46 MisceUnneous — Model of Euri/ptenis. 



earth must be restricted to about one hundred million years ; and he 

 subsequently reduced the estimate to between twenty and forty million 

 years. ^ Huxley, in one of his famous addresses to the Geological 

 Society (1869), showed that while geologists had no reason to be 

 greatly concerned at an estimate of 100,000,000 years, yet the data on 

 ■which the restriction was based were insufficient and inconclusive. 

 Further researches have not tended to modify this judgment. 



William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, was the second son of James 

 Thomson, Professor of Mathematics in the University of Glasgow, and 

 the son became Professor of Natural I'hilosophy in the same University 

 during the lifetime of his father. 



Regarded as tlie foremost man of science in Britain, it was fitting 

 that a final resting-place in Westminster Abbey should be selected, 

 near the tombs of Newton, Herschel, Darwin, and Lyell ; and there 

 he was buried in the presence of a large and distinguished gathering 

 on the 24th December, 1907. 



nynisoEHiiLj.A.nsrEO'crs. 



British MusEtrM Model of Eurypterus? 



In the Upper Silurian rocks of the island of Oesel, in the Baltic, 

 are found the fossil remains of an Arthropod called JEurijpterus Fischeri. 

 This animal is of interest as one of an extinct group of Arthropods that 

 appear to have been allied to the modern Limulus or king-crab, as 

 well as to the Scorpions. These particular fossils have a further 

 interest in that the chitinous substance of the outer coat of the animal 

 has been preserved unaltered in chemical and physical composition. 

 Thus Professor G. Holm, of Stockholm, has been able to dissolve the 

 remains out from the rock by means of acid, and to mount them on 

 glass slides in Canada balsam. On the preparations thus obtained he 

 based an elaborate description, published in the Memoirs of the 

 Academy of Science, St. Petersburg (ser. viii, vol. viii, No. 2, 1898). 

 It can now be said that the structure of this species is known better 

 than that of anj' other extinct arthropod. Several of Professor Holm's 

 preparations preserved in the Geological Department of the British 

 Museum are quite marvellous, and it is difficult to believe that one is 

 looking at a fossil at all, still more one dating from the Silurian epoch. 

 The perfection of these specimens and the interest of the animal 

 suggested to members of the staff of the British Museum (Natural 

 History) the advisability of preparing a complete model of it, and such 

 a model in coloured wax, of about twice the natural size, has now been 

 made under the direction of Dr. W. T. Caiman and Dr. F. A. Bather 

 by Mrs Vernon Blackman, whose beautiful models of plants, of the 

 parasite of malaiia, and of the tsetse fl^y are well known to all visitors 

 to the Natural History Museum in the Cromwell Road. 



1 See Sir A. Geikie's Text-Book of Geology, 4th ed., vol. i, 1903, p. 79. 



2 From Science, November 15th, 1907, pp." 679-680. 



