Proceedings of Learned Societies. 143 



with, the methods of reasoning and with much of the philosophy of 

 geology, as well as make him acquainted with a highly interesting 

 and well selected series of facts. 



The Temple Anecdotes. By Ralph and Chandos Temple. 

 Intention and Discovert. Elustrated. (Groombridge and Sons.) 

 — The rapid and remarkable success of this excellent publication 

 show that its editors and publishers know what the public require. 

 The numbers before us (2 and 3) fully equal the first one, and the 

 engravings keep up the artistic character of the work. In No. 2 

 the incidents chosen by the artist are called " Parsley Peel," and 

 " The Origin of our Cast Iron." In the first we see the founder of 

 the Peel family engaged, as the story tells, in his kitchen devising 

 a pattern for cotton printing, and aTailing himself of a suggestion 

 made by his little daughter, that a sprig of parsley should form the 

 text of the design. The pattern became famous and originated 

 the familiar nickname of Parsley Peel. The second wood en- 

 graTing illustrates the story told in Percy's Metallurgy of the Welsh 

 shepherd boy, John Thomas, showing Abraham Darby the method 

 he had discovered of casting an iron pot. This simple incident laid 

 the foundation of an enormous manufacture. No. 3 gives us a 

 picture of Jenner engaged with his discovery of vaccination, and a 

 view of a steamboat passing down the Thames in 1814, when the 

 new method of travelling first took possession of the river. The 

 anecdotes in these numbers are well selected and well told ; they 

 will prove alike interesting to juveniles and adults. 



PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 



BT W. B. TEGETMEIER. 



LINNEAN SOCIETY.— June 17. 



Discovert or the Bones op a recent Moa. — Mr. Thomas Alldis 

 exhibited to the society a number of bones, constituting nearly the 

 entire skeleton of a Moa ; these bones were in a very recent con- 

 dition, the cartilages of the joints were not decayed, and many of 

 the tendons and ligaments were in a perfectly fresh and flexible con- 

 dition. The skeleton was found by some gold diggers under condi- 

 tions which were not accurately described. The locality was some- 

 where near Dunedin, in the Middle Island of New Zealand. The 

 bird had been destroyed whilst sitting on the nest, and the bones of 

 the young ones which had perished with it, were found under those of 

 the parent, the whole being imbedded in a deposit of shifting sand. 

 Dr. Hooker suggested that the preservation of the soft tissues were 

 due to the animal having been preserved in ice, as in the well-known 

 case of the Siberian Mammoth, in which even the skin and flesh was 

 perfectly preserved. But as there was no evidence of the existence 

 of ice in New Zealand at the present time, it was suggested by 

 Professor Huxley and others, that the animal must have been recent, 

 and had probably not been dead more than ten or twelve years. 



