8 
WARD'S NATURAL SCIENCE BULLETIN. 
settlers in the South about Otago and Foveaux 
Straits who had actually eaten Moa-flesh. 
For the details of the osteology of these birds 
we must refer our readers to Prof. Richard 
Owen’s descriptions published in the Trans, of 
the Zool. Soc. of London, begun in November, 
1839. Prof. Owen at first made two genera, 
Dinornis and Palapteryx, but afterward discarded 
the latter genus and referred all the different 
species to the genus Dinornis. 
In 1875, Dr. Haast, Director of the Canterbury 
Museum, proposed two families, with two genera 
in each family, thus:— Family Dinornithidm: {a) 
genus Dinornis; ( b ) genus Meionornis, and family 
Palapterygidce : (a) genus Palapteryx; ( b ) genus 
Euryapteryx. 
Under these four genera, as proposed by Dr. 
Haast, there have been about twenty species 
described. These species are founded mainly on 
the size and proportion of the bones — particularly 
the bones of the leg, and it is not improbable 
that as more careful comparisons are made of 
larger series of bones, the number of species will 
be reduced. It is an interesting fact that 
Cook’s Straits, which separates the two islands, 
“seems to have been an effectual bar to any 
migration from one island to the other,” as the 
same species are not found on both islands. 
Prof. Owen infers from the beak of the Dinornis, 
“formed after the model of the adze or pick- 
axe,” and “ the robust proportions of the cervical 
vertebrae, especially of their spinous processes,” 
that it had “a more laborious task than the mere 
plucking of seeds, fruit, or herbage,” and that 
“the beak was associated with the feet in the 
labor of dislodging the farinaceous roots of the 
ferns that grow in characteristic abundance in 
New Zealand.” 
Portions of dried skin and a few feathers of 
the Moa, as already stated, have been found; the 
color of the barbs of the feathers are chestnut 
red and the rounded portion of the tip is white. 
These feathers, according to Capt. Hatton, show 
the bird to have been more nearly allied to the 
American Rhea and Emu than to any of the 
struthious birds of the old world. 
Fragments of Moa eggs are quite numerous, 
particularly in the kitchen middens of the Moa- 
hunters, and a few nearly or quite perfect speci- 
mens have been found. Dr. Hector describes 
one 8.9x6. 1 inches diameter, which contained 
the remains of an embrionic chick. Another 
specimen measured 9.5 inches long. 
These are certainly monstrous eggs, and yet 
the fossil bird of Madagascar (. Aepiornis ), al- 
though a smaller bird than the great Dinornis, 
laid a much larger egg, two specimens of which 
are in the Garden of Plants, Paris, and measure 
respectively 13x9 and 12x10 inches in diameter. 
And yet, after all, neither of these birds laid as 
large an egg in comparison to its size as does the 
Apteryx of New Zealand at the present day. 
And now, as a fitting close to this brief sum- 
mary, we quote from Prof. Owen’s first paper on 
the Dinornis: “The extraordinary number of 
wingless birds, and the vast stature of some of 
species peculiar to New Zealand and which have 
finally become extinct in that small tract of dry 
land, suggest it to be the remnant of a larger 
tract or continent over which this singular stru- 
thious Fauna family ranged. One might almost 
be disposed to regard New Zealand as one end of 
a mighty wave of the unstable and ever-shifting 
crust of the earth, of which the opposite end, 
after having been long submerged, has again 
risen with its accumulated deposits in North 
America, showing us in the Connecticut sand- 
stones of the Permian (Trias) period the foot- 
prints of the gigantic birds which trod its surface 
before it sank; and to surmise that the intermedi- 
ate body of the land-wave, along which the 
Dinornis may have traveled to New Zealand, has 
progressively subsided, and now lies beneath the 
Pacific Ocean.” E. E. H. 
We have on hand at the present time skeletons 
of two species of Moa — Meionornis easuarinus, 
and M. didiformis, which we will furnish mounted 
complete for $250 to $300. Leg bones of the 
same, articulated and fastened in proper position, 
$12 per pair. 
IOWA COLLEGE MUSEUM 
AND OUR PART IN ITS COLLECTIONS. 
[For the Natural Science Bulletin by request.] 
Iowa College, at Grinnell, la., is the oldest 
beyond the Missippi, having been established in 
territorial days; hence its name. In 1871, its 
museum, the best in the region, was nearly con- 
sumed by fire. Re-formed and greatly improved, 
it was totally destroyed in June, 1882, by a 
tornado, followed on the same night by a fire 
from chemicals. It contained good collections 
of minerals, rocks and fossils, the local fauna 
and flora, a very large amount of marine, fresh- 
water and land shells, good illustrations of other 
invertebrates, and many casts, skeletons and 
costly rarities from the establishment of Prof. 
Ward, besides mammals, both small and large, 
prepared mostly by the curator; all together it 
was valued, as moderately estimated, at §8,000 to 
$ 10 , 000 . 
The central part of the new gothic Central 
College is to be the new museum — the third in 
the history of the college. The plan of the mu- 
seum is a hall 50x66 feet, and 32 feet high to the 
plates, giving room for two galleries. The floor 
will be appropriated to mineralogy and geol- 
ogy; the first gallery to vertebrates; the second 
to invertebrates. 
