70 



NATURE 



\May 23, 1872 



Prof. Corfield will commence a course of twelve lectures 

 on Hygiene and Public Health at University College, London, 

 on Tuesday next, at 12 o'clock. 



At the last exliibition of the Royal Horticultural Society an 

 Interesting feature was introduced in the sliape of prizes offered for 

 the best dinner-table decorations. The competing tables were 

 laid out in two tents in the gardens, and were an object of great 

 attraction. Many of them were remarkable for the taste dis- 

 played in the arrragements. 



A FUND was started some time ago to promote the investiga- 

 tion of the Wealden formation of Sussex, especially with re . 

 ference to the question of the supposed underlying coal strat.i. 

 Large subscriptions have already been received for this purpose ; 

 the Duke of Devonshire has promised 250/., and Lord Lecon- 

 field 100/. It is believed by many geologists that coal in large 

 quantities may occur in strata beneath some of tlie longitudinal 

 folds of the Wealden denudation, and form a continuation of 

 the Belgian coal beds. 



The Ethnological Collection of the Oxford Museum has 

 lately been enriched by the presentation to it of some North 

 Australian spears, by Captain Halpin, of the Great Easlcrii. 

 Captain Halpin, in his capacity as chief of the Expedition which 

 laid the cable to Australia last year, visited Port Darwin, and 

 there obtained these weapons. (Jne of the spears has a stone 

 head. The stone of which it is formed is a sort of shale. The 

 head is large, very sharp, and of the unground type. The Ox- 

 ford Ethnological series is, under the hands of Prof. RoUeston, 

 becoming a very valuable and complete one indeed, and those 

 who are in possess'on of authentic crania or weapons of interest 

 from an ethr.okgic.al view, cannot do better than contribute to it. 

 Canon GrcenweU has lately presented the whole of his valuable 

 collection. 



The American Naturalist is responsible for the following stoiy, 

 which we could hardly have credited except on such authority : — 

 "CentialPark Museum. — Destruction of Mr. Hawkins' Restora- 

 tions.- — A Jiiiics reporter called yesterday on Mr. B. Waterhouse 

 Hawkins in order to ascertain the truth of the allegations made 

 in a communication which appeared in yesterday's Tiiues in refer- 

 ence to the destruction of his restorations in the Central Park 

 Museum. Mr. Hawkins stated that all he had done during 

 twenty-one months to restore the skeletons of the extinct animals 

 of America (of the Iladrosattrus, and the otlier gigantic animal, 

 which was tliirty-nine feet long), was destroyed by order of Mr. 

 Henry Hilton, on the 3rd of May last, with sledge-hammer, and 

 carted away to Mount St. Vincent, where the remains were buried 

 several feet below the surface. The preparatory sketches of other 

 animals, including a mammoth and a mastodon, and the moulds 

 and sketch models, were destroyed. Mr. Hilton did this, said Mr- 

 Hawkins, out of ignorance, just as he had a coat of white paint 

 put on the skeleton of a whale which Mr. Peter Cooper had pre- 

 sented to the Museum, and just as he had a bronze statue painted 

 white. Mr. Hilton told the celebrated naturalist who had come 

 from England to undertake the work, that he should not bother 

 himself with 'dead animals,' that there was plenty to do among 

 the living. When tlie skeletons were dug up again, by 

 order of Col. Stebbins, they were found broken in thousands 

 of pieces. Prof. Henry, of the Smithsonian Institution, when he 

 heard of this piece of barbarism, would not believe it. ' Why,' 

 he exclaimed, ' I ^^•ould have paid them a good price for it.' Mr. 

 Hilton, however, preferred to destroy the work of the naturalist 

 which had cost the City at least twelve thousand dollars." The 

 proceeding appears to have met with universal reprobation from 

 the Americans. The Naturalist refers by way of contrast to the 

 fecord in our columns of the preservation of the great megalithic 



monument at Avebury, through the public spirit of Sir John 

 Lubbock. 



The poorest flora in the world is probably that of the island 

 of St. Paul in the Indian Ocean, an account of which appears 

 in the " Verhandlungen der k. k. zoologisch-botanischen Gesell- 

 schaft in Wien " for 1871. It consists, as far as flowering 

 plants are concerned, of six grasses, a sedge, a Plantago, and a 

 Sagiita. Of these the two latter only are undescribed species, 

 and all the remainder have probably been introduced. 



The Acclimatisation Society of Auckland, New Zealand, has 

 printed its fifth Annual Report. The efforts of the Society during 

 the preceding year have been chielly devoted to the introduction 

 of insectivorous birds from England and .\ustralia, and of fresh- 

 water fish. In both these respects the Society has met with 

 greater success than in previous years, and appears to be per- 

 forming work of great service to the colony. The gardens of 

 the .Society have also been considerably enlarged. 



Seven parts are now published of the new edition of Griffith 

 and Henfrey's Micrographic Dictionary, edited by Dr. Griffith, 

 the Rev. M. J. Berkeley, and Prof. T. Rupert Jones, of which 

 we have already noticed the issue of the first number. They 

 bring down the articles as far as ConJ'ervoidi\c. 



Dr. Charles C. Abbott has reprinted his elaborate and 

 profusely-illustrated article on the "Stone Age of New Jersey," 

 which has been running through several numbers of the Atiierican 



Naturalist, 



The Danish war steamer Fvlla has been ordered by the 

 Danish Government to take soundings and survey landing-places 

 for the submarine telegraph line intended to connect Scotland 

 with Canada lid the Faroe Islands. It is to be hoped that these 

 .soundings will be accompanied by dredgings, and that they will 

 be carefully made, as much of Dr. Carpenter's early researches 

 in deep-sea dredging, which excited so much attention at the 

 time and since, were made in the neighbourhood of the Faroe 

 Islands. 



The earthquake in California on March 26 appears to have 

 been felt over a very large area, and in some places to have been 

 very severe. At Leone Pine, in the country north of the Mojane 

 river, twenty-three people were killed, and thirty wounded ; 

 fifty large houses were destroyed, and the town is in ruins. 

 Similarly Camp Independence, Inigo county, is in complete 

 luins, the earthquake having been most severe in that region. 

 Large fissures are reported, miles in length, and 50 to 200 feet 

 wide, and twenty feet deep, opened along the eastern base of the 

 Sierra Nevada, near Big Pine Camp. At other places in the 

 vicinity, the ground is heaved up in great ridges ; large springs 

 have stopped running, and others have broken out. Heavy 

 snow slides have occurred in the Sierras, and large rocks rolled 

 down the mountain side, blocking up the road. The sliocks 

 lasted at intervals from 2. 20 to 6.30 A.M. Many people at Camp 

 Independence were hurt, but none were killed. The shock was 

 probably the heaviest south-eastward towards Arizona, in the 

 desert country which has hardly any population. 



The April number of the American Journal of Science con- 

 tains an account by Prof. Marsh, the indefatigable palceontolo- 

 gist, of his discovery of a new species of Hadrosaurus, a giant 

 lizard ; one of which, found in New Jersey, from its enormous 

 size, constitutes one of the chief attractions of the Academy of 

 Sciences of Philadelphia, where it is deposited. The present 

 animal is scarcely one-third the size of the New Jersey specimen. 

 It was discovered near the Smoky Hill River, in Western 

 Kansas, and is named Hadrosaurus agilis. 



