Notes. 
626 
[OCIober, 
colleded the microbia of the disease, and cultivated them artifi- 
cially. 
According to “ Les Mondes,” a manuscript work of Copernicus 
has been discovered in the Observatory of Stockholm. It was 
formerly the property of Helvetius. 
M. C. K. Hoffmann (“ Archives Neerlandaises,” xvi., 2), in a 
memoir on the development of the Plagiostomi, notes the forma- 
tion of the dorsal chord from behind forwards, in the cartilaginous 
fishes, as of importance from a phylogenetic point of view. 
This is in accordance with the faCt that the anal aperture of 
Rusconi (aperture of invagination, or Urmund ) originally marks 
the anterior extremity of the animal. 
According to the official Mineral Statistics of Victoria, the 
yield of gold for 1880 exceeds that for 1879 by 70,173 ounces. 
The total yield of silver for the year is 23,248 ounces. 
Crioceris asparagi is committing serious ravages on asparagus 
in France. Aniline hydrochlorate dissolved in water, in the 
proportion of 500 grms. per hectolitre, is used as a remedy. 
Dr. C. Callaway, writing in the “ Geological Magazine,” con- 
siders the organic nature of Eozoon Canadense not proven. 
Mr. W. Williams (“ Geological Magazine ”) finds no evidence 
that the Irish elk, Megaceros Hibernicus , was extirpated by, or 
was even contemporary with, man. In -no instance has it been 
found in the peat. 
MM. D. Verbrek and R. Fennema (“ Archives Neerlandaises”) 
have examined the pre-tertiary deposits of Java, and report that 
in this island there occur many tertiary deposits and few ancient 
strata, whilst in Sumatra, and especially in the highlands of 
Padang, the reverse is the case. 
Von Baumhauer (“ Archives Neerlandaises ”) finds that true 
diamond, bort and carbon, differ respectively merely by a more 
or less perfeCI crystallisation, and pass into each other by insen- 
sible degrees. 
MM. J. Kiinckel and J. Gazagnaire have studied the seat of 
taste in the Diptera, and sum up their results in a paper laid be- 
fore the Academy of Sciences, to the effeCt that the seat of taste 
commences in the paraglossae, is continued along the false 
tracheae, is manifested more strongly at the extremity of the 
epipharynx, where there occurs a bunch of nerve-terminations, 
and comes to an end at the entrance of the pharynx. 
In the “ Revue Internationale des Sciences Biologiques ” the 
Museum of Natural History at Paris is said to be dying of senile 
despotism and shameless nepotism. 
