1 882.] Scientific News. 619 



constitute one of the leading and most interesting problems of 

 the antiquary and historian of the present age; that relic hunters 

 have carried and scattered wide through America and Europe 

 the remains of these extinct towns, thus making their history's 

 study still more difficult, and in some particulars nearly impossible ; 

 that the extinct towns, the only monuments or interpreters of these 

 mysterious races, are now daily plundered and destroyed in an 

 almost vandal way ; that for illustration the ancient Spanish cathe- 

 dral or pecos, a building older than any now standing anywhere 

 in the original thirteen States, and built two years before the 

 founding of Boston, is being despoiled by the robbery of its 

 graves, while its timbers are being used for camp-fires and sold 

 to relic-hunters, and even used in the construction of stables. 

 Your petitioners therefore pray that at least some of these ex- 

 tinct cities or pueblos be carefully selected, with the land reser- 

 vations attached, and dating mostly from the Spanish crown of 

 1680, may be withheld from public sale, and their antiquity and 

 ruins be preserved, as they furnish invaluable data for ethnologi- 

 cal studies, now engaging the attention of our most learned, 

 scientific, antiquarian and historical students." 



— It is proposed by a committee, signed by S. F. Baird, Drs. 

 S. D. Gross, H. C. Wood, Weir Mitchell, Mr. Fairman Rogers, 

 and others, to make a suitable and substantial acknowledgment 

 of the preeminent services rendered to science by Professor Joseph 

 Leidy, who has held the chair of anatomy in the University of 

 Pennsylvania for thirty years, and to provide a testimonial which, 

 while expressing the admiration of those who unite in it for his 

 disinterested and self-sacrificing devotion to science, will relieve 

 him from some elementary teaching and enable him to devote 

 himself hereafter to those fields of profound investigation in which 

 he is unrivaled. It is proposed, therefore, that the sum of $100,- 



000 shall be raised, the interest of which shall be annually paid 

 to Professor Joseph Leidy during his lifetime; and that, after his 

 death, the said income shall be applied in perpetuity to the main- 

 tenance of the Joseph Leidy Chair of Anatomy in the University 



01 Pennsylvania. The names of the contributors will be perpetu- 

 ated in a suitable manner. Subscriptions will be received by Dr. 

 William Pepper, No. i8n Spruce street, Philadelphia. 



— At the request of Dr. Anton Dohrn, Director of the Zo6logi- 

 cal station at Naples, Dr. W. B. Scott has accepted the Honorary 

 Secretaryship for America for the publications of the Naples sta- 

 tion. Monographs on the Ctenophores, by Dr. C. Chun ; on the 

 genus Fierasfer, by Dr. C. Emery; on the Pantoda,by Dr.A. Dohrn 

 and on the Corallines, by Professor Solms, have already been 

 i-vsued, and a number of others are in preparation. These works 

 ^e of a high order of excellence, and very fully illustrated. Dr. 

 aimon Syrski, Professor of Zo61ogy in the University of Lem- 



