Miscellanies. 397 
plausibility, turn the tables upon him and say; I cannot help suspec- 
ting that he is one of those to whom the observations made by me 
were imparted through the medium of Silliman’s Journal in 1834, 
and now published as his own in the Magazine of Natural History, 
in 1838. 
‘15. Gold in Georgia.—A correspondent in Georgia, intimately ac- 
qnainted with the gold mines there, informs us recently that, although 
the gold is of a very superior quality, averaging 940 to 1000, the 
deposit mines are nearly exhausted, and until labor in this country 
becomes redundant, it is doubtful whether the vein mines will pay the 
expense of working them. 
16. Yale Natural History Society.—This Society has been already 
mentioned in our pages. The progress of institutions of this nature 
must always be slow, especially during the first years of their exist- 
ence, and before a considerable library and museum, and important 
transactions have called public attention to them. Already, several 
valuable original papers have been published, by the Society, in this 
Journal, evincing originality and accuracy of scientific investigation, 
and illustrated by ample and finished engravings, by no means unwor- 
thy of older and more celebrated associations. We learn that it is the 
intention of the Society, as soon as practicable, to collect these papers, 
and to publish them as transactions. It has doubtless been an advan- 
tage to the Society, that they have been able to place their memoirs 
before the public so soon after their being ready, and it is to be hoped 
that they wil] always be able to do so. 
The museum of the Society has advanced faster than was expected. 
A valuable collection of several hundred species of birds was received 
two years since from a member in China, (Dr. Parker,) and the liber- 
ality of the public has enabled the Society to display them to great 
advantage. Their collections in the other departments of zoology, 
and in botany, are small, but a nucleus is formed in each. The spe- 
cimens collected by Prof. C. U. Shepard, illustrative of the geology pf 
this State, were, by the permission of his Excellency Gov. Edwards, 
deposited in the Society’s rooms, and constitute a cabinet of more 
than ordinary interest 
The library is yet small, but the means exist to a certain extent, of 
increasing it as soon as is deemed expedient. Some additions have 
been made to it during the past year, of which none are more impor- 
tant than the Transactions of the Zoological Society of London. An 
effort was just commencing by the Society to raise a fund of $20,000 
for the increase and support of the library; but before much could be 
