206 Miscellanies. 



sea voyage, and had not been bottled up for weeks. Prince Albert was 

 at Lord Northampton's soiree on Saturday, and I showed him many fossil 

 teeth and bones and infusoria with the microscope. Prof Owen, who 

 has been following up his odontography, that is, microscopical examina- 

 tion of fossil teeth, has discovered a remarkable structure in the large 

 conical teeth of Jaeggar's Mastodonsaurus — the calcigerous tubes — the 

 medullary or pulp canals, and the dentine are distributed in the most in- 

 tricate and labyrinthine manner you can conceive; and in consequence, 

 Mr. Owen has named the animal the Labyrinthodon. A part of the skull 

 has been found in Warwickshire, in the red sandstone, and although but 

 a fragment, presents anatomical characters which prove the original to 

 have belonged to the Batrachian family, and not to the Saurians. He be- 

 lieves that it is to some reptile of this kind that the impressions (the so 

 called Chirotherium) on the red sandstone, are to be attributed. The 

 sections of fossil teeth are made in the same manner as those of fossil 

 vegetables, as figured and described by Mr. Witham ; and they present 

 the most beautiful objects imaginable ; but you will doubtless see Mr. 

 Owen's book, in which they are admirably represented. Mr. Owen's me- 

 moirs, whether he be right or wrong in ascribing the foot-marks of the 

 red sandstone to the reptiles that Jaegger describes as Mastodonsaurus, 

 are admirable essays on a most interesting department of palaeontology. 

 You will be delighted with his beautiful elucidation of the form and struc- 

 ture of the original animals from a new fragment of the upper jaw and a 

 few teeth. He has, perhaps prematurely, given a restoration of the Laby- 

 rinthodon, representing it as a Batrachian, with a head like a crocodile. 



"Ross and Powell are the two rival opticians whose microscopes are 

 in demand. From ten to forty or fifty guineas is the price of the best." 



Another correspondent* says, "I have one which, in its simple form, 

 has cost me eighteen guineas, and will cost fifty to complete it. I learn 

 that they are made much cheaper at Berlin and at Paris, where Mr. 

 Donne has constructed a very good one for thirty-six francs." 



The correspondent first named, adds : " Fossil infusoria in flint are 

 now greatly in vogue, particularly Xanthidia, like those figured in Man- 

 tell's Wonders of Geology. You have them living in the water at West 

 Point. But Ehrenberg's grand folio work has induced an active search 

 after living animalcules, and my son has discovered in a stream near us, 

 almost every form figured by Ehrenberg." 



15. Geological Drawings. — Schorf has been painting in distemper rep- 

 resentations of some of the plesiosauri and ichthyosauri in the British 

 museum on a large scale, from six to eight feet long, for public lectures. 

 The price is from forty shillings to three guineas each. A copy of the 



^ Mr. G. F. Richardson, curator of the British Museum, London. 



