1870.] Geology and Palaeontology. 543 



note that twenty genera are now found in the Australian seas, only 

 three of which, however, have species in the Tertiaries, viz. the 

 cosmopolite Trochocyathus, Flabellum, and Amphihelia, but the 

 fossil species are quite distinct from those now living. If we may 

 judge by the wide geographical distribution of some of these species 

 we may with safety infer that their range in time was also very 

 much greater than has hitherto been assumed. Allied forms are 

 found living in Japan and China, the Bed Sea, the West Indies, 

 and Europe in Miocene times. 



The descriptions of the new species are illustrated by thirty-two 

 figures, occupying three double-octavo plates. 



There is reason to believe that the Wealden vertebra, now 

 described and figured by Mr. J. W. Hulke, belongs to the same 

 large animal — distinct from any of the known Dinosaurs — of which 

 there is a single vertebra preserved in the British Museum, and 

 named by the late Dr. Mantell Streptosjpondylus. The texture of 

 the bone is like the coarse diploe of the elephant's skull, and has led 

 to the belief, by Mr. H. Gr. Seeley, that it represents a gigantic 

 Pterosaurian ; but Mr. Halke reminds us that an extremely light 

 skeleton does not necessarily prove endowment with flight, and also 

 that all the known flying-reptiles have proccelian vertebras, whilst 

 the vertebra of Btreptosfondylus is amphiccelian in type. The 

 supply of new and wonderful reptilian remains furnished by the 

 Wealden of the Isle of Wight seems almost inexhaustible, but it is 

 much to be regretted that by far the greater part of these have, 

 of late years, fallen into the hands of a local collector in the island, 

 unable to describe them himself and unwilling to allow them to be 

 worked out and described by anyone else. 



Our knowledge of Fossil Botany has been increased by an inte- 

 resting description of a new fossil fern-stem, so like the recent 

 Osmunda, as to justify its describer, Mr. Carruthers, in placing it 

 in the Osinundacese. The specimen was silicifled so effectually that 

 even the starch-grains in its cells, and the mycelium of a fungus 

 traversing some of them, were perfectly represented. The fossil 

 (which was probably derived from the upper part of the Thanet 

 Sands) has been named Osmundites Dotvheri, after Mr. George 

 Dowker, its discoverer. 



Professor Owen has ventured upon the difficult task of deter- 

 mining the remains of a number of fossil Mammalia upon the 

 evidence furnished by a series of detached teeth brought home by 

 Mr. Bobert Swinhoe, H.B.M. Consul at Formosa, and obtained by 

 him from the apothecaries' shops at Shanghai and at Chung-king-foo 

 (Eastern Szechuen) on the Yangtse-kiang Kiver. They included 

 two species of Stegodon, a new Hyaena, a new Tapir, a new Rhino- 

 ceros, and a species of Kaup's genus Chalicotherium. From a 

 general agreement in colour, chemical condition, &c, Professor Owen 



