| 1878.] Scientific News. ' 65 
lished by G. J. Romanes, in Nature, for July 26th, and August 2d. 
By removing the eight nervous ganglia, the whole disc of the 
k jelly-fish presents not merely the protoplasmic qualities of excita- 
bility and contractility, but also the essentially nervous quality of | 
conducting stimuli to a distance irrespective of the passage of a 
contractile wave. He therefore concludes that there can be no 
longer any question that we have here to deal with a tissue already 
so far differentiated from primitive protoplasm, that the distant 
ing function of nerve has become fully established. 
— Dr. Sachs, who was sent to Venezuela by the Berlin Acad- 
emy of Science, for the purpose of studying the electric eel in its 
native haunts, has returned, says Nature, after an absence of ten 
months, with a rich store of valuable observations.—A second 
specimen of PEGLA sie Save has been discovered near 
Solenhofen ; this specimen is muc e perfect than the other, 
and possesses the eae. bahe bona of the skull of Amia 
calva have been described in detail by T. W. Bridge, in the English 
Fournal of Anatomy and Physiology. 
— Professor E. D. Cope has lately visited the Nickajack Cave 
near Chattanooga in Company with Professors Loverell and 
Nipher, Dr. Walker and Mr. Lindsley. The cave is as large as 
the Mammoth or Wyandotte caves, and is traversed by a large 
“stream. He found an abundance of a blind craw-fish and several 
small crustacea, some of them allied to Czcidotzea. e also pro- 
cured the myripod, Spirostrephon cavernarum, a spider with eyes, 
and a Raphidophora, etc. 
— We have received some advance sheets of Erklarungen zu 
den Zoologischen Wandtafeln, herausgegeben von R. Leuckart, 
professor in Leipzig, and Dr. H. Nitsche, professor in Tharand. 
Taf. i—iii. Cassel, Theodor Fischer, 1877. These are colored dia- 
_ grams, printed from stone, and are well selected and in all respects 
-= admirable. They are designed for the use of schools and col- 
leges, and the series will, when finished, comprise about one hun- 
dred sheets, accompanied by an explanation of each plate in 
German, F rench and English. The price to subscribers for the 
whole work will be from eighty pfennigs to two marks (a mark is 
32 cents). It will be seen by this that the diagrams as a whole 
will be quite cheap. 
— The death of Prokessor James Orton, occurred about the 
24th of October last, while he was crossing Lake Titicaca, en 
route for Puno. He had been some time in Bolivia, and having re- 
linquished his journey to the Beni River, was on his way home. 
Professor James Orton was bora at Seneca Falls, N. Y., April 
21, 1830. He was graduated at Williams College in 1855, and 
in 1858 at the Andover Theological Seminary. After traveling 
n Europe and in the East, he was ordained a congregational 
= minister in 1860. In 1866 he became instructor in the natural 
_ sciences at Rochester University. The year following he went at 
VOL, XII.—NO. I, 
