310 SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



The condor. They have not less enriched the science of zoology. The 



condor has never before been so accurately described. Its 

 Size has been much exaggerated. It scarcely exceeds a metre 

 (3 feet3 in.) in height, or three or four in spread of wing. 

 ' Its general colour is blackish brown; and round the lower 



part of the neck is a collar of white feathers. The male is 

 distinguished by a fleshy crest on the top of the head, and a 

 white spot in the wing. 

 Electrical eel of They likewise made some curious observations on the 

 gymnotus electricus. In the water it is capable of giving 

 such a shock to a horse, as to stun it, so that it falls down, 

 and is in danger of being drowned. Mr. von Humboldt, 

 putting both his feet on one just taken out of the water, 

 felt an acute pain, that did not entirely go off the whole 

 day. Slighter shocks induce a peculiar trembling, a kind 

 of twitching of the tendons, different from those of com- 

 mon electricity. The pain is more like that produced by- 

 galvanizing a wound. 



Mr. Tenon has given an important continuation of his 

 Memoirs on the Dentition of the Horse. 

 Fossil remains Mr. Cuvier continues Lis inquiries concerning the ani- 

 of lost animals. m als, that appear to have been destroyed by some revolu- 

 tions of the globe. He has described five in the last half 

 Genus masto- year, all of the genus mastodontes : the characters of which 

 ..ontcs. are £ nave tusks and a proboscis, and their grinders fur- 



nished with conical protuberances arranged in pairs. In the 

 plaster quarries of Montmartre a skeleton of one of the 

 species described by Mr. Cuvier has lately been dug up 

 nearly entire. 

 Beauvois's in- Mr. de Beauvois has published the third number of his 

 insects collected in Africa and America. 



Mr. Vauquelin has instituted an accurate analysis of the 



iron ores of France, their products, the fluxes employed, 



and the scoria?, with a view to ascertain the causes of the 



Iron rendered defective qualities of the iron. These he attributes to re- 



Ihortbychrlme, mains of chrome, phosphorus, and manganese. He ob. 



phosphorus, serves too, that this compound, sublimed in the furnaces, 



and manganese. b „ arsmuch rescm blance to that of the stones that have fallen 



from the atmosphere, except that these contain nickel also ; 



and 



