284 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



Professor Warren in the course of an interesting paper on the 

 subject, dealt in an exhaustive manner with the latter portion of Mr. 

 Haycroft's paper, in which the Cowra bridge, now under construction 

 by the Roads and Bridges Department, was referred to. He said both 

 the department and Mr. Hayci'oft had calculated the stresses by graphic 

 and analytical methods, which agreed with each other ; but the results 

 arrived at by Mr. Haycroft differed from those arrived at by the 

 department. Dealing with American bridges, he said he thought every 

 English bridge engineer freely admitted the skill and ability displayed 

 by the Americans in the construction of bridges. Although we have 

 the Forth Bridge, he said, we cannot claim that our ordinary bridges 

 are superior to those constructed in America. We certainly could not 

 claim that we disposed our materials in a more scientific manner, for 

 we have the facts clearly pointed out by Sir B. Baker on this subject. 

 American engineers had adopted for their ordinary iron and steel 

 bridges a form of trass or girder very similar in appearance to their 

 timber bridge, and which resembled the form adopted by the Roads and 

 Bridges Department for timber bridges. It would be found on examining 

 a variety of the best designs, such as those of the Union Bridge 

 Company, that in iron and steel bridges where the stresses were 

 definite, they adopted the form known as the American truss bridge, 

 and for timber bridges a truss which was almost identical with the 

 Roads and Bridges truss, with the identical bars which, according to 

 Mr. Haycroft, were untrussed. Before condemning the Cowra bridge, 

 he thought it desirable to show that a better composite bridge could be 

 constructed. He submitted that neither Mr. Haycroft's paper nor the 

 discussion had shown that the Cowra bridge was unsafe or liable to 

 become so. He had seen a great many timber bridges in Australia and 

 New Zealaud, but he considered the Cowra bridge, in spite of the 

 ambiguity in the determination of the stresses developed in it, to he 

 superior to any other. 



FIELD NATURALISTS' CLUB OF VICTORIA. 



Melbourne, August 10th 1891. — Professor W. Baldwin Spencer in 

 the chair. 



New members. — Messrs. J. H. Craig, jun., B. Eugene, F. Gladish 

 H. A. Lamble, F. Marsh, J. Mitchell, and N. T. Wilsmore, B.Sc. 



Paper. — (1) " Mode of Reproduction of Peripatus Leuckartii," by 

 Dr. A. Dendy, F.L.S. Last May, Dr. Dendy obtained three specimens 

 from Macedon, and kept them, in company with one from another 

 district, in a small vivarium, and at the end of July some 12 or 15 eggs 

 were laid. These eggs were easily seen, being fairly large, oval in 

 shape, and covered with a tough, thick, elastic membrane. Microscopic 

 examination of one of them showed that the membrane enclosed a thick, 

 milky fluid, full of yolk granules, the enclosing case being exquisitely 

 sculptured in a regular design. This discovery is of importance, as in 

 all other species whose life history is known, the viviparous habit — 



