May 2, 1889] 



NATURE 



that they required, and would tend enormously to advance 

 exact experiments. There is no doubt that some years 

 ago there was no nation that could compete at all with 

 England in such matters, but we have taught the rest of 

 the world, and the pupil has now become somewhat in 

 advance, in many directions, of his master. Also the 

 spread of scientific education on the Continent has 

 tended to the application of more sound principles of 

 construction in such things than with us." 



88. Although the question of the establishment of a 

 Museum of Scientific Apparatus is more closely allied to 

 the objects of our Commission than that of a Museum of 

 Mechanical Inventions, we think it right to call attention 

 to the proposals made by a Committee of the House of 

 Commons appointed to report on the Patent Office 

 Library and Museum. 



89. That Committee gave, in the following terms, their 

 conception of the nature of the "General Museum of 

 Mechanical Inventions," the establishment of which they 

 contemplated: — 



" It appears to your Committee that the chief purpose 

 of a General Museum is to illustrate and explain the 

 commencement, progress, and present position of the 

 most important branches of mechanical invention ; to 

 show the chief steps by which the most remarkable 

 machines have reached their present degree of excel- 

 lence ; to convey interesting and useful information, and 

 to stimulate invention." 



90. With regard to the funds which would be necessary 

 for the establishment of such a Museum on an adequate 

 scale, the Committee, referring to a large sum which had 

 accumulated from the fees paid by inventors (which fund, at 

 the end of the year 1 871, amounted to j/^923,741 is. iid.), 

 stated that — 



" Your Committee consider that the principal object of 

 the fees payable under the provisions of the Patent Law 

 Amendment Act, was to provide for the proper working 

 of that measure, and not for the purpose of increasing 

 the general revenue of the country. Without entering 

 upon the question whether or not a claim exists to have 

 the surplus exclusively devoted to the purposes of the Act 

 of 1852, your Committee are of opinion that for the 

 future the annual surplus revenue accruing from the 

 operation of that Act should be so applied to the 

 extent which may be necessary." 



91. We agree with the Committee as to the general 

 character of the objects to which the fund in question 

 should be appropriated. 



92. We consider that this fund, which is derived in 

 great part from the applications of scientific principles 

 to various uses in the arts and industries of the country, 

 would be very properly spent in bettering some of the 

 conditions on which invention and discovery depend : 

 and we are of opinion that, among the uses to which such 

 a fund could be most advantageously applied, the esta- 

 blishment of such a Museum of Scientific Apparatus as 

 that which we contemplate would rank among the most 

 important ; and we are convinced that such a Museum 

 would have a material influence upon the spread of 

 scientific instruction throughout the country, and would 

 therefore largely foster invention and discovery. 



93. We accordingly recommend the formation of a 

 collection of physical and mechanical instruments ; and 

 we submit for consideration whether it may not be expe- 

 dient that this collection, the collection of the Patent 

 Museum, and of the Scientific and Educational Depart- 

 ment of the South Kensington Museun, should be united 

 and placed under the authority of a Minister of State. 



94. Whether this union be effected or not, we are of 

 opinion that it is desirable that the scientific collections 

 now placed at South Kensington should be subjected to 

 a critical revision, with a view to restricting them to such 

 objects as are of national interest or utility. 



REPTILIAN ORDERS. 



Catalogue of the Che/onians, Rhynchocephalians, and 

 Crocodiles in the British Museum [Natural History). 

 By G. A. Boulenger. New Edition. Pp. 311, Illus- 

 trated. (London : Published by the Trustees of the 

 Museum, 1889.) 



T^HE handsome volume before us deals, as its name 

 -»- implies, with all known existing forms of the three 

 Reptilian orders of the Chelonians, Rhynchocephalians, 

 and Crocodilians ; but since the second group is repre- 

 sented only by a single species, while the number 

 of Crocodilians comprises little more than a score of 

 forms, the great bulk of the book is devoted to the 

 Chelonians, and it will, therefore, mainly be this group to 

 which our remarks will apply. 



Previously to the appearance of this volume, the last 

 systematic "Catalogue of Crocodilians and Rhyncho- 

 cephalians " issued by the Museum was the quarto volume 

 by the late Dr. Gray,* published in 1872 ; the next year 

 having seen the publication of the revised list of 

 Chelonians by the same author."^ Without in any way 

 wishing to disparage the labours of the late Keeper of the 

 Zoological Department, to whose untiring energy the 

 British Museum is so greatly indebted for its magnificent 

 series of Reptiles, it is at once inanifest that the present 

 work is enormously in advance of any hitherto published, 

 this advance being especially noticeable in the case of 

 the Chelonians. Although in that order Dr. Gray figured 

 a large number of skulls, yet the distinctive features 

 afforded by this part of the skeleton were not accurately 

 gauged from a taxonomic point of view, while the cha- 

 racters of the bony carapace, so far as they relate to the 

 connections of the component bones with one another, 

 were practically ignored. In this respect Mr. Boulenger 

 has conferred a great boon, not only on the students of 

 the Chelonia of the present day, but still more especially 

 on those engagqd in the studv of fossil forms, who 

 generally have to deal only with the more or less imper- 

 fect carapace and plastron. In almost every genus the 

 author has caused at least one specimen to be stripped of 

 its epidermal horny shields, so as to exhibit not only the 

 impressions formed by the borders of these shields, but 

 also the form and relations of the underlying bones which 

 constitute the solid shell. And he has found that generic 

 characters can be to a very large extent based on the 

 structure of the skull, taken together with the form and 

 relations of the bones of the shell ; the contour of the 

 neural bones of the carapace, and the relations of the 

 suture between the humeral and pectoral shields of 

 the plastron to the entoplastral bone being of especial 

 importance. No less than seventy-three admirably-exe- 

 cuted woodcuts serve to illustrate these osteological 

 features, on which the taxonomy is so largely based ; and 

 by their aid the palaeontologist may hope to clear up to 

 some extent the affinities of the host of fossil Chelonians 

 at present described under the vague terms of Eniys and 

 Clemniys. 



The author proposes to divide the Reptiles treated of 



' '■ Catalogue of Shield-Reptilia. Part 2. Emydosaurians, Rhyncho- 

 cephalia. and Amphisbsenians." (1872.) 



^ " Hand-List of the Specimens of Shield-Reptiles." (1873.) 



