1864.] 4:13 [Lesley. 



tiition of American names, for English and German names 

 already in the press and about to be fixed upon this interest- 

 ing part of the present American Flora. 



Mr. Chase stated that he looked with much interest for the 

 confirmation of his views in regard to barometric fluctuations, 

 from the investigations which M. Le Verrier, in his letter of 

 June 8th, has proposed to undertake. The letter was com- 

 municated to the London Athenaeum of June 25th by Admi- 

 ral Fitzroy. 



Mr. Lesley described, from private letters, the more recent 

 discoveries of Prof. Desor, of Neuchatel. 



In April last, M. Desor's assistant, Mr. Benz, brought in from one 

 of the localities of lake habitations, known as the "iron station," the 

 first genuine human skull. M. Desor describes this skull as of a type 

 as low as that from the Neanderthal cave, with slanting forehead and 

 enormous circumorbital bones. Yet it undoubtedly belonged to a 

 Helvetian, and one of large stature, for with it were obtained many 

 Helvetian coins, lance-heads, &c., and four swords in ornamented 

 scabbards. 



In May, M. Desor carried out his long-entertained purpose of ex- 

 amining the Bavarian lakes, said by the German naturalists to con- 

 tain no trace of pihAis remains ; theories having been constructed to 

 account for this curious limitation of i\iQ pfolilbauten to Switzerland. 

 M. Desor visited his friend, Prof. v. Liebig, with assured confidence 

 that all such theories were founded on a prime error of fiict. In 

 company with Mr. Benz and Prof. v. Siebold, the distinguished 

 palaeontologist of Bavaria, he visited the Lake of Starnberg, three 

 Swiss miles from the capital, in which is an islet called the Isle of 

 Roses, supporting the summer palace of the King. At the end of 

 this islet, and running underneath it, proving it to he artificial, they 

 found multitudes of piles, so well preserved that the rings of growth 

 could be read ; and among them quantities of antique pottery and 

 cleft marrow-bones of five species of animals, among which were the 

 horse, cow, stag, and hog. The excitement at Munich was very 

 great ; and the young King's government established a commission 

 with V. Siebold at its head, who have explored already five of the 

 Bavarian lakes, and discovered in them seven stations of lacustrine 

 habitations, from which numerous relics of the bronze age also have 



