3i6 NATURAL SCIENCE. Oct.. 



not merely national, but to contain contributions from the various foreign Geological 

 Surveys. To illustrate the past year the Geological Survey of Great Britain has 

 lent specimens of the Archaean and pre-Cambrian rocks of North-west Scotland, 

 geological maps in course of preparation, and a collection of new geological 

 works and photographs. Signor Pellati, the Director of the Geological Commission 

 at Rome, has sent specimens illustrative of recent Italian researches. The United 

 States and Queensland Surveys have sent copies of their publications ; and the 

 Imperial University of St. Petersburg has lent a variety of specimens of platiniferous 

 rocks, the discovery of which is of great importance. A small guide-book of 24 

 pages is issued in connection with the exhibition. 



Important changes are taking place in the Palaeontological Department of the 

 U.S. National Museum at Washington. The Honorary Curator of this Department 

 is Mr. Walcott, the new head of the Geological Survey. Till last July there were 

 five honorary curators, who, though they advanced the collections, had little time to 

 spare for purely curatotial work. Now, however, Mr. Charles Schuchert has been 

 appointed Assistant Curator, with a salary, and is able to devote his time to 

 practical improvements which will doubtless bring the exhibition series of this 

 Department to the high level attained in the rest of the Museum. For the present, 

 exhibition will be limited to a good representation of the North American fossil 

 faunas geologically arranged, but not as yet, owing to want of space, divided into 

 geographical provinces. The invertebrates will be displayed in the table-cases, 

 the plants and vertebrates in the wall-cases. As soon as possible Mr. Schuchert 

 will begin a synoptic collection illustrative of all fossil genera, in which each class 

 will begin with a series explaining the terminology, after the fashion of the Crinoids 

 in the Geological Department of the British Museum. 



In addition to much information that has already appeared in our pages, the 

 Annual Report of the Delegates of the [Oxford] University Museum for 1893 contains 

 the following items of interest. In the Ethnographical Department of the Pitt- 

 Rivers Museum series have been arranged which illustrate Magic, the early develop- 

 ment of Writing, Lighting, Smoking, Treatment of the Dead, and Primitive Pottery. 

 As evidence of original research conducted in his department, the Professor of 

 Physiology quotes a list of six papers by five authors. Similarly, the Professor of 

 Comparative Anatomy enumerates three ladies and six gentlemen who have used his 

 senior laboratory for original investigations. The Professor of Zoology states that 

 Dr. F. A. Dixey has studied the Pieridas in the Hope Collections, in the preparation 

 of an important memoir upon the evolution of the wing-markings in this group of 

 Lepidoptera ; the specimens have at the same time been arranged in a single series. 

 Colonel Swinhoe has continued his Catalogue of Oriental Heterocera in the Hope 

 Collections, and the second volume, containing the Pyrales and the Noctuse, will 

 soon be issued. The Hope Professor is breaking the tenth commandment in 

 respect to the Mathematical Professors, whose room is better than their company. 

 The delegates concur. The fittings of the new geological laboratory are all but 

 complete, and advanced teaching can now be carried on in comfort, and with 

 greater thoroughness than heretofore. A rock collccticn fcr teaching purposes is 

 being systematically arranged and illustrated by explanatory labels. We fully agree 

 with the Professor of Geology when he says, " Re-arrangement of the fossils is 

 urgently needed, and it is hoped that it may be begun shortly. It will be a long 

 and heavy piece of work, and skilled assistance will be absolutely necessary to carry 

 it out successfully." The Professor of Mineralogy is taking in hand the re- 

 arrangement of the mineral collecticn ; this, too, not before it was wanted. 



By the provisions of the will of the late Dr. William Johnson Walker, two 

 prizes are annually offered by the Boston Society of Natural History for the best 



