Feb. 



ISSG.] 



- KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



129 



Society. AVitli an introduction from a Fellow, the 

 specimens can be examined between ten and five daily. 

 The library of geological books, of which an excellent 

 calalogue has been printed, includes about 30,000 

 volumes. 



LONDON DEALERS IN GEOLOGICAL SPECIMENS. 



Prof. Tennant, whose shop in the Strand, near King's 

 College, was so well-known a resort, has gone from among 

 us, bat Mr. Henson, at 277, Strand, may be considered to 

 have supplied his place. Mr. Henson's specialty is rare 

 and valuable minerals. To Mr. R. Gregory, of 88, Char- 

 lotte-street, Fitzroy-square, I have been indebted any 

 time this twenty years, not only for excellent and cheap 

 specimens, but for the freedom with which he has 

 permitted me to draw upon the rem.rkable practical 

 knowledge of rocks, minerals, and fossils of which he is 

 possessed. Then there is Mr. Bryce-Wright, of 90, 

 Great Russell-street, and Mr. Russell, 78, Newgate-street. 

 Any or all of these dealers can be relied on to furnish 

 typical and correctly-naiaed specimens of rocks, fossils, 

 or minerals at a moderate price — from sixpence to one 

 shilling each for ihe commoner varieties. 



The Migration of Abeam.— A paper on " Historifcal Evidences 

 of the Migration of Abram" was read on Monday night by Mr. 

 W. St. Chad Boscawen at a nieeting of the Victoria Philosophical 

 Institute, ia the hall o£ the Society of Arts, London. Mr. Boscawen 

 reminded his hearers that only of late had the grave-mounds of 

 Chaldea yielded the monuments and inscriptions which the de- 

 cipherer had reviviiied by his almost magic skill, forcing them to 

 become witnesses in the cause of truth (hear, hear). This series 

 of historic records extended over twenty-five centuries in almost 

 unbroken sequence before the Christian era. Having minutely 

 examined the testimony of the monuments with reference to the 

 Hebrew account of the migration of Abram, Mr. Boscawen said 

 there were inscriptions to prove the existence of a Semitic popu- 

 lation in the city of t'r of the Chaldees as early as 3750 B.C. — 

 a people who spoke a language closely akin to Hebrew, and bore 

 names similar to those of the early Hebrew patriarchs. In religion, 

 though not monotheists, they certainly bad a purer creed than 

 that of their Turanian-Akadian fellow-countrymen ; and at the 

 head of their pantheon was the supreme god Ilu or El, 

 whose name, like that of El and Jehovah, entered into the 

 composition of many personal names. In the year 22S0 B.C. 

