468 NEWS [DECEMBER 
(6) Botanical collections, especially of the mosses, hepaticae, and flowering 
plants, not including the grasses and sedges. 
(7) A large series of photographs illustrating the geology and physical 
geography of Patagonia. 
The geology will be treated of by Mr. Hatcher, the Tertiary invertebrates by 
Dr. Ortmann, the fossil vertebrates by Messrs. W. B. Scott and Hatcher, and 
the recent birds by Mr. W. E. D. Scott. 
At the meeting of the Biological Section of the New York Academy of 
Sciences on October 9, Professor H. F. Osborn gave an account of the explora- 
tion of the American Museum party in Southern Wyoming, which resulted in 
the discovery of Dinosaur remains; Professor E. B. Wilson reported the dis- 
covery of females of Polypterus in Egypt, but with unripe ovaries, and the 
rediscovery of the branchiate Oligochaete Alma ; and Professor Dean reported 
finding on the Californian coast freshly hatched young of Ldellostoma, and 
many stages of Chimaera collierv. 
Professor Franz von Héhnel of Vienna has undertaken a botanical explora- 
tion in Brazil. 
In Nature for November 9 Mr. John C. Willis gives an account of the 
facilities now available in Ceylon for botanical research. 
We learn from the Scientific American that the Duke of Abruzzi has found 
an important mistake in the last map of Franz Josef Land. He says that Cape 
Flora is really ten geographical miles east of the post assigned on Jackson’s 
map. The map of Payer was riddled by Jackson, who complained of its 
inaccuracies, but he has himself assigned the wrong position to his own camp. 
On the Skeat expedition Mr. Evans found several species of DPeripatus in 
Kalantan. As the distribution of this animal is of peculiar interest we may note 
also that in 1886 Mr. R. Horst recorded its occurrence from East Sumatra on 
the other side of the Malaka Strait. See WVatwre, November 9, 1899, p. 31. 
Science reports that Mr. R. E. Snodgrass, assistant in entomology in 
Stanford University, and Mr. A. H. Heller, have returned from a successful ten 
months’ collecting trip to the Galapagos Islands. The collections of birds, 
fishes, insects, and spiders, are said to be large. 
In the judgment of Major Ronald Ross, who has now returned from Africa, 
the future of the west coast will be assured as soon as the colonial authorities 
take steps similar to those now in operation in Sierra Leone, to destroy the 
virulent mosquito. 
Geheimrath Prof. von Zittel of Miinchen is arranging to send a scientific 
expedition to Patagonia. 
We learn from Sezence that Mr. O. F. Cook of the Division of Botany, 
U.S. Department of Agriculture, has been sent to examine the plant products 
of Puerto Rico in reference to the possibility of introducing new and useful 
tropical plants into the island. He is accompanied by Mr. G. N. Collins as 
photographer, and Mr. G. P. Gall sent by the Smithsonian Institution to collect 
material for the National Herbarium. 
Nature reports that another British exploring expedition to Abyssinia has 
been arranged, and will leave England at once for nine months. The objects 
are science and sport. 
The annual conversazione of the Geologists’ Association, London, was held 
on November 3, and was fairly well attended in spite of the inclement 
weather. Among the more striking exhibits were a fine series of concretionary 
structures brought together by Dr. G. Abbott ; the skin and skull of Neomylodon 
listaz lent by the La Plata Museum, and shown by A. Smith Woodward ; a 
series of pebbles from Derbyshire compared with a corresponding series from 
ne ee 
