* NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 151 



Mr. Vaux announced the decease of Mr. Thos. Biddle, late a mem- 

 ber of this Academy. 



On motion of Mr. Cassin, the thanks of the Academy were presented 

 to Mr. J. H. Slack for his valuable donations to the Ethnological col- 

 lection received this evening. 



June2M, 1857. 

 Mr. Ord, President, in the Chair. 



Mr. Yaux read a letter from Mr. John Biddle, dated June 11th, 

 1857, accompanying the crania of Thugs presented this evening. 



My late brother-in-law Wm. A. Foster, in 1836 (at which time we were both 

 residing in Calcutta) applied to Dr. Martin, E. I. Co.'s Surgeon, and the leading 

 physician of that city, to procure for him the skulls of some Thugs. Dr. M. did 

 not succeed in obtaining them until the latter part of 1837, at which time Mr. 

 F. had left India for the United States. As I was still there. Dr. M. sent them 

 to me for Jlr. F., and I shipped the lot, consisting of six, to Philadelphia. On 

 their arrival, Mr. F. was absent from the United States, and had transferred 

 them to me. 



Dr. Martin, in his note accompanying them, stated that they were the heads 

 of notorious Thugs, who had recently been hung by direction of the Court for 

 the suppression of Thuggee established by the E. I. Co. ; and I entertain no 

 doubt of the correctness of his statement. 



As to the province of Hindoostan, to which the birth place of these six Thugs 

 should be referred, Dr. M. said nothing, and probably knew nothing. Neither 

 did he inform me in which district they were tried and executed; but at the 

 period at which he procured them, Thuggee was practised much more exten- 

 sively in the region about the head waters of the Ganges than in the province 

 of Bengal; and I presume that they were obtained from the former region. 



Two of the six skulls were sent by me to our late friend Dr. Samuel G. 

 Morton, in W. A. Foster's name. I suppose them to be the same which appear 

 in the Catalogue of Crania belonging to the Academy. Two others I presented 

 to George Combe, of Scotland, when on a visit to our city, many years ago; 

 and the remaining two you now have. 



Mr. Lea presented for publication a paper entitled " Descriptions 

 of twenty-seven New Species of Uniones from Georgia," which was 

 referred to a committee. 



June SOtJi, 1857. 



Vice-President Bridges in the Chair. 



The Committees to whom were referred the following papers, reported 

 in favor of their publication. 



Notes on the Geology of the Mauvaises Terres of White River, Nebraska. 



BY F. V. HAYDEN, M. D. 



This interesting lacustrine deposit has but recently been made known to the 

 scientific world, — wonderful not alone for its unique scenery, but also for the 

 abundance and importance of its organic remains ; and although it has been 

 as yet but partially explored, the results that have been obtained have proved 

 of the highest interest. The profusion of Mammalian and Chelonian remains 

 which have been entombed in its strata, of species and, in most cases, genera, 

 though closely allied, yet differing from all known living forms, its purely fresh- 



1857.] 



