86 NEWS IjANrAKY 



London. Other groups have been partially revised, so far as is possible in the 

 absence of modern literature. It is hoped that the issue of a revised edition of 

 the British Museum Catalogue of Fishes will enable the curator to work up 

 those animals as completely as the birds ; meanwhile a comprehensive collection 

 of British Guiana fishes is being made, and preserved for the most part in for- 

 malin. Exhibition space in this museum has been extended by the addition of 

 an upper gallery. Chief among recent acquisitions is a large series of rocks 

 collected in the N.W. District by J. B. Harrison and H. I. Perkins, to illustrate 

 a Government report. The chief difficulty in the curatorial work of this 

 museum is presented by atmospheric changes and over much moisture. It is 

 satisfactory to learn that many inquiries are made at the museum both person- 

 ally and by correspondence, and that it is becoming more and more a general 

 educating force in the colony. 



Mr. Th. Masui reports to Baron van Eetvelde, Secretary of State for 

 the^Congo Free State, on the progress of the Congo Museum at Brussels. Over 

 two thousand plants have been collected, of which about five hundred are new 

 to science. Zoological and geological collections are also accumulating, and are 

 being worked up already. Much is expected from the expeditions con- 

 ducted by Major Cabra in the province of Mayomba, by Lieutenant Lemaire en 

 route for Katanga, and by Commander Weyns to the Cataracts and Mid-Congo ; 

 and many other enterprises both scientific and practical are contemplated, or 

 have actually begun. The practical side of the museum has two purposes in 

 view — to present a complete collection of the products which the Congo 

 furnishes, and to exhibit the materials which may be advantageously imported 

 there. 



Mr. J. G. Robertson has presented to the Edinburgh Museum of Science 

 and Art the unique Skeleton of a Carboniferous Labyrinthodont, Kerat&rpeton 

 galvani, from the Jarrow Colliery, Kilkenny, described and figured by Mr. 

 A. S. Woodward in the Geological Magazine for 1897, p. 293. 



The Toynbce Record for December 1898 gives some account of the excellent 

 work which has been done by Miss Hall, Curator of the Whitechapel Museum, 

 in rendering the collection available for the purposes of elementary education. 

 Parties of school children, under the charge of their teachers, visit the museum, 

 and have demonstration lessons. "Such an elementary museum," Sir William 

 Flower said, " should be in every district in London. It should be the nucleus 

 of the Natural History teaching in the schools, and a stepping-stone to the 

 understanding of our larger museums." 



A number of valuable donations have just been made to Dundee Museum by 

 the Egypt Exploration Fund. These consist of an outer and inner mummy 

 case, found in the necropolis of Ha-Khenensu, five tablets from Dendereh, and 

 a large number of interesting archaeological objects illustrating the religious and 

 domestic life of ancient Egypt. 



Miss Anna T. Jeanes has presented the Philadelphia Academy of Natural 

 Sciences with $20,000, the income to be used for museum purposes. 



Four large cases of manufactured Russian antiquities were recently de- 

 spatched from Warsaw to this country for the benefit of English antiquaries. 

 There is a regular trade in such objects at Kazan. Verb. sap. 



The scientific societies of Plumstead and Woolwich have formed a committee 

 to urge upon the Library Commissioners the formation of a museum or museums 

 for the locality. The secretary is Mr. T. R. Marr, G Russell Place, Woolwich. 



In our last number we gave a short account of the proceedings at the 

 International Conference on Scientific Literature convened by the Royal 

 Society. We did not think it necessary to say that we had abstracted this 

 account from our highly valued contemporary Nature, since we assumed that 



