April 1 8, 1872] 



NATURE 



489 



animal's ' cephalo thorax ' is so remarkable that ' the function 

 of chewing is devolved upon the legs.' We only advise our 

 friends who may be intensely anxious about these points to consult 

 his letter in cxtenso." Is the author of " What is a Joule ? " the 

 special scientific correspondent of all the daily papers ? 



We learn from the yournal of the Society of Arts that King 

 Vic'or Emmanuel has presented to the Geological Museum of 

 llie University of Rome a collection of Peruvian antiquities — ■ 

 silver vases, curious musical instruments, a coloured garment 

 made from the bark of trees, and arrows and lances. The 

 articles were discovered in a guano bed, and are antiques. The 

 ilancei are notched, ornamented with feathers, and have wooden 

 1 heads, showing that they were made before iron was used. 



A REPORT of the meeting ofdelegatesof the French departme n- 

 I tal learned societies, held on the 4th inst. , under the presidency of 



M. Jule5 Simon, is given in Les Momies. The following medals 

 iwere awarded : — Gold : to Grenier, of Besancon, botanical re- 

 isearches ; Grandidier, scientific travels in Madagascar ; Houzeau, 

 }of Rouen, researches in ozone. Silver : to Boussinesq, of Gap, 

 Imathematicil mechanics; Tourdes, of Strasbourg, legal medicine; 

 IFaivre, of Lyons, vegetable physiology ; Fromontel, of Gray, 

 , palaeontology ; Reboul, of Besanijon, chemistry; Cailletet, of 

 IChatillon-sur-Seine, agricultural and industrial chemistry; 



Mazure, of Bar-le-Duc, agriculture ; Chautard, of Nancy, 



meteorology; Coquelin, of Beauficel, meteorology; Crova, of 

 iMontp-llier, phy.-ics ; Raoult, of Grenoble, physics; Mussy, of 



Montlujon, a geological map of Ariege. 



Prof. Hayden has applied to the Congress of the United 

 States for a grant of 75,000 dols. for the purpose of continuing 

 for another year his most important geological survey of the 

 territories of the United States. He proposes making a thorough 

 series of astronomical, topographical, meteorological, geological, 

 and chemical observations, which cannot but be of the utmost 

 value in developing the material resources of the country. The 

 application has the cordial support of the Secretary of the Interior. 



SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE FROM 

 AMERICA* 



"jV/TAJOR POWELL has returned from the caiions of the 

 -'■'-'■ Colorado, having left his party in the field in charge of 

 Prof. Thompson. Since ihe party started in April last, it has 

 ]ias5ed through the canons of Green River and the canons 

 of the Colorido to the mouth of the I'aria, at the head of 

 Marble Cafion. Here the Major left his boats for the winter, 

 and he expects to return as soon as there is a favourable stage 

 of water, and embark for the second trip through the Grand 

 Canon. On the way down the party explored the region to the 

 west of the Green and Colorado, gracing the courses of the 

 larger sti earns emptying into the two great rivers to their sources in 

 ihe Wasatch Mountains and Sevier Plateau, and examined the 

 geology of the great mesas and cliffs. Early in the winter a 

 base line 47,000 feet in length was measured on a meridian 

 running south from Kanab, and the party is now engaged in ex- 

 tending a system of triangles along the cliffs and peaks among 

 lateral canons of the Colorado. During the past season the party 

 has discovered many more ruins of the communal houses once 

 occupied by the prehistoric people of that land. Many of these 

 housts stood upon the cliffs overhanging the caiions, and many 

 more are found in the valleys among the mountains to the west. 

 Stone implements, pottery, basket-ware, and other articles were 

 found buried in some of the ruins. The Major found a tribe of 

 Utes on the Kaibab Plateau who still make stone arrow-heads 

 and other stone implements, and he had an opportunity to ob- 

 serve the process of manufacturing such tools. — Mr. Joseph SuUi- 

 vant, of Columbus, Ohio, a well known naturalist, publishes an 

 account in the Oliio State Journal of the capture of the Bassan's 

 astiita, or ring-tailed cat of the Rio Grande region. It was 

 • Communicated by the Scientific Editor of Harper's Wecldy. 



