. ea 
AprIL 4, 1912] 
NATURE 
119 
- Tue whole of the famous collection formed by the 
Rev. Canon Norman, F.R.S., consisting of North 
Atlantic and Arctic invertebrates other than insects, 
arachnids, and myriopods, has now become the pro- 
perty of the Natural History Museum, the fourth and 
last instalment having been received recently at Crom- 
well Road. The extent of this consignment may be 
judged when we state that of Mollusca there were 
specimens in 7114 glass-topped boxes, of Crustacea 
there were 7376 bottles and tubes containing 
specimens, and there were, in addition, 5544 micro- | 
scopical slides. The Polyzoa were contained in 1063 
elass-topped boxes, while there were 497 spirit 
specimens and 185 microscopical slides. 
invertebrata"’ were numerously represented in the 
earlier instalments. Students who desire to examine 
any specimens in the Norman collection should apply 
to the keeper of the Department of Zoqlogy at South 
Kensington. fd 
ANNOUNCEMENT has been made of the following 
awards just decided by the council of the Royal Geo- 
graphical Society :—With the approval of the King 
the two Royal medals have been awarded to Mr. 
Charles Montagu Doughty and Mr. Douglas Carru- | 
thers, the founder’s medal to the former, in recognition 
of his explorations in Arabia, and the patron’s medal 
to the latter, for his expedition in north-west Mon- 
golia, including the upper basin of the Yenesei, the 
Altai mountains, and neighbouring regions, and for 
other explorations. The Victoria medal, for scientific 
research in geography, has been awarded to Sir 
George H. Darwin, K.C.B., F.R.S.; the Murchison 
bequest to Captain W. C. Macfie, R.E., who was 
appointed to the charge of the Uganda Topographical 
Survey in 1908, and in twenty months surveyed an 
area of 14,000 square miles; the Gill memorial to 
Captain F. M. Bailey, who in 1904 accompanied the 
expedition from Lhasa through Tibet, and last year 
travelled from the valley of the Yangtse westward to 
Sidiya, passing through about three hundred miles of 
unexplored country; the Cuthbert Peek fund to Mr. 
Cecil Clementi, who has travelled extensively in 
Central Asia, and made a careful series of astro- 
nomical observations for latitude and chronometric 
differences of longitude during his journeys; the Back 
bequest to Mr. L. A. Wallace for his explorations and 
surveys of the Tanganyika Plateau and the country 
round it. 
Ar Hull, on Saturday last, March 30, a museum 
devoted entirely to objects connected with the fishing 
and shipping industries, which play so prominent a 
part in the city, was opened to the public. The 
museum, which is a large building, and top-lighted, | 
is the gift of Mr. C. Pickering, J.P. The exhibits, 
which have been arranged by the curator, Mr. T. 
Sheppard, include an exceptionally fine series of har- 
poons, harpoon guns, flensers, blubber-spades, and 
other objects connected with the old whaling trade, 
which commenced at Hull in the sixteenth century, 
and may be said to have started the present flourish- 
ing oil and fishing industries. There are also dozens 
of models of ships, illustrating the evolution and 
growth of the vessels from the old “wooden walls”’ 
NO. 2214, VOL. 89] 
The “lower | 
to modern battleships and liners, all built at Hull. 
The various phases in the evolution of the old fishing 
smack: to the modern steam trawler are also shown 
by models. A valuable set is shown of Eskimo boats 
and fishing appliances, brought to Hull during the 
early part of last century, by the old whalers. Pre- 
parations. are exhibited showing the growth of the 
prawn, trout, eel, carp, oyster, &c., and others illus- 
trating the nervous system, blood-vessels, skeleton, 
and other parts of fishes. There is a representative 
set of skeletons of whales and fishes, large and small, 
and a large number of medizval and later earthen- 
ware vessels, which have been dredged up from the 
Dogger Bank by the Hull trawlers. 
In the National Geographic Magazine for January 
Mr. F. E. Johnson describes the remarkable series 
of Greek bronzes discovered by M. A. Merlin in 1907 
in the wreck of a sunken galley near the little town 
of Mahdia on the coast of Tunis. The almost life- 
size statue of Eros attributed to Praxiteles is a wonder- 
fully beautiful object, and it is almost equalled by the 
Running Satyr and the Hermes of Boethus, the Chal- 
cedonian. There seems good reason to believe that 
this galley was chartered to convey to Rome the 
spoils of Athens after the attack by Sylla in 86 B.c., 
just as Mummius appropriated for himself, his friends, 
and the temples of Rome the spoils of Corinth. It is 
very creditable to M. Merlin, director of antiquities 
and fine arts in Tunisia, that with little assistance 
from his Government and by means of very rude 
appliances he has been able to recover this wonderful 
collection of works of art. 
In the Bulletin of the Royal Academy of Sciences 
of Belgium (1912, No: 1, pp. 89) Prof. L. 
Dollo describes the remains of a _ fresh-water 
tortoise of the genus Podocnemis, from the Lower 
Eocene of the Enclave de Cabinda, Congo State. 
Although now restricted to tropical South America 
and Madagascar, the genus is represented in the 
Eocene of England, India, the: Fayum, and the 
Congo, and would thus seem to have reached its 
present isolated habitats from the north. 
STARTING with the premiss that an increase in the 
weight and dimensions of a flying animal involves a 
still greater increase in the power necessary to drive 
the animal through the air, and that in consequence 
a limit is soon reached under existing physical con- 
ditions beyond which flight is impossible (such limit 
having probably been approximately attained by the 
largest existing flying birds), Messrs. E. and A. 
Harlé, in a paper published in vol xi., p. 118, of the 
Bull. Soc. Géol. France, urge that the power of 
flight possessed by the giant pterodactyles of the 
Cretaceous and the huge dragonflies of the Carbon- 
iferous was due to an augmentation of the atmo- 
spheric pressure as compared with that of the 
present day. 
In a recent paper published in the Bulletin of the 
Imperial Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg 
(February, 1912, pp. 219-236), Prince Galitzin con- 
siders the dispersion and damping of the seismic 
