22 
NAT OURE 
[WVov. 2, 1882 
His four volumes and maps were laid before the throne, and he was 
rewarded with an appointment in Yunnan. Around China he sees 
on all hands powerful and aggressive neighbours. To the ambi- | 
tious schemes of these powerful neighbours and the means of check- 
mating them he devotes many pages. He dreams even of con- 
quest, and suggests that by encouraging emigration to the 
southern seas, establishing consuls to look after the emigrants, 
opening schools to enlighten them in foreign science, and at the 
same time kee ing up the knowledge of their native language, 
the great islands of that region could be made to fall like ripe 
fruit into the lap of China. In the territorial acquisitions of 
other countries Mr. Huang finds three degrees of villainy, 
which he describes respectively as “‘stealthily beguiling,” en- 
croaching by degrees,” and finally ‘‘swallowing up.” Notwith- 
standing the offensive discrimination of these terms, he exhibits 
a high appreciation of English rule in India. In the latter 
country, he says, there are no idle officers ; each has his sphere, 
into which no other intrudes. The will of each high functionary 
is limited by his council. Salaries are sufficiently liberal to 
prevent extortion. All are animated by a regard for their own 
good name. The law is faithfully executed and public spirit 
prompts to efforts for the general good. He is struck by the 
magnificence of Calcutta and its great public works. On the 
subject of taxes, he says: ‘‘The ground is taxed, houses are 
taxed, shop-signs are taxed, all manner of beasts are taxed, all 
handicrafts are taxed, and even fire and water are taxed. There 
are other taxes more than I can mention ; yet you do not hear 
one murmuring word from the people. Why is this? It is 
owing to two causes: Firstly, they regard the humane Goyern- 
ment of the English as a great improvement on the oppressive 
cruelty of their native rulers: and secondly, they are aware 
that the revenue thus collected is expended for the good of the 
country—in making roads, founding schools, and so on.” The 
author is so impressed by the railway system of India that he 
is extravagant in his advocacy of something similar in China. He 
wants a railway from the north-western frontier of China 
proper into Ili, as the only means of retaining that province 
and Kashgaria. In reply to objections on the score of the 
enormous expense of this undertaking, he exclaims with true 
Chinese vanity: ‘‘ What other countries can do, China can do, 
as she is ten times richer, and a hnndred times more populous.” 
NOTICE OF SOME DISCOVERIES RECENTLY 
MADE IN CARBONIFEROUS VERTEBRATE 
PALA ONTOLOGY 
[NX the course of my work upon the carboniferous rocks of the 
neighbourhood of Edinburgh, I have succeeded in obtaining 
several specimens which throw some additional light upon the 
little known Selachians of the Paleozoic age. It was considered 
a great step in advance when Prof. Kner, in Germany, and Sir 
P. Egerton in England, proved that the spine of the tooth 
known as Diflodus, which occurs frequently in Carboniferous 
rocks, was the equally well-known Pleuracanthus, a geuns of not 
infrequent occurrence in the same beds. A very interesting 
slab from the ironstone of Burghdee, near Edinburgh, in the 
Carboniferous Limestone series, advances our knowledge another 
important stage. Upon it there are several teeth of the species 
Diplodus parvulus, Vraq., associated with cranial cartilage, and 
a spine which is certainly not /Vewracanthus, but is totally unlike 
it, and one which does not appear to have been ever described. 
Upon showing it to my friend, Dr. Traquair, he said it con- 
firmed an opinion at which he had long since arrived, that the 
Diplodus tooth would be found common to several genera of 
Selachian fishes. It certainly was a sivgular fact, and one 
which must have struck those paleontolovists who have most 
carefully examined the fish-faunas of particular beds and horizons, 
that the number of the species of spines usually exceed those of 
teeth. Another important conclusion may be drawn from this 
discovery, viz. that spines are of very little value in relation to 
the affinities of sharks. Nothing can be more different than 
the spine of /Vlewracanthus and that of Dipflodus parvulus, Traq. 
