442 



SCIENCE. 



[X. S. VoL.XVIlI. No. 457. 



of the face and the swelling up of the hinder 

 part of the skull are connected with the devel- 

 opment of the heavy tusks and trunk of the 

 present day elephant; but in Paleomastodon 

 these structures were comparatvely small, 

 and the animal must have presented much 

 the appearance of a very large pig. 



Peculiar interest attaches to the discovery 

 of bones of a large Hyracoid about the size 

 of a tapir, belonging to a new genus. It is 

 only within recent years that fossil remains of 

 this group of mammals, whose affinities have 

 long been a puzzle to zoologists, have been de- 

 scribed. Dr. Andrews relates the occurrence 

 in these beds of four other species of Hyraces; 

 and this fact would seem to indicate that the 

 comparatively few and insignificant modern 

 members of the group are the degenerate de- 

 scendants of a once numerous stock which 

 must at that time have been an important 

 factor in the Ethiopian fauna. 



The sands and clays in which these bones 

 and fossilized trees are embedded in such 

 abundance are evidence that in Eocene times 

 this part of the Libyan Desert was the estuary 

 of a great river, down which the carcasses of 

 drowned animals, accompanied by big tree- 

 trunks, were swept, and then buried in mud 

 and sand. 



Dr. Andrews also obtained a collection of 

 specimens from the Pleistocene lake-beds of 

 Birket-el-Kerun, including numerous flint im- 

 plements and remains of an animal which 

 he has identified as belonging to the African 

 elephant (Elephas Africanus). The occur- 

 rence of elephant remains in this locality as- 

 sociated with flint implements is, as Dr. An- 

 drews points out, very noteworthy, both as 

 extending the known range of the African 

 elephant and also as supplying a strong rea- 

 son for regarding the implements as being 

 of prehistoric age. Dr. Budge states that no 

 representation of the elephant is met with on 

 any of the early Egyptian monuments, which 

 certainly would not be the case had the artists 

 been familiar with the animal ; and it is there- 

 fore probable that it became extinct in Egypt 

 at some remote prehistoric period, when also 

 the implements which were found with the 

 remains must have been made. 



The imposing-looking skull of Arsinoithe- 

 rium Zitteli and specimens of Paleomaslodon 

 are now exhibited in the Central Hall of the 

 Natural Plistory Museum. 



Mention may also be made here of other 

 recent important additions to the exhibited 

 collection in the gallery of fossil mammalia. 

 These comprise a series of remains of mam- 

 mals from the Lower Pliocene formation of 

 Pikermi, near Athens, obtained during the 

 excavations recently undertaken by the trus- 

 tees at that place. The bones exhibited are 

 only a small portion of the large collection 

 secured by Dr. A. S. Woodward. They rep- 

 resent quadrupeds which were living in 

 Greece in the Lower Pliocene period, when 

 that country was connected by land with Asia 

 and Africa, before the Mediterranean assumed 

 its present form. Greece was then a land of 

 forests, table-lands and lakes; and Pikermi 

 is part of the bed of a silted-up lake, into 

 which the bones of accidentally destroyed 

 herds of quadrupeds were washed and buried. 

 The remains shown at South Kensington be- 

 long to primitive elephants (Mastodon), rhi- 

 noceroses, three-toed horses (Hipparion) , nu- 

 merous antelopes, giraffes, pigs, hyenas and 

 monkeys. Attention should be drawn to the 

 instructive pieces of the bone-beds showing 

 how the fossilized remains occur in the rock. 



THE ELIZABETH THOMPSON' SCIENCE 

 FUND. 



This fund, which was established by Mrs. 

 Elizabeth Thompson, of Stamford, Connecti- 

 cut, ' for the advancement and prosecution of 

 scientific research in its broadest sense,' now 

 amounts to $26,000. As accumulated income 

 will be available January next, the trustees 

 desire to receive applications for appropria- 

 tions in aid of scientific work. This endow- 

 ment is not for the benefit of any one depart- 

 ment of science, but it is the intention of 

 the trustees to give the preference to those 

 investigations which can not otherwise he 

 provided for, which have for their object the 

 advancement of himian knowledge or the bene- 

 fit of mankind in general, rather than to re- 

 searches directed to the solution of questions 

 of merely local importance. 



