystoides, 

 containing discoid species of Echinoderms, is described by E. Billings 

 and J. W. Salter. It is remarkable that the Canadian Lower Silurian 

 rocks have furnished twenty-one species of Cystideae, while in New 

 York only one has been found in the rocks of that age. 



During the past year, the remarkable work of De la Rive, on Elec- 

 tricity, has been completed by the publication of the third volume, and 

 the entire work may now be regarded as the most complete treatise on 

 the subject of electricity extant. As to the cause of terrestrial mag- 

 netism, the author inclines to the theory, that it resides in the sun, 

 which. acts upon the earth as in the ordinary experiment by rotation a 

 magnet acts upon a body having a rotating movement. But whence 

 the magnetism of the sun ? 



Within a very recent period a newspaper in the Maori, or native 

 New Zealand language, has been started at Wellington, N. Z. It is 

 called the " Messenger of Port Nicholson." 



The London Athenceum for March 13, 1858, contains a letter from 

 Capt. Freeling, Surveyor-General at Adelaide, in respect to the 

 explorations undertaken in the central part of Australia to determine 

 whether a navigable inland sea existed there, as has been supposed. 

 No water was found on which a boat would float. " I was away," says 

 Capt. Freeling, " more than two months, and during that time must 

 have travelled a thousand miles, and I verily believe that there is 

 no other country in the world where so much barren land exists in a 

 similar space. It is really wonderful to see the masses of stone which 

 lie on the hills and plains as on a newly Macadamized road, as well as 

 the absence of grass in places where the stones are not so thickly 

 spread ; but all this barrenness may easily be accounted for by 

 the fact that but little rain falls to promote fertility. Occasionally, as 

 in March of this year, an extraordinary rain-fall occurs ; then the 

 creeks, which are for years together dry, pour down an amazing 

 volume of water, flooding the lands in their neighborhood, and 

 eventually discharging themselves over a vast, slightly hollowed plain, 

 which then has all the appearance of a large inland sea. Test it, 

 * however, as I did, by walking three miles into it, and you then see its 

 true character, and are able to state positively that the summer heats 

 will not have continued long before the whole is evaporated." 



During the past year another European expedition into Central 

 Africa has been organized. Its projector is Baron von Kraflft, whose 

 intention is to visit the interor of Soudan. He has embarked for 

 Tripoli, and will probably take the route from Ouargla to Djebel Hog- 

 gar, a route which has never been followed by Europeans. 



A letter from Baron Krafft to Humboldt, dated April 10, 1858, 

 from Algiers, expresses the desire of the author to continue the dis- 

 coveries of Dr. Barth, so far as limited resources will allow. Pie will 



