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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
of the dorsal fin. As it is evidently at least specifically distinct, he proposes 
to bestow on it the title of Phaneropleuron elegans. The genus Phanero- 
pleuron is thus common to the Upper Devonian and Lower Carboniferous 
formations. It is one of the most interesting of the Palaeozoic Ganoids, as 
showing the intimate relations subsisting between the ancient Crossoptery- 
gians with acutely lobate pectorals and ventrals, and the remarkable recent 
types Lepidosiren , Protopterus , and Ceratodus. One cannot fail to be struck, 
as Professor Huxley has already indicated, with the many points of re- 
semblance which this genus bears to Lepidosiren , in the general form of the 
fish, in its thin circular scales, and in many points in the structure of its 
internal skeleton. But from the true Dipnoi, with which Dr. Gunther now 
unites the true Devonian Dipterus, and the carboniferous Ctenodus, it differs, 
as is well known, materially in its dentition ; and the position of the nasal 
openings, so peculiar a character in the recent Dipnoi, and in the fossil 
Dipterus, as Gunther has pointed out, remains yet to be definitely settled. 
Phaneropleuron must therefore remain, as Professor Huxley has placed it, 
the type of a distinct subfamily of Crossopterygidse, viz., Phaneropleurini, 
and not very far removed from Holoptychius, and other acutely lobate- 
membered cycliferous Ganoids of Palseozoic times. 
Death of Mr. Chas. Babbage, F.B.S. — Although Mr. Babbage was more 
of a mathematician than a biologist, still we may notice his death in these 
pages, because he did, many years ago, some good work in geology. He 
was bom December 26, 1792, and died at his residence, Dorset Street, Mary- 
lebone, on the 20th Nov., in his eightieth year. He was the inventor and 
partial constructor of the famous calculating engine or machine, which the 
world has associated with his name, and which is now preserved in the 
Museum of King's College, London. As a writer in the “ Dictionary of 
Universal Biography ” remarks : <l The possibility of constructing a piece of 
mechanism capable of performing certain operations on numbers is by no means 
new ; it was thought of by Pascal and other geometers, and more recently 
it has been reduced to practice by M. Thomas, of Colmar, in France, and 
by the Messrs. Schiitz, of Sweden ; but never before or since has any scheme 
so gigantic as that of Mr. Babbage been anywhere imagined.” His achieve- 
ments, says the “ Times,” were twofold j he constructed what he called a 
Difference Engine, and he planned and demonstrated the practicability of an 
Analytical Engine also. 
Belies of the Carboniferous and other old Land Surfaces. — Mr. Henry 
Woodward, F.G.S., F.L.S., has contributed to the 11 Geological Magazine ” 
for November an admirable essay on this subject. It is far too long for an 
abstract, but it will well repay a perusal. It deals with an immense multi- 
tude of facts, which are most admirably arranged together, 
i 
MECHANICAL SCIENCE. 
Mr. Bessemer’s Gun . — Mr. Bessemer has been directing his attention to 
the subject of heavy ordnance, and has matured some very novel and in- 
genious plans, which he proposes to put to the test of experiment. The 
great difficulty with heavy ordnance is the enormous initial pressure gene- 
