3^4 



NATURE 



[Fed, 2 2, 1877 



and lost all his property. During the years 1848 and 1849 he 

 was an assistant of Dr. D. D. Owen in the U.S. Geological 

 Survey of Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, after which he 

 returned to Owensboro, Ky. In 1852 he became the assistant 

 of Prof. James Hall, the eminent palaeontologist, of Albany, 

 N.Y. He remained there until 1858, with the exception of 

 three summers, two of which he spent in the Missouri State 

 Geological Survey. In the summer of 1853 he was sent by Prof. 

 Hall with Dr. Hayden as his associate, to explore the " Bad 

 Lands " of Dakota, and brought back very valuable collections. 

 This was the commencement of that long series of successful 

 explorations of all portions of the west which have continued up 

 to the present time. While at Albany he was constantly engaged 

 in the most important palseontological works, the results of 

 which were published in the proceedings of the American learned 

 societies. In 1858 he went to Washington, where he resided 

 until the time of his death, leaving the city only for a few months 

 at a time, while engaged as palaeontologist for the State of 

 Illinois, Ohio, or in field explorations in the far west in connec- 

 tion with the U.S. Geological Survey under the direction of 

 Prof. Hayden. His publications, apart from fthe State reports 

 referred to, were very numerous, and bore the stamp of the most 

 faithful and conscientious research. They are regarded all over 

 the world as authoiity on the subjects of which they treat, and 

 in very few cases have his conclusions ever been questioned. 

 They may be found in the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural 

 Sciences, Fhila-delphia, American yourna/ 0/ Science, New Haven, 

 Albany Institute, Smithsonian Contributions, and various and 

 important reports in the publication of the U.S. Geological 

 Survey for the Territories with which he was so long connected. 

 Pie was so modest and retiring that he was scarcely known out- 

 side of a very limited circle of friends. He was a member of the 

 National Academy of Sciences, and many other prominent scien- 

 tific associations in America and in Europe. Prof. J. D. Dana, 

 writing the day after his death, says : ' ' American palaeontology 

 has lost, as regards the Invertebrate Department, half its working 

 force at a blow. He has gone before his work was done. But 

 what he had finished was enough for half-a-dozen ordinary men ; 

 a marvellous pile, if we view only the aggregate of volumes and 

 memoirs, but far more marvellous when we look within at the 

 amount of laboured descriptions and careful comparisons, and at 

 the almost numberless illustrations, mostly from his own exact 

 and beautiful drawings." 



On Saturday, at the Society of Arts, Dr. Corfield, under 

 the auspices of the Trades Guild of Learning, gives the 

 next of the series of lectures on the Laws of Health. These 

 lectures have been well attended and appreciated from the first. 

 Prof. Huxley was chairman on the first occasion, Dean Stanley 

 on the second, and at the lecture on February 10 Cardinal 

 Manning presided. The Cardinal, after the lecture, heartily 

 endorsed the statements of the lecturer ; the lecture, he said, 

 showed that the highest science came into the closest application 

 in daily life. There are eight other lectures of the course. 



The educational and scientific institutions inaugurated by the 

 Khedive of Egypt in his schemes of reform are among the first 

 to feel the effects of the present chaotic condition of Egyptian 

 finances. Not long since the free public schools of Cairo were 

 all closed, and now the vice-regal Geographical Society is upon 

 the point of dissolution. The Khedive had gathered together 

 several men of talent and experience to form this Society, with 

 the intention of instituting an active and energetic scheme of 

 exploration in Central Africa. Their names and the bulletins 

 which have appeared, gave every promise of early and valuable 

 additions being made to the cause of African research. The 

 long-continued withholding of financial support has, however, so 

 entirely crippled its operations, that the Society has for some 

 time practically ceased to exist. 



The last contribution of Karl von Baer, written ten days 

 before his death, appears in the last number of the Archiv fiir 

 Anthropologie, and discusses the subject of the source of the tin 

 used by the ancients in their bronzes. The fact that the propor- 

 tions of nine parts of copper to one of tin are noticeable in 

 almost all antique bronze articles, would seem to indicate that 

 its use spread from a single centre. Taking a hint from Strabo's 

 statement that tin was found among the Drangians, he caused 

 inquiries to be set on foot by Russian Government officials in 

 Khorassan, who reported that there are extensive deposits of tin 

 there, as well as of other metals, which are mixed in a primitive 

 manner. These v. Baer regards as the sources of the numerous 

 bronzes found in the ruins of Babylon and Assyria, but did not 

 think it probable that they supplied the tin required by Scandi- 

 navia and the countries surrounding the Mediterranean before 

 the discovery of the Cornish mines. The latter was probably 

 brought by Phoenicians from Banca, although no m.ention of 

 such journeys is extant. 



In the February session of the Berlin Anthropological Society 

 Prof. Virchow gave the results of a number of craniological 

 measurements undertaken in Bulgaria. The general type is 

 evidently not Slavonic but Finnish, and would seem to point to 

 a distant emigration from among the Turco-finnish tribes of the 

 Ural, to the region of the Danube. Two distinct subordinate 

 types were noticed, one brachy cephalic — pure Finnish ; and the 

 other macrocephalic, with retreating forehead, strikingly similar 

 to that of the Australian negro. The Bulgarians gradually 

 adopted the Slavonic language, and no trace of their original 

 language, not even a manuscript, remains. Dr. Friedel exhi- 

 bited at the same Session a large collection of stone hatchets 

 lately found near Kopenick, in company with some peculiarly 

 fashioned stone instruments, evidently used to prepare the 

 hatchets, and possessing the same hardness as ordinary grind- 

 stones. 



A TEi.EGRAM from Algiers announces ihat on the i6th inst, 

 Lieut. Say and others left Ouarghe with twenty-four men and 

 fifty camels, intending to explore the Sahara, and establish 

 commercial connections with Algerian producers. 



M. Krantz, the Director-general of the Universal Exhibition 

 of 1878 proposes to hold an international piscicultural exhibi- 

 tion. All who desire to exhibit must intimate their intention to 

 the Secretary before May i, 1877. The administration does not 

 undertake to procure sea water. 



M. QuATREFAGES has just published, through Bailliere, a 

 work on anthropology. He attacks the evolution theory. 



Mrs. Frances Elizabeth Hoggan, M.D. of Zurich, who 

 has been for several years in practice in London, has just passed 

 a successful examination in Dublin, and has received the Licences 

 in Medicine and Midwifery of the King's and Queen's College 

 of Physicians in Ireland, which of course secure for her official 

 recognition in the United Kingdom. A paper by Doctors 

 George and Mrs. Hoggan was recently read at the Rojal Society, 

 on "Lymphatics of Muscles." 



M. Waddington intends to propose to the French parliament 

 the establishment in four large provincial towns of universities 

 according to the English system. The faculties at present in 

 existence in a number of towns will not be suppressed, but they 

 will be necessarily to some extent cast into the shade. A sharp 

 discussion is anticipated in Parliament, many large towns com' 

 peting for selection as the seats of these new universities. 



The third annual meeting of the Scientific Club was held at 

 the Club House, Savile Row, on Thursday, the 15th inst., Major 

 F. Duncan, R.A., D.C.L., &c., Chairman of the Committee, in 

 the chair. The report for 1876, which showed the rapid progress 



