December 20, 1900] 



NATURE 



181 



At this meeting, which took place on December 12 

 and 13, there were present: — Prof. B. Schwalbe, repre- 

 senting Dr. Milkau (Germany), Prof. G. Darboux, 

 representing Prof. H. Poincare, and Dr. J. Deniker 

 (France), Prof. A. W. Rucker, Sir M. Foster, Prof. H. E. 

 Armstrong and Dr. L. Mond (Great Britain), Prof. J. H. 

 Graf (Switzerland), Dr. E. W. Dahlgren (Sweden), Prof. 

 Korteweg (Holland), Dr. M. Knudsen (Denmark), Mr. 

 Roland Trimen (Cape Colony), Dr. W. T. Blanford 

 (India), Senor del Paso y Troncoso (Mexico), and M. 

 Metaxas (Greece;. Dr. Ludwig Mond represented Italy 

 in the absence of Prof. Nasini. Sir Michael Foster was 

 elected chairman of the meeting. 



It is proposed that the annual cost of a set of seven- 

 teen volumes shall be 17/., and on this basis it was 

 announced that the number of sets subscribed for by 

 the various countries was as follows : — 



Sets. 



United States of America ... ... ... 68 



Great Britain ... ... ... ... ... 45 



Germany ... ... ' ... ... ... 45 



France ... ... ... ... ... ... 35 



Italy ... ... ... ... ... ... 27 



Japan 15 



Switzerland ... ... ... ... ... 7 



Sweden ... ... ... ... ... ... 64 



Denmark ... ... .. ... .:. 6 



Holland... 6 



Norway ... ... ... ... ... ... 5 



Mexico ... ... ... ... ... ... 5 . 



Cape Colony ... ... ... ... ... 5 



Canada ... ... ... . ... ... ... 4^ 



Hungary .. ... ... ... ... 4 



Portugal... ... ... ... ... ... 2 



South Australia... ... ... ... ... 2 



Western Australia ... ... ... ... i 



Victoria ... ... ... ... ... ... i 



One great difficulty in starting an enterprise of this 

 magnitude is that a large amount of capital is needed 

 to cover the preliminary expenses and to pay for the 

 printing of the first set of volumes, and for other work 

 which must be done before the grants from the various 

 countries are received, and before any sales of the 

 volumes to the public can be effected. This initial diffi- 

 culty was met by the Royal Society, which generously 

 offered to advance the necessary capital. This offer was 

 accepted by the International Council, which expects to 

 be in a position to repay the sum advanced during the 

 next few years. 



The Royal Society offered to act as the publishers of 

 the catalogue, and to sign the necessary contracts with 

 the printers and publishing agents. This offer was 

 unanimously accepted by the International Council, which, 

 after carefully examining the clauses of the proposed 

 contracts, declared its approval of them. 



The three principal countries which have not yet joined 

 in the scheme are Russia, Belgium and Spain ; and the 

 Royal Society was asked by the International Council to 

 address the Imperial Academy of Sciences of St. Peters- 

 burg on the subject, and also to take steps to induce the 

 other countries to join in the catalogue. 



A code of instructions for the use of all who are taking 

 part in the preparation of the catalogue was considered, 

 and, after some amendment, adopted. 



In this connection the chief point discussed was whether 

 it is desirable to publish complete lists of new botanical 

 and zoological species. It was decided that lists of new 

 species should be published, and that they should, as far 

 as possible, contain all the additions to our knowledge in 

 this direction made within the year. 



It was also decided to include translations in the cata- 

 logue, but to indicate that they are translations. Schedules 

 of classification for the subject indexes of the several 

 sciences were adopted. 



An executive committee was appointed, consisting of 



NO. 1625, VOL. 63] 



the four delegates of the Royal Society and the repre- 

 sentatives of the four largest subscribers to the catalogue 

 — France, Germany, Italy and the United States. 

 Dr. H. Forster Morley was appointed director of the 

 catalogue. 



Finally, it was resolved to begin the work on January i, 

 1901, and to include in the catalogue all literature pub- 

 lished after that date. 



FURTHER REMAINS FROM LAKE 

 CALLABONNA} 

 npHE undermentioned Memoir is the second of a series, 

 ■*■ dealing with the remains of the great extinct verte- 

 brates discovered in the Lake Callabonna in South 

 Australia during the expedition already commented 

 upon in our pages (Nature, vol. Ixi. p. 275, 1894), and 

 now famous for having yielded the materials for a fuller 

 knowledge of the osteology of the remarkable marsupial, 

 colossus Diprotodon. The present contribution deals 

 entirely with the great flightless bird Genyornis, which 

 was found in association with this, and is for the most 

 part an extended and illustrated account of portions of 

 its skeleton, which the authors have already more briefly 

 described in the Transactions of the Royal Society of 

 South .Australia and elsewhere. It is divided into two 

 parts, a first dealing with the bones alone, a second con- 

 taining an account of the surroundings and physical fea- 

 tures of the Lake and the characters of its bed, of 

 its geology, and the history of its investigation, all 

 of which are special and detailed, and have for the 

 greater part received prior consideration in our pages in 

 the aforementioned article and in its predecessors 

 therein referred to by the authors themselves (NATURE, 

 vol. 1. pp. 184 and 206), permission to quote freely from 

 which they herein acknowledge. 



It is with the first part of the Memoir we are chiefly 

 concerned, and the newer facts it sets forth are the out- 

 come of the results of comparison with the numerous 

 remains described of those of allied genera mostly pre- 

 served in the Australian Museums. In dealing with these 

 the authors pay a just tribute to the work and energetic 

 enthusiasm of Mr. R. Etheridge, junr., the indefatigable 

 curator of the Sydney Museum, whose Memoir on the 

 subject in the " Records of the Geological Survey of 

 New South Wales'' is taken as the basis of their inquiry ; 

 and, as the outcome of this portion of the work, they have 

 been led to associate with the Callabonna genus certain 

 skeletal fragments, previously collected in South Australia, 

 Queensland, and New South Wales, of Pliocene and 

 Pleistocene age, especially a portion of a tibia from 

 Mount Gambier, of a femur and some tibiae from Norman- 

 ville, of a tibia from the Paroo River, and of a fragment 

 of a pelvis from the Canadian Gold Lead in New South 

 Wales, most of which had been referred by Owen and 

 Etheridge, junr., to the genus Dromornis. 



The generic name Genyornis is expressive of the great 

 size of the lower jaw, and a fuller description of this is, 

 we presume, reserved for a promised detailed memoir in 

 course of preparation. The present one treats mainly 

 of the limb bones, shoulder girdle and sternum, and the 

 most noteworthy facts recorded are the numerical 

 reduction of the phalanges of the outermost (fourth) digit 

 to four, and the great slenderness, indicative of re- 

 duction, of the innermost or second, which, for the 

 Ratitai, are exceptional features. These characters not- 

 withstanding, the authors, from a careful study of the 

 measurements of the long bones and particularly of all 

 that concerns the sternum, which is here for the first 

 time fully described, regard the Emeu as the nearest 

 living ally of this aberrant genus, and to the justice of 



i "Fossil Remains from Lake Callabonna." Part II. (i) Genyornis 

 Newtoni. (2) The Physical Features of Lake Callabonna. By E. C. 

 Stirling, F.R.S., and A. H. C. Zeitz, C.M.M.Z.S. (Mem. Royal Soc 

 S. Austr., vol. i. Part 2, pp. 41-80 and i.-xv., 6 photographic plates, 1900.) 



