262 NATURE 
| Fuly 28, 1870 
town. On Wednesday the section met at the usual time, and the 
Abbey was subsequently visited. To-day (Thursday) there are 
excursions to Ashby de-la-Zouch, Tutbury, Tamworth, and 
Polesworth, and a conversazione in the evening. The future 
work is as follows :—Friday—Meeting of members for business ; 
meetings of sections ; excursion to Kirby Muxloe Castle ; conwer- 
sasione in the eyening. Saturday—Excursion to Groby; 
Bradgate Park, Ulverscroft Priory, Woodhouse Chapel, 
Beaumanor Park, and Grace Dieu. Monday—Meetings of 
excursion to Melton Mowbray and Oakham ; 
the evening. Tuesday—Meetings of sections ; 
sections ; con- 
wersastone in 
general concluding meeting. 
PROFESSOR HELMHOLTZ will take up his new duties at 
Berlin in April, 1871. 
Tur Geological Survey of India, supported by the Goyein- 
ment, have recently issued the completing part of the sixth volume 
of its *‘ Memoirs,” It contains a valuable paper by Mr. W. T, 
Blanford on the geology of the Taptee and Lower Nerbudda 
yalleys in Western India, illustrated by maps, plates, and 
numerous woodcuts, Mr. Blanford describes the geology and 
physical geography of the country generally, giving first an 
account of the results obtained by previous observers, with 
references to their works, followed by more precise details of 
later observations, thereby furnishing an exceedingly valuable 
monograph. The view of a dyke at Koteda, 
exhibiting the trap in curved columnar masses, is a charming 
little picture. Mr. A. B. Wynne gives a description of some 
frog-beds exposed in Bombay Island in 1867. Numerous well- 
preseryed skeletons of Oxyglossus pusillus (Rana pusillarius) 
were found associated with ribbed fragments of plants, and large, 
shapeless, structureless pieces of carbonised vegetable organisms, 
The skeletons were found in all kinds of postures : the hind legs 
extended, contracted, or twisted. Dr. .Ferdinand 
Stoliezka, the paleeontologist of the survey, gives a brief sketch 
of the osteology of the frogs discovered, with engravings of 
several specimens. The same gentleman, in two new parts of 
the ‘f Paleontologia Indica,” just issued, has given engravings 
and descriptions of some of the Gasteropoda of the Cretaceous 
rocks of southern India. This work, published at the expense 
of the Indian Government, is intended to comprise figures and 
descriptions of the organic remains found during the progress of 
the survey. The new parts complete the second volume of the 
Cretaceous fauna of India, with useful tables and an index of 
species. Mr. Thomas Oldham, the indefatigable superintendent 
of the survey, has commenced the publication of ‘‘ Records”’ of 
the proceedings of the officers in various parts of India, of which 
the first four numbers are before us, containing much interest- 
ng geological information. 
near Goojree, 
crossed, 
DEATH is hard on the medical profession just now. James 
Copland, M.D., F.R.S., died on the 17th inst., at the age of 
seventy-eight, From an obituary notice in the British Medical 
Journal, we learn that his principal claim to fame rests mainly 
on his performance of that gigantic work ‘The Medical Dic- 
tionary ”—which he undertock, and carried to completion after a 
labour of thirty years. On finishing this work, he wrote in the 
preface that his labours, which had been incessant for many years, 
had been persisted in under circumstances and contingencies 
which few could have endured. Every line in it was written by 
his own hand, and all the proofs were carefully read and cor- 
rected by himself. The Dictionary is a cyclopzdie sésxmé of 
all that has been written on the various subjects treated in it, 
from the earliest days of medicine down to modern times, with 
copious references to all the sources of information ; and with 
all this are given the opinions which the author’s observation 
and experience had led him to form, That one man should haye 
undertaken and, labouring single-handed or nearly so, completed 
such a work, is indeed a remarkable fact. The work is a monu- 
ment of calm energy and self-reliance, such as is but rarely 
met with. 
NavuRAL phenomena must be regarded by the engineer in 
the tropics. Here the boring worm will teach him salutary 
caution, In the East we have seen a railway train stopped on 
an ineline by locusts. The locusts have a fancy for sitting on 
the rails, and when the engine-wheel touches them they are 
crushed, leaving the rails so oily that the engine slips. On 
one line, in the locust season, sand-boxes are used with the 
locomotive. Oysters are, however, a newly recorded enemy 
to the engineer. Some gourmand suggested the harbour of 
Tuticorin as a suitable place for oyster beds, and the Madras 
Goyernment, doubtless appreciative of the value of oysters 
either for eating or for pearls, turned a deaf ear to remonstranee. 
Time has, however, justified the remonstrants, for, though the 
projectors haye got an abundant supply of oysters, the harbour of 
Tuticorin is now said to be in danger of total destruction by 
the growth of the oyster beds, and the attention of the Goyern- 
ment is seriously directed to cross the love of the oysters. The 
Madras coast is so ill-proyided that harbours are more valuable 
than oysters, and a campaign will be directed against the latter, 
although the revenue authorities hanker after the taxes on the 
pearl fishery. 
AN experiment, performed by M, J, M, Philipeaux, in which 
he transplanted one of the incisor teeth of a guinea-pig into the 
comb of a cock, has been referred to by M. P, Bert in his 
** Thesis on Animal Grafting,” but M, Philipeaux thought that 
the examination of the specimen with an account of the experi- 
ment would be interesting to the members of the Society of 
Biology. and he accordingly submitted it to their inspection, with 
the following observations :—On January 13, 1853, M. Phili- 
peaux, after having made an incision into the head of a young 
cock, introduced into it the incisor tooth of a guinea-pig that had 
been born a few hours previously, The tooth, very complete 
: 
4 
and furnished with its bulb, was so placed that the bulb was ak 
the bottom of the wound and the extremity of the tooth turned 
outwards. On the day the experiment was made the tooth was 
eight millimetres long and two millimetres thick. The cock was 
killed ten months after the operation. The tooth, which, on the 
day of operation, was entirely concealed and covered in the 
wound, projected, when the animal was killed, five millimetres 
from the surface. M. Philipeaux had dissected out in the speci- 
men the whole length of the tooth, and found that it measured 
no less than thirteen millimetres; it had consequently grawn 
five millimetres, The interest of this experiment, which in other 
respects resembles those of Hunter and Sir A. Cooper, in which 
the spur of the cock was transplanted to the comb, consists in 
the circumstance that here a graft was accomplished in one 
animal of a part belonging to another, belonging to an entirely 
different zoological class, 
WE are sorry to announce the death of Von Graefe, the most 
distinguished oculist in Europe. Iridectomy, the contribution to 
ophthalmic surgery with which his name is chiefly associated, 
was but one out of a multitude of operations which made his 
clinique at Berlin the resort of persons labouring under eye- 
diseases from all parts of the world. : 
WE have received from the Goyernment of Victoria a most 
valuable collection of the Mineral Statistics of that Colony. 
Among the appendices isan important illustrated paper by Mr. 
Ulrich, F.G.S., entitled ‘Contributions to the Mineralogy of 
Victoria.” We shall return, if space permits, to this interesting 
State paper. In the meantime, we may state that the total 
value of the gold raised in the Colony to the end of last year 
