May 1, 1897.] 



KNOWLEDGE. 



Ill 



Classification of Animals," and from that date till the 

 appearance of Wallace's " Geographical Distribution of 

 Animals," in 1876, this branch of the science was being 

 gradually evolved and perfected. Indeed, both on this and 

 the other side of the Atlantic this interesting and im- 

 portant study is still employing the energies of several 

 workers, although it would be obviously inappropriate to 

 say much in this place regarding the labours of living 

 writers. Evolution and geographical distribution may be 

 regarded as sister branches of biology, as neither could 

 exist without the other, and it is difficult to say which is 

 most indebted to its fellow. 



From the subject of the geographical distribution of 

 animals and plants there is a gradual and imperceptible 

 transition to the study of the changes in the relative 

 distribution of land and water which have taken place on 

 the surface of the globe during the later ages of its exis- 

 tence. And although this is in reality a geological rather 

 than a biological problem, it is one intimately connected 

 with the fauna of the ocean abysses. The interesting 

 results obtained by the dredging cruises of H.M. ships 

 Porcupine and Luihtnimj in the summers of 1868, 1869, and 

 1870, of which a popular account is given in Wyville 

 Thomson's "Depths of the Sea" (1873), led to the de- 

 spatch on December 21st, 1872, of H.M.S. Chdlenijer on 

 a lengthened dredging and exploring voyage, which was 

 brought to a successful termination on May 24th, 1876, 

 on the evening of which day the corvette anchored at 

 Spithead. The results of this cruise, which were described 

 in a popular manner by Moseley in 1879, revolutionized 

 previous ideas as to the nature of the ocean-bed and the 

 fauna of its abyssal depths, while a vast store of informa- 

 tion was acquired with regard to pelagic creatures of all 

 kinds. During the voyage the art of deep-sea dredging 

 and sounding was brought nearly to its present perfection. 

 This and other cruises made during the reign have brought 

 to our knowledge the luminous fishes inhabiting the dark 

 ocean abysses, and they have also revealed the fact that 

 creatures like the sea-lilies (Crinoidca), long supposed to 

 be practically extinct, are still abundant at suitable depths 

 in the ocean. The publication of the scientific results of 

 the Challenijer'f: cruise commenced in 1880, and has only 

 recently been completed ; and if we had no other works to 

 boast of, these alone would form a glorious biological 

 monument for any reign. Nor have other countries been 

 behindhand in similar undertakings ; and among French 

 works, H. Filhol's account of the cruise of the Tmvailleur 

 and Talisman, published under the title of La ]'ie au Fond 

 des Mers, is one of the most fascinating books it has been 

 our good fortune to read. 



Deep-sea dredging is closely connected with the establish- 

 ment of marine biological stations, and the preservation 

 and breeding of food -fishes and oyster-beds. These two 

 are exclusively a product of the reign, and their importance 

 from both a biological and an economical point of view 

 can scarcely be overrated. Frank liuckland in the first 

 place, and Huxley in the second, have, in this department, 

 well shown how men of the highest scientific attainments 

 can combine the pursuit of their own particular studies 

 with others yielding untold advantage to our fisheries. 



An equally close connection exists between deep-sea 

 dredging and the study of the growth of coral islands 

 and coral reefs ; a subject entering upon the domain of 

 both zoology and geology. This, too, is a subject whose 

 development has taken place during the Victorian era, 

 Darwin's well-known volume having appeared in 1851, 

 while Dana's " Corals and Coral Islands " was published in 

 1875. That the last word has not been said in regard 

 to the growth of coral islands is proved by the recent 



partially unsuccessful boring expedition to the Barrier 

 Reef of Australia, under the superintendence of Prof. 

 SoUas. To the older geologists it would, doubtless, come 

 as a severe shock to learn that our massive Pala30zoic and 

 Mesozoic limestones are, to a great extent, merely ancient 

 coral reefs ; yet this is only one of the minor discoveries 

 connected with the biology of the reign. 



To attempt to give any account of the animals dis- 

 covered since Her Majesty ascended her throne would 

 obviously be impossible here. Among some of the most 

 remarkable are, however, the gorilla, the potamogale, the 

 water-chevrotain {Dorcathcriiim), the parti-coloured bear 

 [A\luropiis), the Australian lung-fish (Cei-atodiis), and 

 Peripatus, which looks so like a near relative of the 

 primitive stock of all arthropods. The " dark corners" 

 of the earth have been explored and opened up, and the 

 fauna of Tibet and other parts of Central Asia, of a 

 large portion of Africa, of New Guinea, of Central 

 Australia, and of many oceanic islands, as well as the 

 interior of Borneo and Celebes, has been revealed and 

 described. The ornithology of South America has received 

 an especial attention during the reign ; while the mag- 

 nificent Bioloijia Ct'titrali Americana is making known to 

 US the entire fauna and flora of the central districts of 

 the New World. In the classification and morphology of 

 fishes, as also in our knowledge of whales and other marine 

 mammals, great advances have been made ; and even books 

 as apparently ancient as Beale's " Natural History of the 

 Sperm Whale" (1839) have been published during the reign. 



In embryology and physiology the strides have been 

 enormous, although most of the discoveries in these 

 departments are of too abstruse a nature to be even 

 mentioned here. Von Baer's great work upon the develop- 

 ment of animals was indeed completed in the year in 

 which Her Majesty ascended the throne ; but the whole of 

 Frank Balfour's investigations and works on this subject 

 are a comparatively late product of the era, his " Develop- 

 ment of Elasmobranch Fishes " having appeared in 1878. 



Although Cuvier had long previously described the fossil 

 mammals of the gypsum quarries of Montmartre, while a 

 considerable amount of work had already been done on 

 the remains of those from the French and German 

 Tertiaries, most other extinct Tertiary land faunas have 

 been made known since 1887. And what an important 

 part the discovery and description of these faunas and 

 floras have played in regard to our ideas of the evolution 

 of living beings, and also in respect to geographical distri- 

 bution, needs no telling here. Falconer and Cautley's 

 Fauna Antiiiua Sivalcnsis, in which are depicted the extinct 

 mammalian remains from the Siwalik Hills of Northern 

 India, seems to most of us a work of very ancient time ; 

 nevertheless, the first part did not appear till 1845, while 

 the last was published in 1849. Gaudry's description 

 of the fossil animals of Attica only dates from 1862, 

 while the discoveries of the extinct mammalian faunas 

 of Hungary, Persia, China, and Samos are still more 

 modern events. Within the last twenty years the working 

 of the phosphorites of Central France for economical pur- 

 poses, has revealed the existence of a numerous Oligocene 

 laud fauna with which we were previously only very im- 

 perfectly acquainted. More important than all are the 

 palffiontological discoveries which have taken place late in 

 the reign in the Mesozoic and Tertiary deposits of the 

 United States. These have revolutionized many pre- 

 conceived ideas, and have shown that for the future the 

 most important advances in the structure and history of 

 the higher vertebrates of past epochs must come from the 

 other side of the Atlantic. Not only have entirely new 

 groups of mammals, such as the horned Dinoceras and 



