i6 



NATURE 



{May 7, 1874 



has been offered, which, however, is considered very unsatis- 

 factory. The Leichhardt expedition set out in 1844 and never 

 returned. Andrew Hume, who was despatched by the Sydney 

 Government in 1872, to recover some relics of the expedition- 

 has returned, and reports that he found Classen, Leichhardt's 

 second in command, living with the blacks, at the head of the 

 waters of Stewart's Creek ; Classen, Hume says, is detained by 

 the blacks as a sort of wonder-man. Classen, according to 

 Hume, states that Leichhardt's party mutinied at the head of 

 Victoria River, .ind that after the struggle with their leader they 

 left hi n when pushing on to the north-west coast. During this 

 affair Chs5en was always seeking for water. When he returned, 

 he says that LeiAhardt was insensible, and died five days 

 afttr the mutiny. The camp had been broken up and the 

 horses taken avv.iy by the men. Hume says that he possessed 

 himself of Leichhardt's quadrant and watch, and abiut seventy- 

 five pages of the traveller's records. He al o affirms that hesaw 

 the remains of the dead man concealed in a tree. The mutineers, 

 he reports, were all killed at Ayer's Creek. Hume, it seems, 

 has not shown to any one the relics he says he has recovered, 

 and his story, as we have said, is generally discredited. Leich- 

 hardt's last letter is dated " Darling Downs, February 22, 



In a report on the trade of Tamsay, China, we are told that 

 the Camphor trees {Cinniimomum camphora F. Nees et Eberm.) 

 are not found within the district marked on maps of Formosa as 

 Chinese territory. They occur only within the country of the 

 aborigines, or upon the immediate border. The manufacture of 

 camphor necessitates the destruction of the trees, which are never 

 replanted ; as the country becomes denuded the aborigines recede, 

 and the Chinese effect a corresponding encroachment. As a con- 

 sequence, the border country is in a continuous state of distur- 

 bance, and fearful outrages are committed by both sides on every 

 opportunity. 



A TETITION signed by twenty-si.it Professors in the Univer- 

 sities ol Scotland has been presented to the Prime Minister, 

 calling his a' tention to the treatment of the ladies admitted to 

 matriculate as students of medicine in the University of Edin- 

 burgh, and afterwards refused the right to graduate, and urging 

 the Government to take the whole subject of the University edu- 

 cation of women into consideration, with the view cf devising a 

 remedy for the present anomalies. 



The Ge neral Local Committee which has been formed in 

 ISelfast for the purpose of making arrangements (or the ensuing 

 meeting of the British Association is already busy at work, and 

 3,000/. is being raised for the purpose of giving a proper recep- 

 tion to the Association : of th s amount upwards of 1,600/. 

 ha; already been collected. It has been arranged to prepare a 

 Ist of lodgings for members who might not be otherwise accom- 

 modated, and other details are being attended to with regard to 

 ( xcursions, &c. The business meetings of the Association will 

 hi held in the Queen's College. 



Mr. J. H. Lewis of Liverpool proposes to issue twenty sets 

 of British Rubi, if names of subscribers are to hand by June i. 

 Eich set will contain examples of twenty forms. Each example 

 will show two flowering shoots— in flower and in fruit— and two 

 pieces of barren shoot— young and old. In gathering, avoid- 

 ance will be given to hedgerow-clipped plants, and preference 

 shown, in this fasciculus, to those that exhibit characters corre- 

 sponding to Prof. Babington's species and varieties, as described 

 in " British Rubi," 1869. Printed tickets will be given contain- 

 ing remarks on most of the forms by Prof. Babington, Rev. A. 

 Bloxam, Mr. Baker, and Hon. J. L. Warren. If encourage- 

 ment be given to this fasciculus, others will be issued having 

 more regard to intermediate and dubious forms. The price will 

 be I/, per set. 



Dr. J. E. Gray has expressed his opinion that so far as he 

 can judge from the description and drawing of the whale taken 

 off Otago Head, New Zealand, in October last, it is a specimen 

 of NcobaliTna, of which only the skull has been known before. 

 He established the genus Ncobalccna from drawings of a skull in 

 the museum .at Wellington, which had been found at the island 

 of Kawan, and in the An. and Mag. of Nat. Hist., vol vi. p. 156, 

 he wrote, " the difference in skull makes us anxious to have a 

 description of the entire animal and its skeleton, as the animal 

 may prove to be the type of a new family of whales between the 

 true whales and finners." This capture affords an opportunity 

 for the first time of examining an entire skeleton, and a descrip- 

 tion is promised by Dr. Gray. The measurements taken by 

 Prof F. W. Ilutton, of the Otago Museum, Dunedin, gave the 

 length 16 ft. 2 J in., girth at pectoral 10 ft., pectoral flipper 2 ft. 

 7 in. long, caudal flipper I ft. 6 in. Weight 27 cwt. 



Tm recently issued number of the Bulletin of the Geological | 

 Society of France contains an abstract of a paper On a Compa- 

 rison of the Inferior Eocene of the Basins of Paris, Belgium, and 

 England. The paper will appear in full in the fourth volume of 

 the Annales dcs Sciences C'eolopqucs, The correlation adopted ig 

 as follows : — 'I 



Paris Basin. Belgium. England. ] 



planuirta } ^^"'salien [Lower Bagshot sandj 



Sables sani fossiles Ypr^sien supferieur J 



Gap Argile d'Ypres London clay 



Gap (?) Oldhavenbeds 



Argile plastique Landenien sup^rieur Woolwicfi beds 



Satjles de Bracheujt I,andenien inferieur Tfianet sands 



In the same bulletin M. Pouech describes an incomplete 

 humerus, a fragmentary maxilla, and a molar belonging to 

 Elephas primigcnius, found by him in the ravine of Mcarii, near 

 Pamiers. He believes it to have betn contemporaneous with 

 the Troglodytes of Vezere, d'Aurignac, and Clermont. There 

 is also a description by M. Gaudry of the anterior part of the 

 head of Antliracollwriuin found at St. Menoux. A full-size 

 drawing is given showing theteeth of the upper and lower jaws 

 interlocking. 



M. DE BiLi.v, who had been appointed president of the 

 French Alpine Club, has been killed by a railway accident, 

 even before his nomination was notified to him. M. Cezane, an 

 engineer of the Ponts et Chausses, and one of the moit pro- 

 mising members of the National Assembly, has been appointed 

 to fill the vacancy created by the unexpected demise of the 

 learned gentleman. M. Cezane is one of the members for the 

 department ol Hautes-.'Vlpes ; he has written an admir.tble work 

 on the " Degradation of Mountains by Waterfalls." 



M. A. FnUQUis will deliver, at the College de France, a 

 series of lectures on the volcanic emanations of Etna, Sautorin, 

 and Acores, where he has been sent by the French Academy to 

 report upon these most interesting phenomena. 



The French Association for the Advancement of Science has 

 voted to M. W. de Fonviellea sum in order to encourage him to re- 

 commence his course of i.yslematic balloon ascents. M. de Fon- 

 vielle intends to study the differential direction which it is possible 

 to give to an aerostat in varying the altitude for taking advantage 

 of several directions of winds. It is not known yet whether he 

 will practise his method for travelling in Europe or in America. 



The eighth number of Mr. Hermann Strecker's work on the 

 Lepidoptera has just been published by him at Reading, Penn- 

 sylvania, and upon a closely filled plate are to be found illustra- 

 tions of eight species of butterflies, one of them but recently 

 described as new by Mr. Strecker. 



The annual report of the Academy of Sciences of Philadelphia 

 announces the final completion of the labour upon which Mr. 