taken in Fairfield County, Ohio, and was said to be accompanied 

 by a second specimen. The occurrence of this animal so far 

 north is very remarkable, and it may be a question whether it 

 had not been brought from Mexico or California, and escantd 

 from confinement. It is an animal very much sought after as a 

 pet, being clean in its habits, and readily becoming very tame 

 and affectionate ; indeed, it would seem to be quite a desirable 

 animal to domesticate and keep .about the house as a protection 

 against rats and mice. Some years ago a specimen of this same 

 animal was brought into the Smithsonian Institution, having 

 been captured in a hen-coop near the city. It was in capital 

 condition and in full fur ; but it had evidently escaped from cap- 

 tivity, as shown by the marks of the rubbing of a collar round 

 the neck. — The greatest depth between the west end of Cuba 

 and the coast of Yucatan found by the Coast Survey steamer 

 Bibti is 1,164 fathoms, as reported to Prof. Peirce by Captain 

 Robert Piatt, commanding the surveying vessel. The lowest 

 temperature observed is 39 '5° F. at the bottom ; surface, 81° ; 

 strongest current, two knots ; direction, north. Dr. Stimpson 

 reports the bottom from Cape San Antonio to Yucatan very 

 barren of animal life. A few rare shells were found. — In a 

 paper by Prof. Cope upon the Pythonoinorpha, or Python-like 

 fossil saurians of the cretaceous formation of Kansas, presented 

 to the Academy of the American Philosophical Society of 

 Philadelphia, he shows that America is the home of this group, 

 four species only having been described from Europe. Forty- 

 two North American species are already known, of which 

 fifteen belong to the Greensand formation of New Jersey, seven 

 to the Limestone region of Alabama, seventeen to the Chalk of 

 Kansas, and three to other localities. Of the Kansas species six 

 are described as new by Prof Cope in the paper leferred to. — 

 A new fossil reptile, from the cretaceous strata of Kansas, has 

 just been described by Prof Cope under the name of Cynocorcns 

 incisus. The peculiarity of this reptile consists in having the 

 articular faces of the vertebrre deeply excavated above and below, 

 so as to give them a transverse character. A new crocodilian 

 from the same region was also described, under the name of 

 Hyfosanrus-tOtl'hii. — Prof. Cope has shown, in a paper read to 

 the American Philosophical Society, that the greater number of 

 the fossil fishes of the cretaceous strata of Kansas belong to three 

 families, namely, the SanroJontidir, the rachyrliizodontidie, and 

 the Stratodontidu-. Of the first family four genera and ten species 

 are described in his paper, some of them (as those of the genus 

 Port/tens) being among the most formidable of marine fishes. 

 Of the second family one genus and four species are introduced, 

 and three genera and seven species of the third. The Stratodics, 

 a genus of the Stratodontidu, is provided with multitudes of 

 minute shovel-headed teeth. He finds a great resemblance be- 

 tween this Kansas fauna and that of the English Chalk, no less 

 than six of the eight Kansas genera having been found in the 

 latter. — Some of our readers may remember the letter wriittn 

 by Prof. Agassiz to Prof Peirce in December 1871, just before 

 starting upon the Hassler expedition, in which he announced 

 beforehand the general nature of the discoveries that he expected 

 to make. His ability to make these predictions with any degree 

 of certainty was much questioned by those who were not familiar 

 with the method of research in natural history, and of the almost 

 mathematical nature of the inferences to be derived from certain 

 given premises. We now have a second letter addressed to 

 Prof. Peirce, written at Pemambuco on Jan. 16, giving an ac- 

 count of experiences up to that date, which go far toward show- 

 ing that the Professor really knew of what he was speaking in 

 the first instance. Owing to various adverse influences, among 

 them the necessity of hastening with all possible despatch to reach 

 the Straits of Magellan at the earliest possible date, only four 

 hauls of the dredge were made in water of any great depth, those 

 being at depths of from 75 to :20 fathoms off Barbadoes. The 

 results of these were in the highest degree satisfactory, however, 

 "the extent and variety of material obtained being enough to 

 occupy," in the Professor's words, "half a dozen competent 

 zoologists for a whole year, if the specimens could be kept fresh 

 for that length of time." As anticipated by the Professor in the 

 letter referred to, the most interesting discoveries were certain 

 forms of animals, the allies of which had previously been known 

 in greater part or entirely as fossils of older formations. Among 

 these may be mentioned a remaikable sponge, a crinoid very 

 much like R/iizocrinus, a living ricnrotomaria, only three having 

 been previously known, although a great many are described as 

 fossil, &c. The crinoid, especially, is one of the very few living 

 representatives of what was originally the prevailing character of 



