May o, 1872] 



NA TURE 



95 



May 13. — "On a Mithod proposed by M. Fizeau for com- 

 paring a a milre d bonis wilh a iiutic ,) traits," by Prof. 

 Miller. — "On the Section exposed at Koslyii Hill Tit, 

 Ely," by Mr. Bonney. The author stated that there were 

 two hypotheses \vhi;h recounted for the singular collocation 

 of boulder clay, cretaceous rocks, and Kimmeridge clay in this 

 pit ; the one attiibuting it to a fault, the other to a boulder-like 

 mass of cretaceous beds which had been dropped there in the 

 Uoulder clay lime. lie exhiljited plans and sections, and pointed 

 out that the faulting would be of such a singular and exceptional 

 kind that this hypothesis appeared to him in the highest degree 

 improbable. The choice renained between regarding the cre- 

 taceous beds as brought tii by an ice-raft, or the result of a slip 

 fro.n beds subsecpiently icicoved by denudation, and on the 

 whole he prefcrrtd thcfonr.er of these. 



Ediniiurgh 

 ' Royal Society of Edinburgh, .May 20. — Prof. Sir Robert 

 Clirisli'on, Bart., president, in the chair. — The Keith Prize for 

 tlie Biennial period ending .May 1871 having been awarded by 

 the Council to Prof. James Clerli Ma.vwell for his paper " On 

 Figures^ Frames, and Diagrams of Forces," which has been 

 pub]i.shSd in ihe Transactions, the medal was delivered to him 

 by the President at the commencement of the meeting. — The 

 Neill Prize for the Triennial period ending 1871 has been 

 awarded by the Council to (Prof. Turner for his papers " On 

 the Great Finner Whale," and "On the Gravid Uterus and 

 the Arrangement of the Foetal Membranes in the Cetacea," 

 which have been published in the Transactions. — The fol- 

 lowing communications were read: — "Some Helps to the 

 Study of Scoto-Celt;c Philology," by the Hon. Lord 

 Weaves, V'.P. — "Some Observations on the Dentition of 

 the Narwhal {JMoitodoii nionoicros)" by Prof. Turner. — 

 "On the Occurrence of Z^'f/i/wj cti7'iiostns, got from Hillswick, 

 Shetland, in the Shetland Sess, and a comparison of its cranium 

 with that o{ Mesoplodoii Snverhyi" by Prof. Turner. — "On 

 the Maternal Sinus Sjstemofthe Human Placenta," by Prof. 

 Turner. 



Halifax, Nova Scotia 



Institute of Natural Science, December II, 1871. — The 

 vice-president. Dr. Gilpin, in the chair. The vice-president read 

 the concluding paper of a series on the mammals of Nova 

 Scotia, including llie moose deer. Dr. Gilpin described its 

 peculiar form, dilTering from all mammals by the length of its 

 cannon bones (metacarpal and metatarsal), whilst in the short- 

 ness of its neck, its great height, its prehensile lip, it had a 

 singular analogy willi the equatorial form of the elephant, the 

 giraffe, and the tapir, yet it more resembleel certain large wading 

 birds. It might be called a wading mammal, in summer resort- 

 ing to the swamps and shallow lakes, in winter its long cannon 

 bones allowing it to walk in the deep snow. It thus becomes 

 straddling and weak-footed. In coinparing its hind leg with that 

 of the greyhound and hare, the swiftest animals kno« n, its form 

 would be found exactly opposite. He described its nuptial 

 suit in September (its rutting season) of glossy black, and golden 

 tan legs, and its wdntery livery of shaggy grey hair. Its identity 

 with the elk of Sweden vias discussed, and from observations 

 in the R. C. .Surgeons' Museum, .Sir John Richardson, and es- 

 pecially from Captain Hardy, R. A., who compared his sketches, 

 notes, and measurements, of the moose of Nova Scoti.T, per- 

 sonally, with a pair of young elks from Sweden at Sandring- 

 ham. Dr. Gilpin concluded them to be identical. Allowing 

 them to be identical, then, as their fossil bones hnve been found 

 in the I'pper Tertiary formaiions in America, and not yet in the 

 Old World, the moose must be held as the primitive type. Dr. 

 Gilpin thought that, with the carriboo, its form must have ex- 

 isted contemporarily with many forms now extinct ; that, peihaps, 

 it was one of the earliest existing fauna that succeeded the 

 glacial epoch in Nova Scotia, and that from some cause now ex- 

 isting this earUest fauna may be destined to be the last. From 

 the almost entire identity of the boreal marine fauna, tlie marine 

 birds, and the fish, the more we study the arctic forms, the more 

 we are impressed with the conviction that we must look to the 

 north for the common type of manyof our temperate and equatorial 

 forms. The shaggy elephant of Lorna, and the rough musk ox 

 of the Pole, and the hairy-coated carriboo, may each h.ave been 

 the primal type of the naked-skinned elephants and buffalos of 

 Asia and the satin-skinned African deer, whilst the coalis may 

 equally have been the type of all foxes and dogs to the hairless 

 race in Turkey. In a conversation that ensued it was maintained 



that two varieties existed in the province, but Dr. Gilpin con- 

 sidered them not permanent varieties. To show the numbers 

 still extant, the game book of a gentleman present gave, from 

 the year 1S63, twenty-seven, whose death he had been in at, and 

 ninety-seven which he had seen altogether. 



