a 
Fune 29, 1871] 
note that the comet of 1843, which had the least perihelion 
distance of any on record, actually grazed the solar atmosphere 
about three months before the appearance of the great sun-spot 
of the same year. The comet’s least distance from the sun was 
about 65,000 miles. Had it approached but little nearer, the 
resistance of the atmosphere would probably have brought its 
entire mass to the solar surface. Even at its actual distance it 
must have produced considerable atmospheric disturbance. But 
the recent discovery that a number of comets are associated with 
meteoric matter, travelling in nearly the same orbits, suggests 
the inquiry whether an enormous meteorite following in the 
comet’s train and having a somewhat less perihelion distance, 
may not have been precipitated upon the sun, thus producing 
the great disturbance observed so shortly after the comet’s peri- 
helion passage. 
DANIEL KirKWwoop 
Bloomington, Indiana 


SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 
OF the Siteungsberichte der naturwissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft 
Isis in Dresden we have received the concluding part of the 
volume for 1869, containing the proceedings of the Society for 
the months of October, November, and December. Its contents 
are as usual of the most varied character, and we shall therefore 
notice only a few of the more prominent papers. In the section 
for prehistoric archeology Dr. Mehwald gave an interesting 
notice of the researches made in Norway by a young student, 
M. Lerange, and further a general account of ancient mining 
and mining implements. Under the zoological section we find 
an abstract by Prof. Giinther of the faunistic results of recent 
deep-sea dredgings, founded of course chiefly upon the reports of 
MM. Pourtales and Agassiz, and our countrymen Messrs. 
Thomson, Jeffreys, and Carpenter. Under the head of mathe- 
matics, physics, and chemistry, is a paper by M. F. Otto on the 
calamine deposits in Upper Silesia, which would have better 
taken its place as a geologico-mineralogical paper. An im- 
portant botanical paper is the revision by Dr. L. Rabenhorst of 
the Cryptogamia collected in the East (especially in Fersia) by 
Prof. Haussknecht, in which the author catalogues a considerable 
number of Fungi and Lichens, and describes several new species 
and a new genus of the former class. The new genus Seivos- 
porium belongs to the Discomycetous family Phacidiacei, and 
the species S. oce//atum, which is figured, lives upon dry stems of 
Astragalus deinacanthus Boiss. “Che new species described 
belong to the genera Syzchytrium (2), Ustilago (2), Uromtyces 
(1), Puccinia (2), Cyathus (1), Montaguea (1, figured), Coprinus 
(1), Dothidea (1), Melogramma (1), and Rhytisma (1). 
THE fourth part of vol. xxii. of the Zeitschrift der deutschen 
geologischen Geselischaft (1870) contains several very important 
memoirs. The first of these is upon new and little known 
Crustacea from Solenhofen by Prof, Kunth, illustrated with two 
plates, and includes detailed descriptions of the Stomatopod 
Sculda pennata (Miinst), and of two new species of the same 
genus ; and among the Isopods of Uda rostrata (Miinst) form- 
ing the type of a new family Urdaide, Reckur punctatus (Miinst), 
also referred to the genus Urda, Narauda anoma/a (Miinst), and 
a species of 2ga.—From M. Lemberg we find a detailed and 
valuable chemico-geological investigation of some calcareous 
deposits of the Finnish Island of Kimito, in which the author 
not only describes the chemical composition and mechanical con- 
dition of the rocks under consideration, but discusses at consider- 
able length some interesting points connected with the general 
theories of rock-formation.—M. E. Kayser commences a series 
of studies of the Devonian of the district of the Rhine with a 
disquisition on the deposits of that age in the neighbourhood of 
Aix la Chapelle.—M. C. Weiss publishes an investigation of 
the Odontotopterides, in which he discusses the forms to be re- 
ferred to that group, and comes to the conclusion that the whole 
may be placed under the genus Odontopteris, which he divides 
into two sections, Nenofpterides and Callipterides, the former in- 
cluding as sub-genera, A/ixoneura, Xenopteris, and Lescuropteris ; 
and the latter Callipteris, Anotopteris, Cullipteridium. He gives 
a list of the species referable to each of these sub-genera, with 
remarks upon their characters and distribution ; several of them 
are described as new and figured, with others, in the three plates 
with which the memoir is illustrated. —These papers are followed 
