i88i.] 
Notes • 
119 
Mr. H. H. Howorth, in the “ Geological Magazine ” for 
December, 1880, argues that, at the epoch of the mammoth, 
Siberia enjoyed a climate not indeed tropical, but very much 
milder than is experienced at present. 
Prof. Issol, writing in the same journal, shows that the Galita 
Islands, to the north of Turin, are a prolongation of the granitic 
mountains of Sardinia. 
Mr. Melvin, in a paper read before the Geological Society of 
Edinburgh, calls attention to the evidence supplied by the vege- 
table soil as to geological time. He considers that the state of 
the earth’s surface supplies no proof that the arable mould in 
one hemisphere is older than in the other. 
Mr. D. Milne-Home, in his valedictory address to the same 
Society, stated that in all branches of Natural History, save in 
Geology, the field for discovery in Great Britain will soon have 
been thoroughly exhausted. 
The ‘American Naturalist” quotes the Rev. R. B. Watson 
as stating that there are molluscous species whose distribution 
is cosmopolitan, and in which no traces of essential, lasting, and 
progressive change are to be found. 
Prof. A. Hyatt, at the last meeting of the American Associa- 
tion for the Advancement of Science, gave a lecture on the 
transformation of Planorbis as illustrative of the evolution of 
species. The lecturer denied that the Darwinian hypothesis is 
supported by all naturalists who accept Evolution, and pointed 
out that it cannot be the primary cause of the variations. 
The “American Naturalist” of December, 1880, has a valu- 
able paper on the “ Extinct Cats of America,” by E. D. Cope, 
and a continuation of Mr. C. Sedgwick Minot’s “ Sketch of 
Comparative Embryology,” in which he expounds the general 
principles of development. 
. In Brooklyn a man died from the effects of eating trichinised 
ham, and his widow sued the vendors for damages. The judge 
raised the question whether it was an ordinary custom to eat 
raw meat, and whether provision-merchants were bound to 
supply ham fit to be consumed in such a manner ? At the trial 
Mr. Atwood stated that he had detected trichinae in the flesh of 
poultry. Oxen obtain trichinae from infected water and from 
grass manured with slaughter-house refuse. The “American 
Journal of Microscopy” rightly thinks that there is no safety 
except in the disuse of underdone meat. 
M. A. Milne-Edwards has laid before the Academy of Sciences 
a report on the animals collected on the eastern coast of Mada- 
gascar by M. Humblot. He has brought over a pair of living 
aye-ayes, a species interesting as connecting the lemurs with 
the rodents. 
