Alovst n, 1S83.1 



SCIENCE. 



•JO? 



One species, Mili-a cryptodoii, comes from a depth of 

 1,'.»00 metres in the Atliintic, — probably the greatest 

 ileptli recorded for any species of that genus up to 

 the present time. — {Journ. de conchyl., xxii. 4.) 

 w. u. D. [208 



VERTEBRATES. 



Reptiles. 

 Restoration of Brontosaurus. — In the con- 

 tinuation of his papers on Sauropoda, JIarsh gives the 

 accompanying restoration of Broiitosaiu-us almost 

 entirely from a single individual about fifty feet lon^. 

 "The head was remarkably small; the neck was 

 long, and, considering its proportions, flexible, and 

 was the lightest portion of th- vertebral column; the 

 body was quite short, and the abdominal cavity of 

 moderate size; the legs and feet were massive, and 

 the bones all solid; the feet were plantigrade, and 

 each footprint must have been about a square yard 

 in extent; the tail was large, and nearly all the boi\es 

 solid."' Special attention is drawn to the head, 

 which is "smaller in proportion to the body than 

 in any vertebrate hitherto known," the entire skull 

 weighing and measuring less than the fourth or tiflh 

 cervical vertebra. The animal is estimated to have 

 weighed more than twenty tons, was more or less 

 amphibious, probably fed on aquatic plants, and was 

 doubtless a 'stupid, slow-moving reptile,' wholly 

 wanting .iny offensive or defensive weapons. — (Avier. 

 jouni. nc, Aug.) [209 



Influence of pressure on heart-beat. — JIany 

 observers have noticed that the mammalian heart, 

 after the death of the animal, jvill, under certain con- 

 ditions, continue to beat spontaneously for some 

 hours, especially if artificial inflation of the lungs is 

 kept up. Ewaid and Robert have made some ob- 

 servations on this subject, inflating the heart directly 

 with air, and find that hearts which have ceased to 

 beat spontaneously, or after the application of me- 

 chanical stimuli, will again give contractions when 

 the pressure within their cavities is raised. They 

 come to the conclusion that one of the conditions 

 which the blood must fulfil, in order to maintain the 

 heart in activity, is, that it must exert a certain press- 

 ure on the heart-walls. — {Pjlujer'a archil, xxxi. 

 IS".) w. u. u. |210 



Epiphyses on the centra of the vertebrae of 

 the manatee. — M. Albrecht describes the.-c rudi- 

 mentary epiphyses at length. He believes that the 

 presence of crests and furrows upon the interverte- 

 bral faces is a sure indication of epiphyses; but he 

 goes further, and describes these processes. They 

 are ' partially ossified in a peripheral zone, particular- 

 ly in the dorsal region.' He also forms the hypothe- 

 sis that the epiphyses are the remnants of more perfect 

 ones, basing it upon the fact of the presence of the 

 ridges and grooves uj)On the faces of the centra. — 

 (Hull. tnua. Itist. nat Belg., ii. 1883, 38.) F. w. T. 



[211 

 ANTHROPOLOGY. 



The skulls of assassins. — A short time since, 

 attention was called to the investigations made upon 

 criminals and delinquents, with a view to study the 