NATURE 


173 
by some mineralogical notices by Prof. Rammelsberg treating of 
the meteoric stone of Chantonnay, of the sulphide of iron of 
meteoric irons, the composition of Lievrite, and the Anorthite 
rock of the Basto.—In the concluding paper of this number 
M. G. Berendt notices the occurrence of Cretaceous and Tertiary 
deposits near Grodno on the Niemen. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 
LoNDON 
Royal Society, June 15.—‘‘ On the Fossil Mammals of Aus- 
tralia. Part V. Genus WVofotherium Ow.” By Prof. R. Owen, 
F.R.S. The genus of large extinct Marsupial herbivores which 
forms the subject of the present paper, was founded on specimens 
transmitted (in 1842) to the author by the Surveyor-General of 
Australia, Sir Thomas Mitchell, C.B. They consisted of muti- 
lated fossil mandibles and teeth. Subsequent specimens con- 
firmed the distinction of Vototherium from Diprotodon, and more 
especially exemplified a singular and extreme modification of the 
cranium of the former genus. A detailed description is given of 
this part from specimens of portions of the skull in the British 
Museum, and from a cast and photographs of the entire cranium 
in the Australian Museum, Sydney, New South Wales. The 
descriptions of the mandible, and of the dentition in both upper 
and lower jaws, are taken from actual specimens in the British 
Museum, in the Museum of the Natural History at Worcester, 
and in the Museum at Adelaide, S. Australia, all of which have 
been confided to the author for this purpose. The results of 
comparisons of these fossils of Mototherium with the answerable 
parts in Diprotedon, Macropus, Phascolarctos, and Phascolomys, 
are detailed. 
Characters of three species, WVototherium Mitchelli, N. inerme, 
and iV. Victorze, are defined chiefly from modifications of the 
mandible and mandibular molars. A table of the localities 
where fossil Mofotherium has been found, with the dates of 
discovery, and the names of the finders or donors is appended. 
The paper is illustrated by subjects for nine quarto Plates. 
**QOn the Organisation of the Fossil Plants of the Coal-mea- 
sures. Part II. Lepidodendra and Sigillariz.” By Prof. 
W. C. Williamson, F.R.S. The Lepidodendron selaginvides 
described by Mr. Binney, and still more recently by Mr. 
Carruthers, is taken as the standard of comparison for 
numerous other forms. It consists of a central medullary 
axis composed of a combination of transversely barred vessels 
with similarly barred cells; the vessels are arranged with- 
out any special linear order. This tissue is closely surrounded 
by a second and narrower ring, also of barred vessels, but of 
smaller size, and arranged in vertical laminz which radiate from 
within outwards. These laminze are separated by short vertical 
piles of cells, believed to be medullary rays. In the transverse 
section the intersected mouths of the vessels form radiating lines, 
and the whole structure is regarded as an early type of an 
exogenous cylinder ; it is from this cylinder alone that the vascular 
bundles going to the leaves are given off. This woody zone is 
surrounded by a very thick cortical layer, which is parenchy- 
matous at its inner part, the ceils being without definite order, 
but externally they become prosenchymatous, and are arranged 
in radiating lines, which latter tendency is observed to manifest 
itself whenever the bark cells assume the prosenchymatous type. 
Outside the bark is an epidermal layer, separated from the rest 
of the bark bya thin bast-layer of prosenchymna, the cells of 
which are developed into a tubular and almost vascular form ; 
but the vessels are never barred, being essentially of the fibrous 
type. Externally to this bast-layer is a more superficial epiderm 
of parenchyma, supporting the bases of leaves, which consist of 
similar parenchymatous tissue. Tangential sections of these 
outer cortical tissues show that the so-called ‘‘decorticated ” 
specimens of Zefidodendra and of other allied plants are merely 
examples that have lost their epidermal layer, or had it converted 
into coal ; this layer, strengthened by the bast-tissue of its inner 
surface, having remained as a hollow cylinder, when all the more 
internal structures had been destroyed or removed. 
From this type the author proceeds upwards through a series 
of examples in which the vesse/s of the medullar become separated 
from its central ce//u/ar portions and retreat towards its periphery, 
forming an outer cylinder of medullary vessels, which are arranged 
without order, and enclose a defined cellular axis. At the same 
