March i6, 1876] 



NA TURE 



387 



importance of a firm mathematical foundation, and I am 

 as far from wishing to overwhelm the younger boys with 

 science before they have mastered the elements of arith- 

 metic and grammar and languages as he can be. My 

 experience amongst boys has, however, not been such as 

 to enable me to say exactly when a thorough science 

 teaching ought to begin. 



The mistake, as it seems to me, which is prevalent 

 respecting science teaching in schools, is the notion that 

 it is a subject to be lectured upon for two hours per week 

 to those already educated, and who show an aptitude for 

 it, whilst it can, and ought to, be introduced at a definite 

 period as a regular part of school work. It is now usually 

 made an extra subject, a quasi-amusement, put on the 

 same footing as drilling or drawing, whilst it can, and 

 ought to, be made as much a discipline as the Latin 

 grammar or Euclid, affording, as it does, in my opinion, 

 if properly taught, an excellent training ground for 

 acquiring that reasoning power and habit of application 

 which it is usually supposed can only be gained through 

 one or other of these older channels. I am sorry that 

 Mr. Wilson thinks that any man of science is misleading 

 public opinion on this subject. This is a serious charge, 

 but as it rests on a misconception, I remain convinced 

 that in the long run public opinion will endorse our 

 views. 



It is out of my power to tell Mr. Wilson whose business 

 it is to make the change to a better state of things, which 

 he himself feels to be necessary, for he admits that the 

 new examination is adverse to scieniific education. I do, 

 however, feel strongly that unless the authorities of our 

 great schools and the examining Boards set earnestly to 

 work to introduce this new discipline and give it (as 

 many of them to their honour are now beginning to do) a 

 fair field and no favour, the beneficial influence which 

 these schools have had on English education, must soon 

 begin to diminish. 



The Balliol scholarships and the other great Univer- 

 sity " advertisements " I believe to be in many ways 

 stumbling-blocks in the path of true education in this 

 country ; " the many," as Mr. Wilson truly says, " are kept 

 to swell the triumph of the few," and the prizes have to be 

 got " at any cost to boy or school." Are we never to 

 break loose from this degrading bondage to the Moloch 

 of examination ? I for one think better both of commis- 

 sioners, governors, and head-masters, and look forward 

 with hope to the ultimate emancipation of school-boys 

 from their ancient fetters. Then those subjects will be 

 taught at school which are best suited to make the mass 

 of boys good citizens, and to forward the highest interests 

 of the country, instead of the great aim of the schoolmaster 

 being to secure a Balhol scholarship. We shall then see 

 less than we do now of University men taking to sheep- 

 farming in Australia, and hear less complaint of the 

 superiority of our continental friends both in pure science 

 and its application. Henry E. Roscoe 



PROF. FLOWER'S HUNTERIAN LECTURES 

 ON THE RE LA TION OF EXTINCT TO EXIST- 

 ING MAMMALIA "■ 



IV. 



T T was mentioned in the last lecture that no true Probos- 

 ■*• cideans have been found below the Miocene strata, 

 but among the most remarkable of the numerous recent 

 discoveries in the Eocene formations of Wyoming Terri- 

 tory, North America, has been that of a group of animals 

 of huge size, approaching, if not equalling, that of the 

 largest existing elephants, presenting a combination of 

 characters quite unlike those known among either recent 

 or extinct creatures, and of which there were evidently 



' Abstract of a course of lectures delivered at the Royal College of Sur- 

 geons "On the Relation of Extinct to Existing Manunalia, with Special 

 Reference to the Derivative Hypothesis," in conclusion of the course of 1873. 

 \See Reports in Nature for that year.) Continued from p. 356. 



several species living contemporaneously. To form some 

 idea of their appearance, we must imagine animals very 

 elephantine in their general proportions, elevated on 

 massive pillar-like limbs, with the same complete radius 

 and ulna, the same short, round, five-toed feet which 

 distinguish the elephants from all other known hoofed 

 quadrupeds. The tail, as in the elephants, was long and 

 slender, but the neck, though still short was not so much 

 abbreviated as in modern Proboscideans, and there is no 

 good evidence of their having possessed a trunk. The brain 

 was exceedingly small for the size of the creature. The 

 head differed greatly from that of the elephants, being 

 long and narrow, more like that of a rhinoceros, and, as 

 in that animal, was elevated behind into a great occipital 

 crest, but unlike that or any other known mammal, it had 

 developed from its upper surface, three pairs of con- 

 spicuous laterally diverging protuberances, one pair from 

 the parietal region, one over or in front of the orbits, and 

 one near the forepart of the elongated nasal bones. 

 Whether these were merely covered by bosses of callous 

 skin, as the rounded form and ruggedness of their 

 extremities would indicate, or whether they formed the 

 bases of attachments for horns of still greater extent, 

 either like those of the rhinoceros or the cavicorn rumi- 

 nants, must still be a matter of conjecture. But in either 

 case they must have given a very strange aspect to the 

 creature which possessed them, and have been formidable 

 weapons in encounters either with animals of its own 

 kind, or with the fierce carnivorous beasts whose remains 

 are associated in the same deposits with them. There 

 were no incisor teeth in the upper jaw, but a pair of huge 

 descending canine tusks very similar in position and form 

 to those of the musk-deer. Behind these, and at some 

 distance from them, were, on each side above and below, 

 six molar teeth of comparatively small size, placed in con- 

 tinuous series, each with a pair of oblique ridges, con- 

 joined internally, and diverging externally in a V-like 

 manner, and with a stout basal cingulum. The lower 

 incisors and canines were small, and are only known at 

 present by their sockets. The dental formula is — 



z — c —p ±m ^ = 34. 

 3133 

 The first discovered evidences of the existence of 

 animals of this group were described by Leidy in 1872, 

 under the name of Uintatheriitm, from the Uintah 

 Mountains, at the base of which they were found. V^ery 

 shortly afterwards other portions ©f bones and teeth of 

 either the same or closely allied forms, were described by 

 Marsh as Dinoceras, and by Cope as Loxolophodon and 

 Eobasileus. Whether these names will ultimately be re- 

 tained for separate generic modifications, or whether they 

 will have to be merged into the first, it would be prema- 

 ture to attempt to decide upon the evidence before us. 

 A more important question is, what are the affinities of 

 the animals, and what light do they throw on the general 

 evolutionary history of the class to which they belong 1 

 Looking at the totality of their organisation as already 

 known, at first sight they seem to present a considerable 

 resemblance with the Proboscidea. The absence of the 

 third trochanter, and of the fossa for the ligamentum 

 teres on the femur, and the general form of the feet with 

 their short broad toes are quite Proboscidean characters, 

 but a closer examination of the structure of the carpus and 

 tarsus, especially of the mode of union of the different 

 bones with each other, shows more essential affinities 

 with Rhinoceros. The same may be said of the cranium, 

 so that on the whole they appear to come nearer to the 

 Perissodactyle Ungulates than was formerly supposed. 

 This relationship is strengthened by the discovery of 

 other forms, constituting the genera BatJwiodon and Me- 

 ialophodon of Cope, of earlier geological age, which with 

 the same general structure of the UintatheriidcB retain in 

 a most interesting manner many primitive characters, 

 especially the complete number of incisor and premolar 