 Chaldea was invaded by the Elamites, who established a dynasty 

 of their kings. The fall of this dynasty, caused by the defeat of 

 Kndur-Mabug and Eriaku or Arioch by Khammurabi in 2120 B.C., 

 seemed to synchronise very well with the defeat of Chedorlaomer, 

 recorded in Genesis xiv. The migration of Abram must therefore 

 fall within this period of 160 years. The monuments showed that 

 at this time such an alliance of Mesopotamian kings as that 

 recorded in Genesis xiv. was most probable. The invasion of 

 Chaldea by the Elamites and the conquest of Syria by those kings 

 synchronised well with the date of the Hyksos invasion of Egypt— 

 the date when .ibram would have entered Egypt under the most 

 favourable cireumstances. The invasion of Chaldea and the 

 conquest of Ur, Erech, and Babylon by Elamites would press 

 more severely on the Semitic than on the non-Semitic population, 

 forcing them to migrate northward. The close religious affinity 

 between the worship of the temple at Ur and that at Harran 

 would render the migration of this people from one city ' to the 

 othsr most probable. AU these points taken together tended 

 to show that the record of the migration of Abram in Genesis 

 agreed perfectly with the Chaldean and Western-Asiatic 

 history revealed by the monuments (cheers). The chair- 

 man stated that Professor Sayce, who was in Egypt, had 

 sent a communication criticising Mr. Boscawens dates, but 

 evidently not disputing his facts. They might therefore 

 congratulate themselves upon his attitude, as everything that 

 proved the reliability of the Bible was most important (hear, 

 hear). Jlr. E. A. Budge agreed generally with Mr. Boscawen, that 

 the record in Genesis was proved to be correct. The I!ev. Dr, 

 Wright, M. Bertin, and other gentlemen also spoke. Several refe- 

 rences were made during the evening to the urgent need of exca- 

 vations in the great city mounds of Western Asia, especially in 

 ancient Kharran, and to the fact that English discovery had been 

 at a complete standstill for four years, in consequence of our 

 Government being unable to secure the necessary firman from the 

 Porte. 



OUR MAMMAL COUSINS,* 



HIS work is intended to meet a decided 

 want. It deals primarily with the 

 mammals in their relation to the earliest 

 a^es of animal life upon the earth. But 

 while it thus only relates to a limited 

 field, it presents an important general 

 lesson, as well taught thus by a typical 

 example, as it could be by studies ranging over ;•. wider 

 area. This is the truth, constantlj- overlooked by oppo- 

 nents of the doctrine of biological evolution, and often 

 overlooked by supporters (among whom are many who 

 have little knowledge of the rxtual nature of the theory 

 they support) — that the various races now present on 

 the face of the earth have certainly not descended 

 along lines of which living examples remain. Again 

 and again we see the mistake made of presenting as the 

 true course of descent for the more advanced races now 

 existing, a sort of traverse line athwart the various 

 less advanced races. It is as though an insect living 

 within the domain formed by a vast tree should trace 

 the history of some particular set of leaves 1 y regarding 

 them as dirictly related to another set of leaves in 

 a remote part of the tree, instead of tracing the develop- 

 ment of each set along the twigs, sprays, branchlets, 

 branches, bt>ngh.«, &c., to the parent stem, — though indeed 

 this parallel indicates but an infinitesimal part of the 

 complexity of the actital j.roblem. 



Professor Oscar Schmidt, whose " Doctrine of Descent 

 and Darvfinism " (in the same series as the present work) 

 is well and favourably known, deals in this volume with 

 the Mammals, and shows how vain have been the at- 

 tempts of naturalists in former times to bridge over the 

 gap separating the mr.mmali?^ from the other vertebrates 

 of the present day, and that the difiiculty is not at all or 

 but little removed by our present knowledge oi primaeval 

 times. He considers the various isolated forms within 

 the class of mammalit. Thus the horse and its relatives 

 are set by the side of the two-hoofed animsls ; but the 

 differentiation of the one-toed horse from the two-toed 

 oxen and stags remains comjiletely unexplained, while 

 the dentition of the horse separates it much more 

 strikingly from the ruminants than from other animals 

 which zoologists set much farther from the horse. Again 

 the so called many-hoofed animals present no tmit}- among 

 themselves, the class including genera which diii'er from 

 one another in structure, feet, and teeth, more than do 

 the members of orders not set far apart by the descriptive 

 biologist. 



Geographical differences still farther increase the 

 difficulty of arranging the various classes of mammals 

 as they exist at the present time. AVe find examples in 

 different continents not only of associated races, but of 

 races which are, in fact, one, wherein, nevertheless, diffe- 

 rences of detail may be recognised which are as marked 

 as those by which distinct genera are separated within 

 a limited area. Then we have difficulties higher than 

 those of mere classification, when we consider such a 

 problem as, for example, the existence of kindred races 

 of fresh-water fish in rivers between which there is now 

 no connection except by seas, in which, at present, these 

 races cannot live. We cannot possibly trace the descent 

 of a fresh-water fish in European rivers from a fish of 

 the same race in American rivers (or vice verm) ; yet of 

 their kinship, the scientific as distinguished from the 



* " The Mammalia in their Relation to Primseval Times. " By 

 Oscar Schmidt. Kegan Paul k Co., London. 