These conclusions are supported by another specimen in a 
nodule obtained from a much lower horizon, viz. on that of the 
Wardic Shales at Hailes Quarry, near Edinburgh. Here we 
have a //ybodont tooth associated with the spine known as 
Tristychius. The tooth, indeed, cannot he distinguished from 
LHybodus ; itis deeply furrowed as in many of the Mesozoic species, 
and has the two depressed lateral cusps, This form of tooth is 
very persistent, extending from the Lower Carboniferous to the 
Chalk. Germar was the first, I think, to point out the existence of 
a Hybodont tooth in rocks of Carboniferous age, but (though I 
have not yet carefully examined his figures and description) the 
spines appear to be different from those I find associated with 
the Hailes specimen, though they appear to me to be of the same 
general type. That a 7y7s/ychine spine, with its smooth surface 
| and strengly arcuate shape, should be associated with a Wydodvs 
tooth is certainly unexpected, and shows again the necessity ot 
caution in dealing with spines, for the Mesozoic spines associate- 
with Hybodns are very different from Z7istychius.  Hybodus 
and Diplodus are therefore generalised forms of teeth associated 
with spines known as 77ristychius, Pleuracanthus, with one unde- 
scribed genus, probably with many others. Messrs. Hancock 
and Atthey, to whom British science is indebted for some of 
the most important ichthyological observations made since 
Agassiz’ time suggested the possibility of C/ladodus being the 
tooth of Gyracanthus. I have seen nothing to confirm or refute 
this suggestion. They also referred certain small tooth-like 
bodies with success to the dermal skeleton of that genus. I have 
obtained a nodule from the Wardic shales, which has these in a 
remarkably good state of preservation in connection with a large 
fragment of the fin of that powerful shark. These dermal 
denticles are so closely approximated to each other that they 
form a dense covering, through which however appear distinctly 
traces of the skeleton of the fin. The occurrence of the genus 
at so low a horizon is of itself deserving of record, and in addi- 
tion to this fragment, I have found imperfectly preserved speci- 
of spines of the same genus at the same place. 
The remains of Labyrinthodonts are exceedingly scarce below 
the Burdichoun horizon. I am not aware of more than one having 
been discovered, and that proves to be Ophiderfeton, ora closely 
allied genus. This specimen was discovered in the Wardic 
shales, low down in the Calciferous sandstone series. The 
position of the Wardic shales in the Carboniferous series has 
not yet been exactly defined. Owing to the confused nature of 
the rocks, and the fact that they are so deeply covered with drift 
in a good deal of the Edinburgh area, it has not been found 
possible to settle quite clearly the relative position of the dif- 
ferent members of the Carboniferous series. Nevertheless the 
opinion appears to be universal that the shales along the shore 
between Seafield and Granton are very low in the Carboniferous 
system. All that I have seen confirms this conclusion. I was 
amused, indeed, to see them in an otherwise well got up map, 
lately published, coloured as the Millstone grit! Antiquated, 
surely! The fossils are generally identifiable with those which 
are everywhere found to underlie the marine limestones (in the 
Scotch beds, at any rate), and from all that the drift will let 
one see, there must be several thou ands of feet of such rocks 
with the Wardic and Granton beds near the base. This being 
so, the occurrence of this vertebrate {so low down is of interest 
and importance, and helps to confirm Prof. Fritsh’s view, arrived 
at in his case from anatomical considerations, that OpAzderpeton 
and its allies are the rocts of the Amphibian genetic tree. 
T. Stock 
A NUMERICAL ESTIMATE OF THE RIGIDITY 
OF THE EARTH? 
AxzouT fifteen years ago Sir William Thomson pointed out 
that, however it be constituted, the body of the earth must 
of necessity yield to the tidal forces due to the attraction of the 
sun and moon, and he aiscussed the rigidity of the earth on the 
hypothesis that it is an elastic body. 
If the solid earth were to yield as much as a perfect fluid to 
these forces, the tides in an ocean on its surface would necessarily 
be evanescent, and if the yielding be of smaller amount, but 
still sensible, there must be a sensible reduction in the height of 
the oceanic tides. 
Sir William Thomson appealed to the universal existence of 
oceanic tides of considerable height as a proof that the earth, as 
a whole, possesses a high degree of rigidity, and maintained that 
the previously received geological hypothesis of a fluid interior 
was untenable. At the same time he suggested that careful 
observation would afford a means of arriving at a numerical 
estimate of the average modulus of the rigidity of the earth’s 
mass as a whole. The semi-diurnal and diurnal tides present 
phenomena of such complexity, that it is quite beyond the power 
1 Paper read by G. H. Darwin, F.R.S., at the British Association South- 
ampton meeting. 
