ino3.] 



SCIENCE. 



441 



for the repairs to and preservation of prop- 

 erty valued at $2,500,000. His brother offieer 

 at Xew York is supervising the investment of 

 appropriations amounting to $4,500,000, and 

 is responsible for property estimated to be 

 worth $7,000,000. Yet his rank is only that 

 of a lieutenant-commander, while the offieer 

 at Xorfolk is merely a junior lieutenant. It 

 is also a fact that there are but thirty-one 

 officers in the corps, of whom one is Peary, 

 who has been away from his regular duties, 

 in the interest of science, for a number of 

 years and who is about to go again. Promo- 

 tion, too, is very slow. As the corps now stands, 

 two of the junior lieutenants will not become 

 full lieutenants until the age of fifty-nine, 

 when they may, perhaps, be grandfathers. 

 Altogether, it seems plain that if more rank 

 and pay are to be bestowed anywhere in our 

 rapidly expanding navy the civil engineers 

 ought to be the first considered. Efficient men 

 in this corps should mean better navy yards 

 and docks, and so greater economies in thff 

 interest of the taxpayers. — New York Eve- 

 ning Post. 



GEOLOGICAL EXPLORATIONS IN EGYPT.* 

 Thanks to the munificence of Mr. W. E. de 

 Winton, who generously undertook to defray 

 the entire cost of carrying on for one or two 

 seasons geological explorations in the Libyan 

 Desert, the trustees of the British Museum 

 have been enabled, as the result of the past 

 season's operations, to enrich considerably the 

 national collection of fossils in the Natural 

 History Museum. Dr. C. AY. Andrews, of 

 the geological department, was again sent on 

 this mission, and he received valuable assist- 

 ance from Captain H. G. Lyons, director-gen- 

 eral of the Egyptian Geological Survey, and 

 other officers of the survey. Dr. Andrews 

 proceeded to the Fayum and began work in 

 the district to the north of the lake Birket-el- 

 Kerun ; and here he secured a fairly large col- 

 lection of vertebrate remains, including sev- 

 eral now forms and some specimens of great 

 scientific interest, nearly all the bones being of 

 L'ppcr Eocene age. 



• From the London Times. 



The most important object obtained is a 

 very fine and almost complete skull and man- 

 dible of a large, heavily-built ungulate, the 

 first specimen of which was discovered two 

 years ago by Mr. H. J. L. Beadnell, of the 

 Egyptian Geological Survey, who called the 

 genus Arsinoithcrium (after Arsinoij, a queen 

 of the Fayum in the 3d century B. C), 

 naming the species Zitteli, after Professor K. 

 von Zittel, the distinguished paleontologist at 

 the University of Munich, and a pioneer of 

 geological exploration in the Libyan Desert. 

 ArsinoUherium probably resembled in gen- 

 eral appearance a big rhinoceros, though in 

 no way related to that animal. The form of 

 the bones of the feet and legs suggests that 

 it was most nearly allied to the elephants and 

 to the Dinoeerata, a remarkable group of huge 

 extinct herbivorous hoofed mammals, remains 

 of which have been found in great abundance 

 in the Eocene Tertiary strata of Wyoming, 

 North America ; but in the possession of a 

 pair of great bony horns over the nose, to- 

 gether with a smaller pair over the eyes and 

 in the peculiar form of the teeth Arsinoithe- 

 rium stands quite apart from other mammals. 

 Dr. Andrews also came across a very large 

 mandible and a maxilla, both with well pre- 

 served teeth, which have characters indicating 

 the existence of a species of ArsinoUherium 

 much bigger than the one named after Zittel. 

 Of the early and primitive forms of Probos- 

 cidea a considerable series of specimons was 

 acquired for the national collection at South 

 Kensington. Mention may be specially made 

 of a nearly complete skull of Paleomastodon, 

 one of the early forms of the elephant fam- 

 ily lately found in the Eocene beds of Egypt. 

 It is of interest to note that most of the char- 

 acters which give to the skull and teeth of 

 the modern elephant their peculiar structure 

 and appearance have in Paleomastodon only 

 just begun to develop. Thus as regards the 

 teeth, the grinders are much simpler than 

 in later forms, and consist of three transverse 

 ridges only. Moreover, all the cheek-teeth 

 (premolars and molars) are in wear at once, 

 as in ordinary mammals, while in the recent 

 elephants the front cheek-teeth fall out be- 

 fore the hinder ones are cut. The shortening 



