138 EEPORT— 1872. 



m oney to bo expended in dredging Lake Ontario. With a praiseworthy appre- 

 c iatiou of the true rahie of such researches, the Government at once generously 

 g ranted the necessary assistance. The dredgings -vveie carried on partly in a yacht 

 a nd partly in a steamer, and were prosecuted by hand, the apparatus employed 

 being similar to that used in marine dredging, except that a bag of embroidery 

 canvas was placed outside the ordinary net — an addition rendered necessary by the 

 extremely tine nature of the mud at great depths. Upon the whole, the results 

 obtained in Lal-ie Ontario agreed very fairly with those obtained in Lake Superior, 

 there being a general conformit}' in the phenomena observed. The fauna of Lake 

 Superior, however, so far as deep water is concerned, is decidedly richer than that 

 of Lake Ontario ; whilst some of the more remarkable species discovered in the 

 former appear to be absent in the latter. As might have been anticipated, the 

 fauna of Lake Ontario is not extensive, though some forms occur in great profusion. 

 The shallow-water fauna is very rich in individuals, and the number of species is 

 quite considerable for fresh water. Beyond eight or ten fathoms the fauna becomes 

 very scanty ; and when depths of from twenty to fifty fathoms are reached the list 

 becomes reduced to some Annelides and Amphipod Crustaceans. The nature of 

 the bottom, also, at great depths is very unfavourable to life, consisting almost 

 everywhere of a fine, unpalpable, greyish-blue clayey mud, the temperature of 

 Avhich is very low. 



Out of thirty-one forms, in all, discovered by the author in Lalve Ontario, the 

 most interesting were the Annelides and Crustaceans, 'i'he Annelides were very 

 abundant, and consist of species of AV/j/ieZw and C/epsi/ie, Samiris and ChirodriHus, 

 some of the leeches presenting phenomena of especial interest. Of the Crnstcicea, 

 the most important is a little Amphipod, which occurred in depths of from thirty 

 to forty-five fathoms, and which the author identified with the Pontoporo'a offinis 

 of the Swedish lakes. This species and the Stomapod, Mijsis i-clkiu, are found 

 in Lakes Wetter and Wener in Sweden ; and it is well known that they have been 

 believed, upon good grounds, to support the view that these lakes had been at one 

 time connected with the sea. It is therefore a very interesting fact that these 

 species should both have been detected in Lakes Micliigan and Superior. The 

 Pontoporcia the author had now detected in I^ake Ontario ; but it is a singidar fact 

 that the Mysis (which is common in Lake Superior) had not been found to occur 

 at all in the dredgings carried on by the axithor. 



How a National Natural'History Museum mlr/Jd be huilt and arranged 

 with advantage. By K. A. Peacock, C.E., F.G.S. 



The museum now building at Kensington is about 800 feet long by 200 feet 

 wide ; its area, therefore, is about .3§ acres, the market value of which is about 

 £44,000. Its cost will be nearly £a.50,000. The circumference of the building is 

 2000 feet, which, multiplied by the three floors, gives a length of galleries of about 

 (iOOO feet*. A compMc collection of whales and dolphins would fill all this, and 

 there would be no space for any other animals, much less for the botanical and 

 other specimens. The known species of whales are thirtj'-two, of from 50 to 110 

 feet long, and seventy-two dolphins, from 12 to 2o feet; ^1nd the number of these 

 Getacea, Dr. Gray says, " will be very much extended." Taking the whales at the 

 average moderate length of 60 feet and the dolphins at 1.5 feet, we have a total length 

 of 3000 feet. But the writer believes a National Museum ought to contain a male skin 

 and skeleton and a female skin and skeleton of every species of Vertebrata, and the 

 young of the same, also a sectional drawing of e.ach species, showing the skeleton 

 within the skin. And Dr. Sclater is probably right in proposing that the young of all' 



* Since this paper was wriiteu, the author has seen a perspective view and ground-plan 

 of the GoTeniment Museum, the building of whicli is let for £.352,000. It averages GOO 

 feet long by about 267 feet wide, and is four stories higli including the basement, and 

 affords about bait tl'.e requisite space for a cr.rnpldc museum. Tlie building as to its ex- 

 terior will be very elegant. The view and plan are in ' Tbe Euilder ' of January 4 and 11. 

 The drawings of tbe building proposed by the author are at the Geological Society's 

 Eooms. 



