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THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOUENAL 



he hopes to hunt big-horu sheep along the 

 Chino-Mongolian frontier. The species of 

 mountain sheep found here is large, with 

 horns measuring sixty inches. In following 

 out the present program the expedition plans 

 to be back in New York some time in Feb- 

 ruary, 1920. 



The Eoyal Society of London, at its anni- 

 versary meeting on November 30, reelected 

 as president Sir J. J. Thomson, of Trinity 

 College, Cambridge, and professor of i^hysies 

 at the Eoyal Institution, London. 



The British Museum is considering re- 

 opening exhibits which have been closed dur- 

 ing the war, and placing again in their cases 

 those objects which were of such value as to 

 necessitate their storage in the basement for 

 safe keeping from damage by Zeppelins. 

 One wing of the building is still occupied 

 by government offices. 



Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn, 

 president of the American Museum of Nat- 

 ural History, has been awarded the Darwin 

 Medal by the Eoyal Society of London. 

 The following is quoted from Science, De- 

 cember 27 : "The Darwin Medal is awarded 

 to Dr. Henry Fairfield Osborn. Dr. Osborn's 

 chief work has been in palaeontology, and, in 

 connection with it, he has organized many 

 collecting expeditions to the early Tertiary 

 rocks of the west. One of the results of his 

 work is the more precise determination of 

 the relative ages of the extinct mammals in 

 North America, and that has led to a cor- 

 relation between the order of succession of 

 the Mammalia in Europe and in America. 

 A good deal of this work was summarized in 

 his book The Age of Mammals in Europe, 

 Asia and North America, published in 1910. 

 In 1900 Osborn had come to the conclusion 

 that the common ancestors of Proboscidia, 

 Eirenia and Ilyracoidea would be found in 

 Africa ; and the correctness of this view has 

 since been confirmed by Dr. [C. W.] Andrews' 

 discoveries in the Egyptian Fayum. Amongst 

 the more important of Osborn's contributions 

 to our knowledge of extinct vertebrata are 

 his memoirs on the rhinoceroses, the horses, 

 the titanotheres and the dinosaurs. In addi- 

 tion to all the work he has done personally, 

 Dr. Osborn has had a wide and most bene- 

 ficial influence upon biological research in 



North America, and he has pjroduced a 

 flourishing school of younger vertebrate 

 palaeontologists." 



Ox exhibition in the Morgan gem hall of 

 the American Museum is one of the world's 

 finest known examples of gem carving, in 

 the form of a chalcedony figurine eight 

 inches high, "Pas de Danse," by the eminent 

 French artist and stone engraver, M. Ton- 

 nelier. This graceful figure is carved out of 

 an unusually perfect block of translucent 

 blue sapphirine, of natural color (not 

 stained), found in Uruguay, South America. 

 It was a gift from the late .J. Pierpont 

 ]\Iorgan to his lifelong friend, Charles 

 Lanier, who has generously deposited it in 

 the Museum. The artist, M. Tonnelier, is a 

 cripple, having the use of one leg only, and 

 does all his work while seated on the corner 

 of a high stool. He selects his material 

 with the greatest care from the best that 

 can be had anywhere, and never entrusts 

 any part of his task to an assistant, or 

 a pupil, not even the reduction of the rough 

 block to approximate shape. The chalcedony 

 figurine was exhibited in the Paris Salon 

 in 1912. 



The Brooklyn Museum has put on ex- 

 hil)ition a collection of enlarged photographs 

 of the cathedrals and churches of devastated 

 northern France. The collection of cathedral 

 photographs, from which this group was se- 

 lected, constitutes one of the most notable 

 works in architectural photography that have 

 ever been attempted. Mr. Wm, H. Goodyear, 

 the Brooklyn Museum's curator of fine arts, 

 has been interested for many years in the 

 architectural refinements, or deviations from 

 rectilinear and strictly perpendicular con- 

 struction, found in medieval structures. 

 Where reconstruction of the damaged 

 churches of France is to take place these 

 views will be of material assistance, while 

 in the case of those buildings irreparably 

 destroyed, the pictures form a unique and 

 valuable possession. 



On the occasion of the twenty-fifth anni- 

 versary of the appointment of Dr. Frederick 

 J. V. Skiff as director of the Field Museum 

 of Natural History, Chicago, eighty-six of 

 his colleagues presented him with an en- 

 grossed copy of resolutions congratulating 



