July 28, 1892J 



NATURE 



^95 



weather. Wind from N.W. to S. and back again, from a light 

 breeze to a moderate gale, barometer never rising higher than 

 29 '90 in., or falling below 29 '66 in. 



The Cause of the Great Fire at St. John's. 



A FEW days ago you inserted a letter calling attention to the 

 lai^e number of fatal accidents occurring every year caused by the 

 upsetting of paraffin lamps, the great majority of which could 

 easily be prevented if the use of automatic extinguishers were 

 made compulsory. 



Now we are startled by the report of the huge conflagration 

 at St. John's, which, in addition to having caused terrible and 

 widespread suffering, has resulted in the loss of a large amount 

 of property, valued at many millions of dollars. 



Amongst the principal sufferers by this great fire are some of 

 the leading English insurance companies, and various estimates 

 have been published of the amounts which they will lose by this 

 great fire. The Policy Holder, an insurance journal, in its last 

 issue, mentions the following figures : — 



,,u • £. ' £. 



Phcenix 120,000 to 140,000 



Royal 8o,coo to 100,000 



Liverpool, London, and Globe 50,000 to 70,000 



London and Lancashire ... 50,000 to 60,000 



Commercial Union 40,000 to 50,000 



North British and Mercantile 50,000 to 60,000 



Northern 40,000 to 50,000 



Manchester 8,000 to 11,000 



Lancashire 5,000 to 7,000 



Norwich Union ... ... 7,000 to 10,000 



Also the "General," said to be ;^3o,ooo, and the "Lion" 

 for a comparatively large sum, making in the aggregate a loss for 

 English insurance companies alone of over ;^5oo,ooo sterling. 



The same journal explains how this great fire was brought 

 about : — 



"It is worthy of note that, like the Chicago fire, this con- 

 flagration was caused by the upsetting of an oil lamp in a stable. 

 Fire business was already this yeargoing badly enough, and there 

 now seems little reason to doubt that to the companies as a 

 whole 1892 will prove a disastrous year and a dead loss." 



The Mayor of Manchester (Alderman Bosdin Leech), in pre- 

 siding yesterday at a meeting of citizens called for the purpose 

 of raising a fund in aid of the sufferers by this great catastrophe, 

 slated— 



" Since the fire of forty or fifty years ago many substantial 

 public and private buildings had been erected, all of which have 

 been destroyed. On one side, at any rate, a thriving town had 

 been reduced to aheap of ashes, and about 10,000 people had 

 been rendered homeless, and damage had been done to the extent 

 of about 2,500,000 dollars. With such an event coming sud- 

 denly upon them, they could imagine how the people were 

 prostrated. The heart of the people was completely crushed. 

 A great many of the .sufferers were of the poorest class, and they 

 were almost powerless to help themselves. They were without 

 food, except such as had been supplied to them through the kind- 

 ness of their neighbours ; they were without clothes, for all their 

 clothes had been destroyed ; and, unfortunately, the working 

 people of the community had been almost entirely bereft of the 

 tools and implements with which they were in the habit of earn- 

 ing their daily bread." 



It is indeed very sad to think that this terrible calamity might 

 have been avoided had the oil lamp which was the cause of all 

 this mischief been fitted with a simple application of science in 

 the shape of a simple automatic extinguisher. 



July ao. Humanity. 



THE WASHINGTON COLLECTION OF 

 FOSSIL VERTEBRATES. 



"VITE are pleased to learn from a transatlantic contem- 

 ^ * porary that the enormous collections of vertebrate 

 remains, obtained under the superintendence of Prof. 

 O. C. Marsh from the Tertiary and Secondary strata 

 of the north-western United States, are about to be 



transferred to the National Museum at Washington, 

 where they will eventually be properly arranged, and 

 exhibited to the public. For the last nine years, as we 

 are informed, the United States Government has voted 

 funds for the collection and preservation of these 

 wonderful remains, descriptions of which have been from 

 time to time presented to the scientific world with a 

 wealth of illustration which cannot but render European 

 palaeontologists somewhat envious. 



Hitherto the whole of this collection (together with 



Prof. Marsh's private collection) has been stored in the 



j palaeontological department of the unfinished Peabody 



Museum, at Yale College, New Haven, Conn. ; where 



want of space has totally prohibited its proper e.xhibition. 



Indeed, those who have had the opportunity of inspecting 



\ this unrivalled series inform us that the specimens are so 



I crowded together— the smaller ones in tier upon tier of 



; trays, and the larger ones on the floors and in every 



available corner — that it has hitherto been quite im- 



; possible to form any adequate judgment as to the extent 



i and importance of the collection. It is, however, satis- 



j factory to learn that the whole series has been carefully 



i labelled and registered, so that the locality and date of 



acquisition of every individual bone are fully recorded. 



To prepare such an enormous collection for transit by 

 rail is a work demanding both extreme care and a con- 

 siderable amount of time ; while the Museum space re- 

 quired for the exhibition of entire skeletons of the bulk of 

 those of the Jurassic and Cretaceous Dinosaurs must be 

 proportionately extensive. We are informed, indeed, that 

 if the whole collection were transferred to Washington at 

 the present time it would occupy fully one-half of the 

 buildings of the National Museum. Accordingly, only a 

 portion of it is to be immediately transported ; while the 

 remainder is to wait until Congress has provided suitable 

 quarters for its reception. It is to be hoped that the 

 moiety now to be transferred will include a representa- 

 tive selection from the entire series, so that palaeonto- 

 logists will have an opportunity of seeing more or less 

 nearly entire skeletons, not only of the Dinosaurs and 

 other huge Saurians of the Mesozoic, but likewise those 

 of the equally wonderful Tertiary mammals. We may 

 also venture to express the hope that the United States 

 Government will before long see its way to enriching 

 European Museums with some of their duplicate speci- 

 mens, of which there must be a large number for 

 disposal. 



With a wise liberality, the Government of the United 

 States appears to have made a regular business of the 

 collection of these fossils, under the able direction of 

 Prof. Marsh ; this business being conducted much after 

 the manner of any other mining enterprise. One of the 

 favourite hunting-grounds is the region lying between 

 the " Rockies " and the Wasatch Mountains ; and the 

 accounts of the richness of some of these deposits in 

 vertebrate remains is absolutely marvellous. Thus Prof. 

 Marsh is reported to know of one small valley where 

 I bones of Mosasaurians are in such profusion that in pass- 

 ing through it he observed at one time no less than six 

 i entire skeletons of these monstrous reptiles, each ave- 

 i raging some 80 feet in length. At such a rate of dis- 

 I covery it is no wonder that Museum accommodation cannot 

 I be procured fast enough. The care taken to prevent 

 j other fossil-hunters from discovering the more productive 

 localities afifords rather amusing reading ; but, under the 

 I circumstances, it is, perhaps, natural. 

 I Whenever a likely-looking bone or skeleton is seen 

 projecting from a rocky cliff, skilled workmen are at once 

 set to work on its extraction ; a single specimen some- 

 times leading to the discovery of a regular golgotha 

 of remains. The wonderfully perfect condition of some 

 of these fossils, and the rapidity with which the carcasses 

 of their former owners must have been entombed in sand 



NO. I I 87, VOL. 46] 



