280 Scientific Meetings. 



ing to a lower part of the fissure where bones were most abun- 

 dant. Therje are also in one part of the cavity, transverse plates 

 of stalagmite enveloping bones, and separated by a thin parting 

 of red earth, which shows the process of accumulation to have 

 been gradual, in this part at least There is also at the geolo^ 

 gical society a large dentata, sent from JVew Holland, from near 

 Sidney, and said to have been found, not in a cave, but near the 

 surface of the land. It is about the size of the dentata of a rhino- 

 ceros, but is not exactly like that animal's vertebra : it remains 

 yet to be identified. 



SCIENTIFIC MEETINGS. 



Meeting of the Cultivators of Natural Science and Medicine^ at Hamhurghf 



in September, 1830. 



In the April number, for 1831, of Dr. Brewster's valuable work, 

 the Edinburgh Journal of Science, is a very interesting and lively 

 account, by Mr. Johnston, of the meeting of naturalists at Ham- 

 burgh, in September, 1830. These German conventions of 

 learned men, who cultivate the natural sciences, owe their origin 

 to Professor Oken of Munich, a distinguished naturalist and au- 

 thor, and Editor of the Isis, a monthly periodical, commenced at 

 Jena, in 1817, and devoted to literature and science. It was in 

 the tsis that Oken first proposed these annual meetings of natu- 

 ralists ; but it was a time when the German courts kept a sur- 

 veillance over periodical literature, and the proposition coming 

 from him, was not sufficiently favoured. By the introduction of 

 some political articles into his Journal, he had formerly given of- 

 fence, his Professor's chair of natural history at Jena was taken 

 from him, and the Isis forbidden to be published in Weimar. In 

 1827, however, the King of Bavaria presented him with a chair 

 in the university of Munich, where he is now Professor of Physi- 

 ology. The first meeting took place at Leipsic, in 1822. It con- 

 sisted of about a dozen strangers, and twenty inhabitants. In 

 1823 they met in greater force at Halle. In 1824 at Wurtzburg. 

 The accession this year both in numbers and talent was marked ; 

 and from this time credit seems to have been given to them for 

 the real objects they had in view, which were not only to pro- 

 mote a friendly personal intercourse among men of science, but 



