346 



NATURE 



[August -1 3, 1908 



Rome in 191 1, the following points may be attended 

 to : — (i) The working' session should be limited to 

 one week; (2) only papers of serious scientific value 

 should be accepted ; (3) summaries of all such papers 

 should be distributed (in the four authorised lan- 

 guages) on the opening day. 



On the social side the delegates have every reason 

 to thank the Federal and Cantonal authorities, the 

 organising committee, and the Swiss members of 

 the congress for their charming hospitality. 



As to the outcome of the congress, the principal 

 concrete result is the step taken towards the 

 standardisation of the i : 1,000,000 map. But in all 

 such meetings the obvious results are by no means 

 the only ones to consider. It is no small gain that 

 men of manv nationalities, interested in a particular 

 group of studies, should meet together to exchange 

 ideas and experiences. One cannot doubt that such 

 meetings have a value in broadening human know- 

 ledge and svmpathies which is not to be measured 

 in any simple quantitative way. As the president 

 of the Swiss Confederation said, in words which it 

 would be dilificult to improve, " Votre Congr^s con- 

 tribuera au rapprochement des nations et ;\ la 

 fraternity entre les peuples, car rien 

 n'est plus propre h. dissiper les 

 divergences de vues et & Clever le 

 regard au-dessus des bornes-fron- 

 tifer.es de chaque pays que la con- 

 naissance des lois universelles qui 

 r^gissent le monde et unissentd'un 

 lien nature! la grande famille 

 humaine." C. F. Close. 



species, and indicate animals with an enormous horn- 

 spread, altogether unparalleled by their modern re- 

 presentative. .Alaskan mammoth-ivory is stated to 

 be, on the average, inferior in quality to that from 

 Siberia. 



ALPHONSE PERON. 



T T is with deep regret that we record the death of 

 ■*■ .Mphonse Peron, eminent geologist and soldier, 

 who passed away at Auxerre on July 2, after a 

 lingering illness. 



Pierre .\lphonse Peron was born at Saint Fargeau 

 on November 29, 1834, and studied at the college of 

 Auxerre, where his lively interest in natural history 

 scon became manifest. .\t the age of nineteen he 

 entered Saint Cyr, whence he passed into the infantry 

 in January, 1S55. He served in various districts in 

 France and in Corsica, was engaged in Algeria in 

 the suppression of the rebellion of 1864, obtained his 

 captaincy in 1867, and in the Franco-Prussian war 

 served with the army of the Rhine. At Sedan he 

 was severely wounded and left for dead upon the 

 field. He retired from the army in 1896, having 



MAMMOTH-HUNTING IN 

 ALASKA. 



SINCE Kotzebue's discovery of 

 fossil remains of mammoth 

 and musk-ox in 1815, Alaska has 

 been famed as a store-house for 

 Pleistocene mammals ; and in 1904 

 the Smithsonian Institution dis- 

 patched an expedition to obtain 

 specimens for the museum at 

 Washington. This expedition also 

 visited Yukon territory, where it 

 was successful in obtaining the 

 magnificent mammoth skull shown 

 in the accompanying illustra- 

 tion. Last year a second fossil-hunting expedi- 

 tion was dispatched by the same body, in charge 

 of Mr. C. W. Gilmore, the results of which 

 are recorded in vol. li. of Smithsonian Miscellaneous 

 Collections. Mammoth-tusks of very large size were 

 seen and measured, although it does not appear that 

 the finest were transported to Washington. Incident- 

 ally, it is mentioned that the largest known skeleton 

 of the mammoth is in the museum of the Chicago 

 Academy, and is stated to be 13 feet in height. If 

 this be true, reconsideration of the opinion that the 

 mammoth was an animal of the approximate size of 

 the Indian elephant is apparently demanded. Re- 

 ports have been current to the effect that remains 

 of the American mastodon occur in the Alaskan 

 mud in company with those of mammoth. This, 

 however, is an error, such remains being found 

 in this region only in the " placer " deposits 

 of the Yukon, which are doubtless of somewhat 

 earlier age. The other remains discovered by the 

 expedition include those of bison, elk, horse, beaver, 

 and bear. The bison-skulls, some of which retain 

 the sheaths of the horns, are referred to two distinct 



NO. 2024, VOL. 78] 



Skull and tusks of EUphas primigcnins found 42 feet below the surface, in the muck, on Quartz 

 Creek, near Uawson, Yukon Territory, Canada. 



received the honour of Commandeur de la Legion 

 d'Honneur in 1S90. 



Notwithstanding the exacting nature of his military 

 duties, Peron neglected no opportunity for the in- 

 dulgence of his taste for geology. Wherever he went 

 he never failed to note the geological characters of 

 the district, and, when possible, to make a collection 

 of fossils. His observations in the field provided a 

 considerable number of memoirs and notes which 

 have appeared in the Memoirs and Bulletins of the 

 Geological Society of France, of which society he 

 was elected president in 1905 ; in the Comptes reiidus 

 de I'Acad^mie des Sciences, in the Comptes rendus 

 de I'Associatiun fran^aise pour I'Avancement des 

 Sciences, and other serials. The Soci6te des Sciences 

 historiques et naturelles de I'Yonne, in which he 

 took great interest and ably supported his friend 

 Cotteau, owes much of its success to his energy; in 

 the Bulletin of this society are to be found some 

 important papers from his pen. Among P^ron's 

 principal contributions to geological science since the 

 appearance of his first work, " Notice sur la Gdologie 

 du Canton de Saint Fargeau," published in 1865, 



