ll 
May 9, 1884.] 
served. The policy laid down by Professor 
Thomson, when called upon by the admiralty 
to propose a plan for the disposal of the Chal- 
lenger collections, was in principle exactly con- 
sistent with that for many years pursued by 
our government geological survey, fish-commis- 
sion, and bureau of ethnology, in relation to the 
national museum, though the heads of these 
organizations generally find it more convenient 
to use the organization of the museum to facili- 
tate the administration of their own work. 
A much more serious complaint has been 
based upon the policy of the director in claim- 
ing a right to control the results of the studies 
of his assistants during the voyage, and to 
announce their discoveries in his official capa- 
city, without giving credit to the observers. 
It is, of course, impossible to say to what extent 
this policy was putin practice; but it is certain 
that the efficiency of the staff was to some extent 
impaired by it, and that some of the men felt 
called upon to protect themselves by writing 
their journals in languages unknown to the 
director. ‘The subject has, of course, had no 
public discussion in England, and is referred to 
in this review simply on account of the general 
principle involved, which has already affected 
the efficiency of many institutions and expedi- 
tions in the United States. For the benefit 
both of science and of the workers in science, it 
is exceedingly important that there should be 
established some exact understanding of what 
constitutes literary or scientific property, and 
how much control over the results of the labors 
of his pupils or assistants a teacher or director 
justly may exert. 
Whatever may have been the obstacles to 
the success of the expedition, its final results 
cannot fail to be satisfactory to every one who 
examines them. ‘The highest praise is due to 
the late Sir Wyville Thomson, by whom it was 
organized and so successfully carried on. The 
liberal spirit with which he invoked the co- 
operation of foreign specialists was one of the 
many noteworthy features of his administration. 
Since his death, in March, 1882, the adminis- 
tration has been admirably carried on by Mr. 
John Murray, who was Professor Thomson’s 
first assistant in natural history from the very 
start. 
As has been already stated, eight volumes 
of zodlogical reports have already appeared. 
These contain the zodlogical monographs up to 
No. xxiv., thirty more still remaining to be 
published, together with two botanical reports, 
several concluding parts of papers already 
begun, and Mr. Murray’s final summary of 
results. In discussing the publications of the 
dt 
SCIENCE. a719 
expedition, the monographs will be taken up in 
systematic sequence. ‘Their present order is 
arbitrary and temporary, it being understood 
that this will be abandoned in the final arrange- 
ment and combinations of the volumes of the 
report. 
The mammal collections were assigned to 
Professor William Turner of the University 
of Edinburgh, whose paper upon the human 
crania is announced to be nearly ready, but 
whose final report on the marine mammalia 
will, it is feared, be long delayed. An instal- 
ment of the latter is, however, already in type, 
in the form of a report upon the bones of 
Cetacea (vol. i., 43 p., 3 pl.). This paper is 
a curious illustration of how many important 
facts may be derived from the study of a col- 
lection of objects of the most heterogeneous 
and miscellaneous character, such as the series 
of whale-bones gathered by such an expedition 
must necessarily be. ‘The descriptions of the 
skeletons of Mesoplodon Layardi, and other 
whales obtained at the shore-stations, are valu- 
able to the cetologist ; but the greatest interest 
is in the account of the hundreds of separate 
bones dredged from the abyssal depths. At 
one station in the middle of the South Pacific, 
at 2,335 fathoms, there were obtained about 
ninety tympanic bullae, as well as numerous 
other ear-bones, the remains of nearly as many 
individual whales, most of them ziphioids. 
From the evidence of such fragments, Professor 
Turner concludes that the genus Mesoplodon is 
particularly abundant in the South Pacific, and 
Ziphius in the South Atlantic, though but few 
of these animals have been observed in those 
regions. Strange as it may seem, there were 
found no bones of the sperm-whale, so abun- 
dant in all the waters traversed by the ship. 
In the localities where bones were found, — 
none of which, it may be noted, were north 
of the equator, —the deposit at the bottom was 
ared clay, containing, besides the ear-bones, 
many hundreds of sharks’ teeth, belonging 
to the genera Carcharodus, Oxyrhina, and 
Lamna, and apparently to extinct species. 
The question naturally arises, whether the as- 
sociated cetacean remains belong to recent or 
extinct species. The occurrence of the teeth 
of tertiary sharks, lying so loosely upon the 
bottom that they may be scraped up by the 
dredge, indicates to the writer of this review 
that tertiary sharks have probably existed in 
these waters within comparatively recent times, 
and that the ear-bones, which cannot be re- 
ferred to living species already known, in all 
likelihood belong to living species of whales 
not yet discovered. That interesting gener- 