California 



Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, November 6, 1S71. 

 —Dr. T. Blake, president, in the chair. — Mr. Harford stated 

 lliat he had examined some Indian graves on San Miguel 

 island, from two of which he had obtained a number of relics. 

 The pits wore about 25 ft. long, 5 ft. deep, and situated at an ele- 

 vation of about 80 ft. above the sea. In one of the pits there were 

 from 75 to 100 skeletons, most of the skulls showing marks of 

 violence. No order had been observed in the burial, children 

 and adults, male and female, all lying together. The other pit 

 seemed to be of a much older date, as the bones were in a more 

 advanced state of decay, and only stone beads or trinkets were 

 found there, whereas in the other principally glasi and shell 

 beads were found. Large shell heaps were of common oceur- 

 rence on the island, showing that at one time they must have 

 been inhabited, although no Indians had been known to live on 

 the island since the settlement of the country by the Spaniards. — 

 Prof. Davidson, of the United Slates Coast Survey, remarked 

 that as a rule in the entrances to the harbours and rivers on our 

 coast the channels all tended to the N.W., tne northern head- 

 lands .showing bold rocky bluffs, the southern points, on the 

 other hand, forming long low sandy beaches. He said his own 

 observations had been confirmed by information received ixoxw 

 Lower California, thus showing that there is a strong insliore 

 northerly current along the entire coast. 



December 4. — The president. Dr. Blake, in the chair. Prof. 

 Whitney e.xhibited a collection of fossils made by Mr. J. E. 

 Clayton in Nevada, near the Ii6th meridian, and not far from 

 the mining settlement of Eureka. These fossils are very in- 

 teresting as representing tlie Primordial or Potsdam period of 

 the Silurian, and exhibiting the same combination of genera and 

 species of the Liii^iilid.c family of the brachiopods, and the 

 Pnmdo.xidii family of trilobites, which is so characteristic of this 

 group farther east. Indeed there are no families represented in 

 these specimens but these two. The trilobites are very imperfect, 

 inuch liroken, and crowded together in great numbers in the 

 rocks. The same ./^vV((/'/(',t (.J;7'(j/i'(///« of Biirrarde, and Cirji- 

 tifhaliis of D. Owen, Meek, and Hayden), which occurs 

 in the Big Hoin Mountains, about longitude 167', is found 

 in this lot from the Ii6th meridian. There is also a ConocoiyJ'/ic 

 (Conocephalites) ; but the A^raiilos is much the most abundant. 

 The brachiopods appear to be represented by at least two genera, 

 Liiis'il''p's (Lingula) and Olmlc/la. The lithological character of 

 the rock in which these fossils occur is of importance, as it is not 

 a sandstone, but a limestone. The Primordial or " Potsdam 

 sandstone " fossils have not, previously to this discovery, been 

 found to the west of the Big Horn mountains, so far as appears 

 from any published documents. The discovery is tlierefore an 

 interesting one, and will furnish a valuable datum-point for work- 

 ing out the geology of the Great Basin. — Mr. Alontrange read 

 a paper on White Island on the coast of New Zealand. Wha- 

 kari, as the Maoris call it, is White Island, is .situated in the 

 Bay of Plenty, on the east coast of New Zealand (North 

 Island). Hours before reaching it, one sees the large crest of 

 vapour whicli crowns its summit. It is of very difficult acces;, 

 and \ery few even of the oldest settlers have ever visited i^. 

 The whole of the island is one perpetually active crater, which, 

 like tlie mollusc that secretes its little shell, has built up its huge 

 cone, three and a half miles in circumference at the base, 860 

 feet high, of scoria; and indurated ashes. The walls of 

 the cone are straight, cut at intervals with deep longitudinal 

 furrows ; the crater is inside, on the eastern side. — Prof. 

 Marsh, of Yale College, who was present at the request of the 

 President, made some remarks on the results of his trip from 

 Nebraska and Dacota across the continent to Eastern Oregon. 

 He stated that the extensive fresh water deposits that had hz^n 

 found in Nebraska and Dacota were again met with in Eastern 

 Oregon, extending, in fact, across the continent. The Oregon 

 beds were as rich in new and interesting fossil remains as these 

 on the eastern sides of the Rocky Mountains. During his trip 

 across the continent, he had selected a large number of verte- 

 brates, amongst which were thirty or forty species, which he 

 considered entirely new. The family Eqiiidic were represented by 

 several new species, furnishing important material for tracing the 



