14 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. II. No. 27. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 

 ANCESTRY OF THE MAMMALIA.* 



Professor A. A. W. Hubreclit recently 

 presented a paper to the Amsterdam Acad- 

 emy of Science summing up his researches 

 upon the origin and bearing vipon the 

 problem of mammalian ancestry of the 

 Amnion. This foetal envelope distinguishes 

 the reptUes. birds and mammals from the 

 Amphibians and fishes, yet Professor Hu- 

 brecht finds that the mode of development 

 of the Amnion in some of the mammalia 

 is even more primitive than that in the 

 reptilia and can be theoretically derived 

 from the outer epiblastic layer of the 

 Amphibian embrj'o. He is thus led to 

 support the hypothesis Huxley advanced 

 in 1880, that the mammalia originated in a 

 pre-reptilian, if not actually an Amphibian 

 stock. Since, further, the three great 

 divisions, Monotremes, Marsupials and 

 Placentals show distinct modes of Am- 

 nion development, and among the latter the 

 Insectivora are extremely primitive. He 

 reaches the following conclusions as to the 

 relations of the mammalia : that the three 

 great divisions arose independently from a 

 common Protamniote Amphibian-like stem ; 

 the theromorph reptilia are not to be re- 

 garded as transition forms to the mammals, 

 but as parallel forms ; the ancestry of the 

 insectivora dates back to the time of origin 

 of the monotremes and marsupials. He 

 shows that his own conclusions based upon 

 embryology are so far as concerns the poly- 

 phyletic origin of the mammalia, the meso- 

 zoic origin of the insectivora, and the par- 

 allel position of the theromorpha, in close 

 agreement with the paleontological position 

 of Miart, Osborn and Baur, while as re- 

 gards the protamniote or Amphibian char- 

 acter of the stock he approaches Huxley and 

 Howes. H. F. O. 



* " Die Phylogenese des Amnions nnd die Bedeutung 

 des Trophoblastes, " Verb. d. Kon. Akad. v. Weten. 

 te Amsterdam, Dl. IV., No. 5. 



GENERAL. 



Thomas H. Huxley died on the afternoon 

 of June 29th at the age of 70 years. 



Charles Griffln- & Co. have published 

 the twelfth annual edition of the Official 

 Year-Book of the Scientific and Learned Societies 

 of Ch'eat Britain and Ireland, a work of refer- 

 ence of great value to all interested in the 

 current advance of science. It contains 

 details concerning the officers, place and 

 time of meeting, publications, etc., of the 

 various societies, and lists of the papers 

 presented during 1894. The book bears 

 witness to the widespread activity in all 

 departments of science which characterizes 

 Great Britain and Ireland. 



Dr. D. Morris, Assistant Director of the 

 Royal Gardens, Kew, in a lecture delivered 

 before the Royal Horticultural Society, 

 stated that, contrary to general opinion, 

 the native plants in the Canary Islands 

 were not dying out ; they appeared, owing to 

 their special characters, to hold their own 

 against introduced plants and were likely 

 to increase rather than decrease in the 

 future. The number peculiar to the Cana- 

 rian Archipelago was about 400. 



About 150 members of the American In- 

 stitute of Electrical Engineers were present 

 at Niagara Falls on June 25th, to witness 

 the trial of one of the 5,000 horse power 

 dynamos of the Niagara Electric Power Co. 



Sir Robert Ball, professor of astronomy 

 in the University of Cambridge, England, 

 in an article in the July number of Mc- 

 Clure's Magazine, attempts to show that re- 

 cent scientific discoveries tend to bear out 

 early speculations in favor of the existence 

 of life on other planets than the earth. 



Me. Herbert Spencer has been elected 

 an honorary member of the Vienna Acad- 

 emy. 



Sir B. Baker has been elected President 

 of the Institute of Civil Engineers for the 

 coming year. 



