540 Chronicles of Science. [Oct., 



to Siren and Proteus ; "while the relationship of the vomers to the 

 pterygoids, and the form of the latter, are very similar to what 

 obtains in AxoJotI : and the alliance with this last-named interesting 

 form would he rendered still stronger, if it should turn out that our 

 new genus has really bony maxilla?, particularly as the premaxillse 

 are aimed with teeth. In Siren and Proteus the premaxillaries 

 are quite minute and are devoid of teeth. This is not the only 

 instance in which a Labyrinthodont has been found to exhibit an 

 approximation to the Siren-type of structure. Pteroplax is so 

 related, although its approach is by a different line front that of 

 Batrachiderpeton. 



Petrified Forest near Cairo. — The fossil- wood which covers the 

 desert to the east of Cairo has long filled the passing traveller on 

 this great eastern high road with surprise. The immense quantity 

 of what seems to be decaying wood in a region described as a 

 "dreary arid expanse, treeless and almost shrubless, rugged with 

 dark-coloured knolls, and intersected by a few dry rain-channels," 

 excites, by the remarkable contrast of the present with what is 

 apparently the not far-distant past, the wonder of the most careless 

 observer. They have, of course, been referred to by travellers in 

 many published books. Burkhardt thought they were petrified 

 date-trees, Holroyd referred them to the Doom-palm, Murray's 

 1 Handbook' also speaks of them as palms. Gardiner "Wilkinson 

 refers to branched and thorn-bearing trees as well as palms, also to 

 some jointed stems resembling bamboos. A careful examination by 

 the late Prof. linger, however, failed to elicit more than a single 

 species, after a most searching examination of a very large series 

 of specimens, and after a personal visit to the spot. 



This form, which he named Xicolia Egyptiaca, has just been 

 supplemented by a second species brought home by Prof. Owen 

 during his recent visit to Egypt with the Prince and Princess of 

 Wales. Mr. Carruthers has figured and described it as Nicolia 

 Oicenii* after its discoverer. 



Italian Tertiary Brachiopoda. — Mr. Thomas Davidson, P.E.S., 

 our great authority upon " Lamp-shells," has taken up his pen and 

 crayons to illustrate the Tertiary Brachiopoda of Italy, which he is 

 carrying out most completely in the ' Geological Magazine.' In 

 his introduction he refers to the much-discussed question of deve- 

 lopment of species. " We are," he says, " far from having disco- 

 vered the laws which regulate the gradual succession of life ; and 

 we are, I fear, much too apt to guess at the origin of species, and 

 to interpret those unknown laws from a small number of incomplete 

 observations. The assiduous researches which, for many years, I 

 hare made among the living and fossil species of Brachiopoda have, 

 to a certain extent, imbued my mind with the idea that an indivi- 

 * See 'Geol. Mag./ vol. vii., p. 30C, 1870. 



