96 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XL. No. 1020 



Amokg recent additions to the Natural His- 

 tory Branch, of the British Museum, Nature 

 notes the following specimens as of general 

 public interest: The skeleton of the thorough- 

 bred stallion, " St. Simon," presented by the 

 Duke of Portland, which is not yet on ex- 

 hibition, but is, we understand, to be placed 

 alongside the skeleton of his son, "Persim- 

 mon," presented by his late Majesty King Ed- 

 ward VII. " St. Simon " was foaled in 1881, 

 and was never beaten on the turf. Another 

 interesting skeleton is that of the Egyptian 

 Eocene two-horned ungulate, Arsinoetherium, 

 which has just been set up in the fossil mam- 

 mal gallery. This skeleton is a restoration in 

 plaster, but as nearly all the elements have 

 been modelled from actual bones, it is prac- 

 tically as good as if original. As mounted, the 

 skeleton is about 114 feet in length from the 

 muzzle to the root of the tail, a striking fea- 

 ture being the very wide interval between the 

 limbs of opposite sides. The precise aiSnities 

 of this strange beast are still unknown. In 

 the upper mammals gallery the attention of 

 the public has been riveted on a gigantic speci- 

 men of the eastern race of the gorilla (Anthro- 

 popithecus gorilla lerin,geri), from the neigh- 

 borhood of Lake Tanganyika, recently pre- 

 sented by the Eowland Ward trustees. In 

 addition to its huge size, this race is charac- 

 terized by the great development of long black 

 hair on the head, shoulders and buttocks, and 

 the restriction of the gray band on the back to 

 the loins. On entering the museum the visitor 

 should inspect a segment of the trunk of a 

 fossil conifer from the Trias of Arizona, pre- 

 sented by Mr. Arthur Pearson, and placed by 

 one of the pillars on the right side of the hall. 

 This specimen, which weighs about 2i tons, 

 has an adventitious interest on account of the 

 brilliant colors presented by the silicified wood, 

 as is admirably shown in the polished upper 

 surface. 



Deposits of cerusite or lead carbonate near 

 Isle, in the northeastern part of Custer 

 County, Colo., were examined last year by Mr. 

 J. F. Hunter, geologist of the TJ. S. Geological 

 Survey, and his report has just been published. 

 The deposits extended in a narrow belt for 



several miles along the foot of the steep west- 

 ern slopes of the Wet Mountains, where fault- 

 ing and crushing have produced conditions 

 favorable to ore deposition. The lead carbo- 

 nate has been deposited in zones or shoots, fill- 

 ing joint planes and cracks in crushed and 

 altered granite. Investigations show that the 

 carbonate ores have probably resulted from the 

 oxidation of galena (lead sulphide), which 

 should be found at greater depths than have 

 yet been attained by mining or drilling. Only 

 the upper portion of the ore deposits, known 

 as the oxidized zone, has been opened. Two 

 important ore zones, one at the Terrible mine 

 and the other at Lead Hill, on the Wild Girl 

 and High Kicker claims, were visited, and a 

 trip was made over Lead Hill into Parker 

 Gulch, revealing considerable cerusite strewn 

 over the hiUs as float, so that the existence of 

 additional bodies and zones of cerusite seems 

 probable. The mines of this district have been 

 worked intermittently since 1884 and have pro- 

 duced nearly $1,000,000 worth of lead. It is 

 reported that the ores averaged from 5 to 8 

 per cent, of lead and were capable of being 

 concentrated to a product running from 60 to 

 70 per cent. The ores thus far mined con- 

 tain a small amount of silver but no zinc, ar- 

 senic, antimony or sulphur. 



The ancient vegetation which grew in South 

 Carolina and Georgia during Upper Cretace- 

 ous and Eocene time — or, as geologists state, 

 at least several million years ago — has been 

 made the subject of an exhaustive investiga- 

 tion by Edward W. Berry, of the Johns Hop- 

 kins University, a report on which has just 

 been published by the U. S. Geological Survey 

 as Professional Paper 84. The earlier of these 

 fossil floras, that of the Upper Cretaceous, em- 

 braces nearly one hundred species of wholly 

 extinct plants, and as the majority of them 

 are believed to have been trees or shrubs, it is 

 interesting to compare them with the vegeta- 

 tion now living in the same area. In addition 

 to the sequoia or " big tree," now confined to 

 the Pacific coast, there were three kinds of 

 araucarias or Norfolk Island pines, which at 

 the present time live only in South America 

 and Australia; a pine with the leaves in clus- 



