408 Chronicles of Science. [July, 
entry and exit, and as this was underneath and skilfully protected 
by the side immediately above it, the whole must have been quite 
impervious to rain. Mr. Stainton exhibited a number of highly- 
finished drawings of the larve of various species of Miero- 
lepidoptera, collected at Cannes, and of their mining operations in 
the parenchyma of the leaves of the plants affected by them. Mr. 
Newman sent for exhibition some dead larvee of Hepialus lupulinus. 
The interior of their bodies had been occupied by some species of 
fungus, which had sent out their mycelia in all directions through 
the skin. Mr. Janson exhibited Throscus elateroides, taken at 
Rochester, and new to Britam. Mr. E. L. Layard called the 
attention of the meeting to the devastation of the white ants at St. 
Helena. The Rey. Douglas Timmins contributed a paper entitled 
“Notes on the Insects of Hyeres.” 
VI. GEOGRAPHY. 
(Including Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society.) 
THE newest discovery in geography must necessarily be that fresh 
distribution of land which has taken place since our last report. 
We are now speaking of physical distributions, for the political 
changes of Europe cannot well be chronicled in a scientific record 
until they are so well known to the world in general that they 
have lost all interest, whereas the works of nature, partaking, to 
some degree, indeed, of the capriciousness of human proceedings, 
still have a stability in themselves, or, at all events, excite so little 
hostility, that they may be set down at once as soon as they have 
taken place, without awaiting for the subsidence of the effervescence 
of their first appearance. The new distribution of land to which 
we refer, then, is not a partition of already existing territory 
among rival States, new boundaries to Denmark, Prussia, Austria, 
Italy, France, which will make antiquated the newest maps of 
Europe we have in our libraries, and will cause infinite 
perplexity to those who have to instruct the ingenuous youth 
from manuals, the result of careful filtering of standard works 
of some years back; but the actual redistribution of land and 
water in the Mediterranean by the appearance of a new volcanic 
island in the Bay of Santorin, an island in the Archipelago, about 
half-way between Europe and Asia, and a little way to the north 
of Crete. Thus this eruption, unlike political ones, is confined to 
the extreme south-eastern portion of the kingdom of Greece ; but 
it resembles its prototypes to which we have referred in threaten- 
ing destruction to the old whilst it promises that which is new. 
The exploration of Palestine has proceeded with excellent suc- 
— a ae 
