ymy 1 8, 1889] 



n^^Vre 



267 



of these varieties of grants, so far as Government is 

 concerned, amounts, according to the Parh'amentary 

 i:siimates, to not less than ^20,000 a yean It is difficult 

 to estimate how much local effort contributes, how much 

 municipalities give out of local rates, how much private 

 individuals give, &c. But putting aside great donations 

 of tens, twenties, and thirties of thousands of pounds, 

 towards building schools of science and art, technical 

 schools, and provincial Museums, something like ^40,000 

 a year are contributed by local effort, to meet which the 

 yearly Government grant of probably ^20,000 is made. 

 It seems unlikely, but we shall gladly accept correction if 

 we are wrong, that the Commissioners can allot more than 

 ^4000 a year for Scholarships and grants to provincial in- 

 stitutions. The beneficial and judicious administration of 

 this /4000 would probably co3t almost as much as if it 

 were l^opoo a year. Have the Commissioners funds to 

 pay for such administration ? Apparently they have not. 

 Will they therefore ask Government to administer their 

 proposed grants.? Government has certainly hitherto 

 rather rebuffed advances of help made by the Commis- 

 sioners, so that we confess to not at present perceiving 

 how the Commissioners can successfully carry out pro- 

 posals which seem to be beset with dilemmas. 



On the other hand, if the Commissioners offer their 

 aid to the country for its unconditional acceptance, it 

 seems to us that they may be open to the charge of 

 weakening local effort, and thus of decreasing the means 

 of extending the influence of science and art upon 

 productive industry. They realized, in 1852, that the 

 subdivision of their means amongst local institutions 

 would be productive of comparatively insignificant effects. 

 A subdivision of smaller means, now that a new condition 

 has arisen, does not under present circumstances appear 

 to give better promise. The sacrifice of part of their 

 estate, and the temporary disarrangement of a section of 

 the national institutions upon it, are hardly warranted by i 

 what, at present, seems to be a scheme in embryo, the full I 

 development of which is not, in truth, forecast. | 



Without more precise information, therefore, we are 

 rather driven to conclude that an effective and beneficial \ 

 scheme of Scholarships and grants in aid of provincial ' 

 institutions is beyond the reach of the Commissioners. ! 

 Under the presidency of the Prince Consort, the Com- ' 

 niissioners took pains to collect a mass of information ^ 

 m regard to what had already "been done by the public i 

 m this country to promote the interests of science and I 

 the arts, and the diffusion of scientific piinciples amongst 

 those engaged in their practical application." Thirty-six | 

 years ago they placed on record the evidence which led ' 

 them to the opinion " that much zeal has been shown in 

 this respect." If they would pause now, they might very 

 well and usefully do again what they did thirty- six years 

 ago— direct their inquiries particularly to the new deve- 

 lopments and results of this zeal as demonstrated by its 

 present co-operation with State aid. The result of such 

 inquiries could but prove of high value to the Commis- 

 sioners, and might, we venture to think, lead them to the 

 conclusion that their present proposals are half a century 

 .00^ late, whilst the preservation of their estate, with its 

 national institutions, including those already existing and 

 .^ose hkely to exist, is really abreast of the serious wants 

 « the time." 



THE CVS TIDE A OF BOHEMIA. 

 Systhne Silurien du Centre de la Boheine. xhxt Partie, 

 Recherches Paleontologiques. Continuation dditee par 

 le Musde Boheme. Vol. VII. Classe des Echino- 

 dermes. Ordre des Cystidt'es. Ouvrage posthume de 

 feu Joachim Barrande, public par le Docteur W. 

 Waagen. Pp. i.-xvii., 1-233 ; Plates I.-XXXIX. 

 (Prague, 1887.) 



T^O few is it given to accomplish the life-work that they 

 ■»- have planned. Joachim Barrande, vast though his 

 self-ordained task was, came nearer to his goal than do 

 most men. Before the death of the venerable author in 

 1883, he had made some way with the last volume of 

 the colossal " Syst^me Silurien du Centre de la 

 Boheme." The present work was destined to form 

 the first section of Volume VII., " Echinodermes du 

 Systeme 'Silurien." The plates were ready, the general 

 portion of the work written and partly printed, and, on 

 his death-bed, Barrande was still tracing out the de- 

 scriptions of genera and species. The book has been 

 completed by Dr. W. Waagen, who was appointed, in 

 Barrande's will, editor of this volume. His admirable 

 preface is rendered of practical value by the insertion of 

 a complete hst of Barrande's writings from 1846 to 1881. 

 The work itself is on the plan and in the style already 

 familiar to us. It opens with an historical and critical 

 account of the literature dealing with the Cystidea of the 

 thirteen Silurian regions of the world. The term Silurian 

 is, of course, used in the broadest possible sense. Even 

 Sardinia, as one of these regions, has a section to itself, 

 though the cystids of Sardinia have had less written 

 about them than the snakes, of Ireland. This retrospect 

 brings us to 1883; the i^v^ observations published be. 

 1 tween that year and the end of 1887 do not affect the 

 { present work. 



I The second chapter is devoted to the morphology of 

 the Cystidea, chiefly as exemplified in the Bohemian 

 fossils. The arms especially are discussed at great 

 length, and several tables show their presence or absence 

 in the various species as yet known to science. 



Then follow the detailed descriptions of the genera 

 and species of Bohemian cystids. No classification is 

 followed. On p. 49 a classification is indeed proposed, 

 according to the number of major openings in the calyx! 

 This arrangement, however, is impracticable, and ap- 

 parently unnatural. Its chief merit is its simplicity ; 

 and yet, as the author naively complains, it is not so 

 incomparably simple as the attempt of a certain English 

 pateontologist to classify Silurian cephalopods according 

 to their curvature. The order of description is therefore 

 alphabetical, the only divisions being those of the three 

 faunas. Such an arrangement, however, by no means 

 does away with the necessity for an index, and the absence 

 of that indispensable aid to the practical worker is the 

 one great fault that we have to find with the work. At 

 the present time some 240 species of Cystidea are known, 

 and these belong to about 70 genera. The Bohemian 

 species number i%, two varieties worthy of a name, and 

 one or two indeterminable fragments. Of these species, 

 76 are here described for the first time, and the majority 

 of them belong to new genera, of which 23 are here esta- 

 blished. There are also represented the genera Agele- 



