SCIENTIFIC SUMMAEY. 115 
Hall feU, while attempting the restoration of this creature, and confirms in 
fhe strongest manner Professor Huxley’s opinions. 
It wiU be remembered by those who attended Professor Huxley’s lectures, in 
1857, that he then laid considerable stress upon the homological relationship 
which exists between the thoracic plate of Eurypterus and the leaf-like 
appendage of Limulus. This view is now fully corroborated by Mr. W ood- 
wards inquiries. — Vide Geological Magazine, for September. 
The Fossil Flephant of Malta. — Dr. Leith Adams has lately discovered 
more relics of this interesting fossil. The specimens were found in extensive 
excavations, which have been made under his superintendence, among the 
cavern-deposits and breccias of Crendi. One of the chief points with 
reference to the elephant in question is the smaU size of its teeth, which, 
coupled with other characteristics, leaves no doubt that it was not only 
distinct from any living or extinct species, but that it was, as regards dimen- 
sions, a pigmy compared with „them. It is supposed to have been no larger 
than a lion. Such specunens, together with the bones and teeth of hippo- 
potami, which of late years have been met with in great abundance in 
different parts of Malta and Gozo, tend to show that these islands are but 
fragments of what may at one time have been an extensive continent, in all 
probability connected with either Europe or Africa, or both. 
Sir Charles Lyell a Baronet. — There are few men of science in these coun- 
tries who will not had with intense satisfaction the news of Sir Charles 
Lyell’s elevation to the Baronetcy. The great geologist is now Baronet of 
Kinnordy, in the county of Forfar. The honour conferred on him is, we 
beheve, the highest recognition of merit ever bestowed on a geologist in this 
vcountry, but one which, after all, falls far short of the deserts of the “ His- 
torian of Geology.” 
The Oases of Sahara are divided by MM. Desors into three distinct 
.classes : — 1st. Those watered by streams from the mountains. 2nd. Those 
supplied with water from Artesian wells, the products of a very ancient 
industry ; and 3rd. The oases without water, of which those of the Souf are 
an example. The oases of the first series are fed either by the streams from 
the mountains or from subterranean springs, which are found in great and 
almost constant abundance, and are usually produced by the same cause, viz., 
the infiltration of the rain water through the fissures in the limestone of the 
mountains. The oases of Artesian weUs are supplied with water from artifi- 
cial sources. There is generally at a depth of about 160 feet a sheet of water, 
which forces itself to the surface whenever the intervening soil is pierced. 
Strange to say, too, in the water thus ejected large quantities of a minute fish 
are found. The fish are remarkable for the shortness of their ventral fins ; 
the eyes are well-formed, vision being quite perfect ; the largest specimen 
does not exceed two inches in length. They are malacopterygious, and of a 
clear colour, the under part of the body being of an iridescent blue ; they 
belong probably to the family Cyprinodontidce. Of the waterless oases the 
best example is that of Souf. The mode which the natives adoj)t in culti- 
vating the palm is extremely interesting : — “ At a depth of eight or ten 
metres (26 to 32 feet) they reach a moist bed, and planted in this, the dates, 
from ten to twenty in each hole, develope themselves perfectly. But these 
vcantres called Bilans are frequently invaded by the sand, and they require 
I 2 
