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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
was the discovery of a new political power, that of Ivasongo, apparently the 
greatest chief in equatorial Africa. Any measures for suppressing the 
slave-trade would probably be carried on through his agency. Lieutenant 
Cameron had tracked the atrocious traffic in slaves to its fountain-head, and 
had thus rendered a great service to civilisation as well as to geography. In 
conclusion, Sir Henry announced that the council of the Society had 
awarded the principal gold medal of the year to Lieutenant Cameron. 
After a few remarks from Dr. Badger and Sir Alexander Milne, the latter 
of whom pronounced Lieutenant Cameron to be a credit to his profession, 
H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh moved a vote of thanks for the paper, and 
the meeting broke up. 
GEOLOGY AND PALAEONTOLOGY. 
Relations between Reptiles and Mammals. — Professor Owen lias lately 
described a carnivorous reptile, named by him Cynodracon major , which has 
the compressed sabre-shaped canines of the lion of the genus Maclicerodus , 
and resembles carnivores both in the canines and incisors. In the lower 
jaw the bases of eight incisors and of two canines (very inferior in size to 
the canines of the upper jaw) are visible, and the canines are separated by a 
gap from the incisors. In this character, as in the number of incisors, the 
fossil resembles a Fidelphys. The left humerus is 10£ inches long, but is 
abraded at both extremities ; it presents characters — in the ridges for mus- 
cular attachment, in the provision for the rotation of the forearm, and in the 
presence of a strong bony bridge for the protection of the main artery and 
nerve of the forearm — which resemble those occurring in carnivorous mam- 
mals, and especially in the Felidae, although these peculiarities are asso- 
ciated with others having no mammalian resemblances. Professor Owen 
discusses these characters in detail, and indicates that there is, in the 
probably Triassic lacustrine deposits of South Africa, a whole group of 
genera, many represented by more than one species, and all carnivorous, 
which have more or less decided mammalian analogies ; and to them he 
gives the general name of Theriodonts. 
The Retrified Forest of California. — At a recent meeting of the Troy 
Scientific Association, Dr. Ward delivered an address on the Petrified 
Forest of California. He considered the peculiar fracture of the fallen 
petrified trunks their most suggestive and important peculiarity, since they 
are broken up somewhat symmetrically in a manner that might happen to 
wood rendered brittle by charring or perhaps by partial petrifaction, but 
could hardly be conceived as occurring to ordinary wood or stone. 
The Brain of Finoceras seems to have been remarkably small. The Fino - 
ceras, which has been recently discovered by Professor Marsh in the Eocene 
beds of Wyoming, nearly equalled the elephant in size, but the limbs were 
shorter. The head could reach the ground, and there is no evidence that it 
carried a proboscis. Professor Marsh figures the skull in his second memoir, 
entitled “Principal Characters of the Dinocerata.” “The braiiScavity in 
Finoceras is perhaps the most remarkable feature in this remarkable genus. 
