116 REPORT — 1860. 



possible to determine the law of the variation of Greek opinion, and to establish its 

 analogy with that of the variations of opinion in individual life. 



Next, passing to the consideration of Europe in the aggregate, Professor Draper 

 showed that it has already in part repeated these phases in its intellectual life. 

 Its first period closes with the spread of the power of .Republican Rome, the second 

 with the foundation of Constantinople, the third with the Turkish invasion of 

 Europe ; we are living in the fourth. Detailed proofs of the correspondence of these 

 periods to those of Greek life, and through them to those of individual life, are 

 given in a work now printing on this subject by the author in America. 



Having established this conclusion, Professor Draper next briefly alluded to'mauy 

 collateral problems or inquiries. He showed that the advances of men are due to 

 external and not to interior influences, and that in this respect a nation is like a 

 seed, which can only develope when the conditions are favourable, and then onty 

 in a definite way ; that the time for psychical change corresponds with that for 

 physical, and that a nation cannot advance except its material condition be touched, 

 this having been the case throughout all Europe, as is manifested by the diminution 

 of the blue-eyed races thereof; that all organisms, and even man, are dependent for 

 their characteristics, continuance, and life, on the physical conditions under which 

 they live ; that the existing apparent invariability presented by the world of 

 organization is the direct consequence of the physical equilibrium ; but that, if that 

 should suffer modification, in an instant the fanciful doctrine of the immutability 

 of species would be brought to its proper value. The organic world appears to be 

 in repose because natural influences have reached an equilibrium. A marble may 

 remain motionless for ever on a level table, but let the table be a little inclined, 

 and the marble will quickly run off, and so it is with organisms in the world. From 

 his work on Physiology, published in 1856, he gave his views in support of the 

 doctrine of the transmutation of species, the trausitional forms of the animal and 

 also the human type, the production of new ethnical elements or nations, and the 

 laws of their origin, duration and death. 



On some Specimens of Shells from the Liverpool Museum, originally from 

 the Pathological Collection formed by the late Mr. Gaskoin. By the Rev. 

 H. H. Higgins, M.A., Rainhill, Liverpool. 



The late Mr. Gaskoin had in his museum a series of specimens, collected for the 

 purpose of illustrating the pathology of the Mollusca. Ibis series was in course of 

 formation in the year 1835, from which period, to the time of his decease, Mr. 

 Gaskoin devoted considerable attention to the selection, from various sources, of 

 specimens of shells in any wise remarkable for distorted growth, or for the repair 

 of injuries received during the life of the animal. I am not aware that Mr. Gaskoin 

 published or left in manuscript any account of the result of his observations in this 

 department of Natural History. 1 1 is evident that in any ca3e of abnormal growth a 

 second, and still more a third or a fourth, instance of the same kind may afford a 

 fair ground for a conclusion, which, if based upon a single instance only, would be 

 of little or no value. The extensive character of the series was in this respect very 

 valuable. In the course of more than twenty years' collecting, Mr. Gaskoin had 

 enriched bis pathological cabinet, not only with a great variety of mended fractures 

 aud distorted growths, but with many duplicates, sometimes of cases apparently 

 altogether exceptional, and likely to be unique. A select series of specimens was 

 then exhibited to the Section, and remarks were made upon them, which can 

 scarcely be presented intelligibly apart from the specimens themselves. 



Notice, of British Well Shrimps. By the Rev. A. R. Hogan, M.A. 



The author exhibited specimens of some remarkable additions not long since 

 made to our British Crustacea. They consisted of two species of Niphargus (Fon- 

 tanus and Kuehianus), aud the new genus Crangonyx, with it3 single species sttb~ 

 terraneus of Spence Bate. These species have been described and figured in the 

 volume of the ' Natural History Review and Quarterly Journal of Science ' for last 

 year (1859). They are of great interest, as examples of a subterranean Fauna in 

 England, analogous to that long known on the Continent and in America. The 



