2^f.2 The ]A/est American Scientist. 



murder them unperceived, derive their sahness, as an able Cana> 

 dian geologist has shown, from the thinly scattered salts still re- 

 tained among the sediment of that very archaic sea whose precip- 

 itates form the earliest known life-bearing rocks. To the Hom- 

 eric Greek, as to Mr. Dick Swiveller, the ocean was always the 

 briny; to modern science, on the other hand (which neither of 

 those worthies would probably have appreciated at its own valua- 

 tion), the briny is always the oceanic. The fossil food which we 

 find to-day on all our dinner tables, dates back its origin primarily 

 to the first seas that ever covered the surface of our planet, and 

 secondarily to the great rock deposits of the dried up triassic in- 

 land sea. And yet even our men of science habitually described 

 that ancient mineral as common salt. — Coriihill Magazine, 



HOV\/ THE PLATYPUS BREEDS. 



This question is now satisfactorily settled. The platypus lays 

 eggs, and Mr. Caldwell, Natural History Fellow^ of Caius College, 

 Cambridge, has been credited with the honor of the discovery. 

 Mr. Caldwell, though not responsible to any scientific body in this 

 country, was nevertheless good enough to appear before the mem- 

 bers of the Linnean Society of Sidney, and verify his discovery. 

 He exhibited the eggshells, made a statement, and answered all 

 questions put to him. The eggs were round rather than oval, the 

 shells hard and of a calcareous composition. Mr. Caldwell dis- 

 sected over 600 female specimens before getting one with an egg* 

 in it. The female in which the egg was found had layed an egg- 

 just shortly before she was caught, and the embryologist, who had 

 suffered so many disappointments from a similar cause, feared that 

 he was to be again doomed to disappointment; but such, how'- 

 ever, was not the case, for on dissection another egg was found, 

 and then, and not till then, was this vexed question decided. It 

 is no exaggeration to say that this is one of the most notable 

 scientific discoveries of the nineteenth century. Students to the 

 philosophy of Darwin are quite alive to the importance of this dis- 

 covery, and it has been hailed with delight by Professor Mosely 

 and many other eminent scientists. The platypus (Ornithorhyn- 

 chus) has bridged the hiatus that hitherto existed between birds 

 and animals; in other words, the most important of Darwin's 

 "missing links" has been discovered, and the chain of connection 

 between reptiles and man is now very nearly complete. Much 

 credit is due Professor Liversidge, of the Sydney University, for 

 the promptitude with which he cabled the disco\ery to the Royal 

 Society, then sitting at Montreal; and I am personally much in- 

 debted to that gentleman for kindness in furnishing me with Mr. 

 Caldwell's address and forwarding him my letters. I shall be 

 very thankful to your correspondent, "Platypus," ifhe will for- 

 ward me those spirit specimens of platypus eggs to the Australian 



