1885.] Editors’ Table. 277 
manufactured products of the world to those which preceded the 
iron age of human industry. By cutting off everything that 
belongs to the industrial history of the iron age, pure science will 
save a great amount of money and a great deal of invaluable 
space.—C. 
The year 1884 will be notable from the important discover- 
ies in vertebrate biology and invertebrate palzontology. It had 
been suspected and even stated that two mammals, the duckbill 
and Echidna, laid eggs; but for the first time, late in the last year, 
was full and convincing proof afforded by two independent obser- 
vers of the fact that both of these monotremes lay large eggs, 
with a soft parchment-like shell, which are placed in the mam- 
mary pouch, where they incubate until the young are hatched ina 
partially developed state. 
Late in the year also came the announcement that Dr. Lind- 
strom had discovered a fossil scorpion in the upper Silurian (Lud- 
low) of the island of Gotland. The presence of the stigmata, 
proves that it breathed air directly and was a true landanimal. The 
publication of this important news brought to light the fact that a 
fossil scorpion of the same genus had previously been obtained 
by Dr. Hunter from the upper Ludlow beds of Lanarkshire, Scot- 
land. This two-fold discovery carries the existence of Arachnids 
from the Carboniferous to the upper Silurian horizon. 
Still nearer the close of the year, at the last meeting in 1884 of 
the French Academy, M. Charles Brongniart announced the dis- 
covery in the middle Silurian of Calvados of an insect’s wing re- 
ferred to a cockroach. This transfers the first appearance of 
insect life from the upper Devonian to the middle Silurian. 
On the other hand the discovery of trilobites in the Australian 
Cretaceous beds was announced last year in the Geological Maga- 
zine; so that this type of Arthropod life is carried up from the 
Carboniferous to the chalk period. It will be remembered that 
fossil vertebrates in beds near the base of the upper Silurian of 
The Geological Survey of Canada is undergoing one of 
those periodical attacks which politicians of the less educated 
understand or appreciate. As usual, they do not perceive the ne- 
cessity of understanding the principles of the geological structure 
of the country before satisfactory “ practical ” results can be ob- 
tained ; but are crying for less theoretical and more cal 
geology. If they will make large appropriations to the survey 
