SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
427 
lias laid a paper on tliis subject before the Vienna Academy of Sciences. 
In this communication he describes the geological structure of Sicily and 
the southern part of the Italian peninsula. He concludes that the older 
rocks of this district, with the patches on the western coast, are to be re- 
garded as a continuation of the Alps, while the western side of the 
peninsula represents a vast arrear of subsidence. He recognises three 
classes of earthquake-shocks in Sicily and Calabria : namely eruptive shocks, 
which have their centre in a volcano, and affect only the immediate 
neighbourhood; radial shocks, which radiate from the volcano in definite 
lines ; and peripheral shocks, which appear to have no immediate relation 
with a volcano. His observations sufficiently show the connection generally 
existing between volcanoes and earthquakes. 
The Patagonian Coal-fields. — We learn from u Sillimann’s American 
Journal” (June), that on the Peninsula of Brunswick, in the Straits 
of Magellan, at a place called Vaqueria by Capt. Corey, rich beds of 
coal have been opened. The place is not far from the Chilian colony of 
Punta Arenas, lat. 53° 10' S. and long. 70° 54' W. (from Greenwich). The 
Chilian Government has conceded it to a French company. A detailed 
report has been published by M. F. Arnal, civil engineer. The coal is 
very compact, black, inflames easily, and burns without odour. There are 
three beds having an aggregate thickness of about 26 feet. The age of 
the beds is not stated, but as the coal is spoken of as related to the lignites, 
it is probably Tertiary or Mesozoic. 
MEDICAL SCIENCE. 
Intestinal Secretion. — A report was presented to the British Association 
by Dr. Brunton and Dr. Pye Smith. The report detailed a number of 
experiments which the committee had undertaken, and which were con- 
sidered to prove the absence of influence on intestinal secretion through the 
splanchnic nerves, the pneumogastrics, the sympathetic above the diaphragm 
or the spinal marrow ; and the probable influence of the ganglia contained 
in the solar plexus, though certainly not of the two semilunar ganglia ex- 
clusively. Also the independent occurrence of hemorrhage and of paralytic 
secretion appeared, in the view of the committee, to point to a separate 
nervous influence on the blood-vessels and the secreting structures of the 
intestines. They also observed the occurrence of vomiting after section of 
both splanchnics and vagi. 
On the Preservation of Anatomical Preparations. — Dr. Sesemann, of St. 
Petersburg, gives an account in the last number of Reichert and Du Bois 
Reymond’s “ Archiv fur Anatomie, Physiologie,” &c., of his experience in 
the use of preserving solutions for anatomical preparations, which may be 
of some interest to zoologists as well as anatomists. 
The Discoverer of Ancesthesia. — “ Silliman’s Journal” of July says that 
a bronze statue to Dr. Horace Wells, of Hartford, Connecticut, “ the dis- 
coverer of anesthesia,” who died nearly a quarter of a century since, will 
soon be erected in Hartford. The statue is by the sculptor, Truman H. 
