330 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



country to buy any suitable articles of this kind second-hand. Even a moderate- 

 size new cabinet seems usually to cost not less than ten or twelve pounds. 

 Could common chests of drawers be made available by any alt eration which 

 would not be expensive ?— I am, sir, yours, &c., A Constant Reader. 



The cheapest kind of cabinet which can be made, and which is also one of 

 the most useful, is formed by a set, of greater or less number, of ])lain deal 

 travs with marginal rims. These trays can be rested on cross-bars in a simple 

 deal case, a cupboard, or recess. 



Such trays can be made in town for about three shillings each. 



Mr. Charlton, the resident housekeeper of the Geological Society, can be 

 recommended for the manufacture of very excellent cabinets of a superior 

 character. 



Case of a Toad. — At one of the meetings of the Wernerian Natural History 

 Society, a notice was given of the incarceration of a live toad in the wall of 

 rort-William Barracks, Calcutta, for the long period of fifty-four years. 



Eespihation of Progs. — It appears, from a series of curious experiments 

 performed by M. Edwards, and detailed in the "Annales de Chimie et Physique" 

 for January, 1819, that frogs, toads, and lizards are preserved alive and in health 

 under water for weeks, by means of the air contained in the water, which they 

 abstract, not by the lungs, but by the skin. 



Count D'Archiac's Notice of " Siluria." — Count d'Archiac was charged 

 by the President of the Geological Society of Prance with a report of the prin- 

 cipal changes which Sir Roderick Murchison had made in the last edition of 

 " Siluria,"* and liis notice of that work recently published in the Bulletin of 

 the Erench Geological Society, is not only the best resume of the objects and 

 intentions of Sir Roderick's masterly labours we have yet seen, but offers also 

 several observations and suggestions well worthy of note. The report follows 

 in historical order the various advances made from the substitution (in 1835) 

 of the Silurian System, with its ground-work of arrangement, for the vague ill- 

 digested accumulation of rocks known under the ancient general denomination 

 of grauwacke, to this last most comprehensive description of the Lower Palaeo- 

 zoic rocks, both in their details and in their entirety. Interesting as it is to 

 know how far and how thoroughly the labours of any of our countrymen are 

 appreciated by foreign savans, our object is now more to draw attention to a 

 slight addition which M. d'Archiac has made to this work in liis review. 



In speaking of the admirable list of fossils prepared for " Siluria" by Messrs. 

 Salter and Morris, Count d'Archiac repeats the remarks he has already made 

 upon similar lists executed in England, namely the absence of a numerical table 

 expressive of, 1st, the total number of genera and species of each class ; 2nd, 

 the total number of species in each geological division ; 3rd, the species common 

 to two or more of the geological divisions, in such wise as to be able to deduce 

 the degree of importance of their zoological relations, and consequently the 

 analogy or difference of the circumstances under which the strata were depo- 

 sited. Tills want M. d'Archiac fills up by a table prepared from the list above 

 referred to, which, for the benefit of English geologists, we transfer to our pages. 



How highly the great Erench geologist values those untiring and unceasing 

 efforts that have produced that Silurian system which, founded on a limited 

 portion of the British Isles, has been now, by the investigations and researches 

 of foreign, and of our colonial geologists, applied in its integrity to the whole 

 world, is given best and briefly in his own words : — " Siluria, dont nous 

 esperons que I'auteur doiuiera encore plus d' une edition, restera toujours 

 comme le magnifique couronnement d'un vaste ensemble de travaux dont les 

 annales de la science nous offrent pen d'examples." 



* For a notice of tliis admii-able book see The GiiOLOGisT, VoL II, p. 88. 



