for ArchsGological Investigations in the United States. Circular on the 

 Ancient Mining Operations of the Lake Superior Copper Region. Sog- 

 gestions relative to an Ethnological Map of North America. 



Natural History. — List of Birds of the District of Columbia, by E. 

 Coues and D. W. Prentiss. 



Prize Questions of Scientific Societies.— HoWmd Society of Science at 

 Harlem. Batavian Society of Experimental Philosophy at Rotterdam. 

 Society of Arts and Sciences at Utrecht. Royal Academy of the Nether- 



We have to thatik Prof. Henry for bringing together for convenient 

 reference the lists of Prize Questions of scientific societies. We do not 

 know where else to look for this information at one view and beg leave 

 to suggest to the distinguished Secretary of the Smithsonian that this 

 list be continued in future Fieports and extended to embrace a yearly 

 list of ail the prize questions tending to the advancement of knowledge 

 (not merely 'science' in a technical sense) which may be proposed any- 

 where. We know of no more acceptable service which the Institution 

 can perform. We give in this connection a passage from a letter of a 

 valued correspondent who speaking on this subject says: 



" It is now far from easy for any one %vho may happen to live outside of the 



are ofFered even by such prominent bodies as the Royal Society or the French 

 Academy, while the programmes of many active societies like the Soc. d t,n- 



gement, tlie Soc. Industrielle de Mulhouse, and several of the other pro- 

 il societies uf France, too-ether with many in Germany, are certainly not 

 n to one in a hundred of the persons competent, and likely to pontend tor. 



— r ,,..„_. _ _ . ..,„. .o probably be nearly 



regard to some of our American prizes— like the Rutnford medal, for discove- 

 ries in light and heat, of the American Academy ; if not others like the medi- 

 cal premiums of Fiske and Boylston. , 



The offer of prizes is important not only in affording an incentive to lauda- 

 ble ambition, in tendinjr to brin? out talent and labor which would otherwise 



^the paths 

 J worked upon^ by thein. 



the au-- . 



pecial- 



Having always believed that a prominent reason why several of the prizes 

 in question have been so seldom taken is to be sought for in the lack of puD- 

 licity which has attended their announcement, I am especially desirous of see- 

 ing a trial of the plan just proposed, during a decade or two at least- I canno 

 but believe but that it would prove to be a valuable aid to the progress oi 



5. Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. New' 

 series, Vol. V, Part H. Philadelphia : printed for the Academy, Uct^ 

 1862. 4to, pp. 111-216, with 33 plates.— The contents of this part are. 



Art. HL Monograph of the fossil Polyzoa of the Secondary and ier 

 tiary Formation of North America. By William Gabb and Or- o.- 

 Horn, M.U. 



Art. IV. Description of new birds from Western Africa in the Museum 

 of the Academy of Nat. Sci. of Philadelphia. By John Cassin. 



Art V. New Unionid^ of the United States and ArcUc America, uy 



