,8^. NOTES AND COMMENTS. 495 



that lake; and of the 28 species enumerated by Mr, Smith, 12 have 

 been recorded from the Nile or one or other of the great lakes, while 

 of the remaining 16 so-called species very close representatives occur 

 in other lakes and rivers of Central Africa. 



Mr. R. L. Garner, whose popular work on The Speech of Monkeys 

 has just appeared, left England last month for Western Africa, 

 where he hopes to preserve by phonograph the "speech" of the 

 apes in their native haunts. As most readers are doubtless aware, 

 Mr. Garner proposes to establish himself in a steel cage in the forest 

 and attempt not merely to record the vocal sounds but also to 

 photograph any of the quadrumana he may be able to attract to his 

 place of observation. A large audience assembled in the Anthropo- 

 logical Section of the British Association at Edinburgh to hear Mr. 

 Garner's promised account of his researches ; but through some 

 misunderstanding with the officers — not altogether creditable, 

 according to our information — the Association's distinguished guest 

 was unable to appear. 



In a lecture delivered recently before the Geologists' Association, 

 Mr. Rudler gave an interesting account of the pioneers of British 

 Geology. He pointed out, as was done years ago by Buckland and 

 Conybeare, that to a Welshman is due the credit of first showing 

 that strata succeed one another in a regular manner through large 

 tracts of country. This "Patriarch" of Geology, George Owen of 

 Henllys, Lord of Kemes, was born in 1552 and died in 1613 ; he left 

 a valuable manuscript work in which he " traced with much accuracy 

 the direction and extent of the strata of coal and the limestone which 

 accompanies them through the whole of South Wales, and pointed 

 out the connections of this tract with similar districts in Gloucester- 

 shire and Somersetshire." Owen's original work, " The Description 

 of Penbrokeshire " (so spelt), has lately been published by the Society 

 of Cymmrodorion. 



About two years ago a " Coal Search Committee " was founded 

 with much eclat for the " systematic investigation of the deep-seated 

 geology of the South-East of England." An imposing list of names 

 was appended to the original circular, which was signed by Mr. 

 James T. Day, and a meeting was presided over (according to the 

 circular) by the Right Hon. the Lord Mayor of the period, supported 

 by the " Coal Search Committee." It would be interesting to know 

 what has been done in the matter, or what has been done with the 

 funds which were subscribed by the over-cautious in the early days 

 of the boom. Perhaps some of our readers can enlighten us ? 



In the Annals of Botany for July, Professor J. R. Green gives an 

 account of his investigations on the digestive ferment of the Kachree 



