Miscellaneous. 335 
time the bed of a torrent, he has found the teeth and bones of thirty 
more individuals. These skeletons of old and young Elephants are 
met with jammed between large blocks of stone, in a way that clearly 
shows that the carcases must have been hurled into their present 
situation by violent floods or freshes. He has now brought together 
almost the complete skeleton of this wonderful little representative 
of an order of quadrupeds, to which we had, until the Fossil Maltese 
Elephant appeared, applied the word gigantic. There can be no 
doubt, however, that it scarcely exceeded a small pony in height.— 
Malta Times Supplement, March 16, 1865. 
Professor AGassiz intends to undertake a Scientific Exploring 
Expedition to the Tropics, with eight scientific companions, for the 
purpose of testing the Glacial theory suggested by him, which, if cor- 
rect, will enable the observer to mark as upon a thermometer the 
change in temperature the earth has undergone. As one of the re- 
sults of the expedition, he expects to bring home the largest collection 
of tropical specimens that has yet been collected. The Emperor of 
Brazil will, it is expeeted, furnish unwonted facilities to the Expe- 
dition. The expenses of the party (from 2,500 to 3,000 dols. each) 
will be defrayed by the liberality of Mr. Nathaniel Thayer, of Boston. 
—From the ‘ Boston Traveller.’ 
OBITUARY. 
Sir JouN Ricuarpson, C.B., M.D., D.C.L., F.R.S., &e. &c.—To 
the list of those distinguished men who have been lost to science 
during the past year, must now be added the name of the Arctic 
Explorer, Sir John Richardson, C.B. 
Born at Dumfries in 1787, of which town his father Gabriel 
Richardson was Provost, he was educated in its Grammar-school, 
and thence, in 1801, he entered the University of Edinburgh, where 
he graduated as an M.D. in 1816. He entered the Navy as an 
Assistant-Surgeon in 1807, and served at the bombardment of Co- 
penhagen, and during the war with the United States in Canada 
and Georgia, as Surgeon to the Ist Battalion of Marines. 
In 1819, he accompanied Captain (afterwards Sir John) Franklin 
in his overland Arctic expedition as Surgeon and Naturalist; and 
again in his second expedition in 1825, when he commanded two 
boats, with which he discovered a passage between the mouths of the 
Mackenzie and Coppermine Rivers. After nearly two years of severe 
toil, he returned in 1827, and published an account of the part he 
took in the enterprise: his narrative is attached to the great work 
produced by Captain Franklin. 
He became, in 1888, a Physician to the Fleet, and, in 1840, In- 
spector of Naval Hospitals. He was knighted in 1846. 
In 1847, in consequence of no tidings coming of the ‘ Erebus’ 
and ‘Terror,’ then in the Arctic regions under command of Sir 
John Franklin, K.C.H., who had sailed from England on May 19, 
