330 
THK GEOLOGIST. 
country to l)uy anv suitable articles of this kind second-hand. Even a moderate- 
size new eahinct seems usually to cost not less than ten or twelve pounds. 
C'ould common chests of drawers be made available hy any alteration which 
would not be expensive ? — 1 am, sir, yours, &c., A Constant Reader. 
The cheapest kind of cabinet which can be made, and which is also one of 
t1ie most useful, is formed by a set, of greater or less number, of i)laiii deal 
trays 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 
reconnnended for the manufacture of very excellent cabinets of a superior 
character. 
Case of a Toad. — At one of the meetings of the Wernerian Natural Histoiy 
Society, a notice was given of the incarceration of a //m toad in the wall of 
I'ort-William Barracks, Calcutta, for the long period of fifty-four years. 
Respikation of Frogs. — It a])pears, from a series of curious experiments 
])erformedby M. Edwards, and detailed in the "Aimales de Cliimie et Physique" 
for Jamuiry, 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 Murehison had made in the last edition of 
" Siluria,"* and his notice of that work recently published in the Bulletin of 
the French 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 foUows 
in historical order the various advances made from the substitution (in 1835) 
of the Silurian System, with its ground-work of arrangement, for the va^ue ill- 
digested accumulation of rocks known under the ancient general denoniuiation 
of grauwaeke, 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 thorouglily the labours of any of our countrymen are 
appreciated by foreign .wra//x, our object is now more to di-aw attention to a 
slight addition which M. d'Arcliiac has made to this work in his 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 
n\Mn similar lists executed in England, namely the absence of a niunerical table 
expressive of, 1st, the total number of genera and species of each class ; 2ud, 
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 dilference of tlie circumstances under which the strata were depo- 
sited. This 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 French geologist values those untiring and unceasing 
efforts that have produced that Silurian system which, foimded 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 iiis own words : — " Siluria, dont nous 
csperons que I'auteur donnera encore plus d' une edition, restera tonjours 
comme le magnifiquc couromiement d'un vaste ensemble de travaux dont ies 
annales de la science nous offreut pcu d'examj)les." 
• For a notice of tliis admii-able book see The Gkologist, Vol. II, p. 88. 