A good beginning in collections has been 
made. By the generosity of George H. Corliss, 
Esq., the great engine manufacturer of Prov- 
idence, R. I., who subscribed $1,200, and of 
Prof. Ward who, in view of our unparalleled 
calamity, subscribed $400; the entire Ward col- 
lege series of casts, with large supplementary 
pieces, is already on the road to Grinnell. Prof. 
Ward has also given a herbarium of three or four 
thousand specimens from all parts of the world. 
Personal collections, together with money and 
gifts solicited by the curator, Prof. H. W. 
Parker, have secured not only Ward & Howell’s 
series of minerals and rocks, but also skeletons, re- 
presenting classes and orders of vertebrates, as 
well as zoological charts and glass models of 
echinodroms and coelenterates, from the same 
establishment, but likewise alcoholic specimens, 
and several collections of birds, of mammals, of 
shells and fossils. As a whole, the new museum 
material has more educational value than the 
one destroyed, though lacking many of the rar- 
ities and the fossils lost. 
[Since the above notice was sent us we have 
shipped to Iowa College still further collections, 
making a total of over $2000.] 
Editors of the Bulletin. 
“PHOSPHORESCENT LIMESTONE. 
‘ Hell-Fire Rock.’ A curious natural product 
has recently been found in Utah, near Salt Lake 
City. It is a loose-grained, white, crystalline 
limestone, the grains of which are but slightly 
coherent, giving the rock the appearance of a 
soft sandstone. Portions of the rock are colored 
slightly yellow by oxide of iron. Its phosphor- 
escent properties are very remarkable, entitling 
it to rank as a new variety of limestone. It was 
long ago noticed by Becquerel that some lime- 
stones were slightly phosphorescent, but, so far 
as known, no other limestone possesses this 
property in a degree at all approaching that now 
described, the phosphorescence of which is near- 
ly as strong as that of fluor spar. Phosphores- 
cence is developed when the rock is either 
struck, scratched or heated. Upon using metal, 
glass or any other hard substance to strike or 
to scratch it, red light is emitted, which con- 
tinues sometimes for several seconds after the 
blow. Rubbing with other fragments or grinding 
in a mortar developed a white light. The most re- 
markable phosphorescence is developed by heat- 
ing a fragment of the limestone in a glass tube 
over a flame. It then glows with a deep red 
light, which lasts for a minute or more after 
withdrawing the flame. The color of the light 
emitted resembles that of a red-hot body. Sev- 
eral seconds before dying out the light becomes 
white or bluish-white. Upon cooling and sub- 
sequent heating phosphorescence is again devel- 
oped in the same fragment, but more feebly and 
for a shorter period, and after two or three 
such heatings its phosphorescence is destroyed. ” 
CORNELL UNIVERSITY. 
This enterprising Institution in pursuing its 
usual course of keeping fully abreast of the de- 
mands of the times, has had occasion lately to 
make some extensive additions to its museum, 
beyond the purchase of special material. 
During the past two months they have ordered 
$5,000 worth of Skeletons, Stuffed specimens, 
specimens preserved in alcohol, and invertebrates 
of Prof. Ward, and nearly $4,000 worth, from 
Ward & Howell. Among the latter are a few 
minerals and rocks, and a series of choice fossils, 
including our mounted Skeleton of the cave Bear 
and a mounted skeleton of the Moa. But the 
larger amount was devoted to a collection of 
Archaeology and Ethnology, compromising stone 
implements from the Mound Builders and Indians 
of N. A., and a very choice series of pottery from 
the mounds of Mo. and Ark, with models of the 
interesting animal mounds of Wis. Also a large 
fine collection of Danish stone and Bronze imple- 
ments and Pottery, together with considerable 
series from Ireland, England, France and Switzer- 
land, with a beautiful model of ^one of the 
ancient Swiss Lake dwellings. Mummy and 
Mummy coffin from Egypt, Axes, Necklaces, 
Boomerangs &c., from the Pacific Islands and 
Australia, making in all the finest collection of 
this material we have yet furnished to any institu- 
tion. 
Vertebrate Fossils of Dacotah and the 
“Bad Lands:” Mr. Garman’s 
Collections. 
From the earliest and most important travel 
and collections of Major Culbertson and Lieu- 
tenant Warren in the Mauvaises Torres of Nebras- 
ka, in 1852, to the present day, these rich lacust- 
rine beds have been ransacked by many collect- 
ors, among whom Professors Hayden, Marsh and 
Cope and the Princeton classes have perhaps 
brought back the richest stores. Now that 
prince of collectors, Mr. Garman, has passed a 
season in this field in the interests of the Cam- 
bridge Museum of Comparative Zoology. The 
collections which he has brought to Cambridge 
are of the most valuable which this region has 
ever afforded. In a late letter to Prof. Ward 
Mr. Garman makes the following interesting 
reference to these rich collections. Lie says: 
* * * “ The fossils from the Tertiary 
and Cretaceous, gathered during my vacation, 
arrived in excellent shape. In view of the 
smallness of the force employed and of the ex- 
pense, the number of species and the size of the 
collection excites some surprise. If it had been 
possible to measure the distance traversed in 
getting it together, the surprise would be con- 
siderably increased. In all, the wagon must 
have travelled a thousand miles, and during the 
same time, my own wanderings would hardly 
be told in twice as much. If one thinks of the 
gnats, and the fleas, and the mosquitoes, and the 
rain, and the fnud, and the hail, and the wind, 
and the heat, and the cold, and the dust, and 
the alkali, and the food, and the picking, and 
the shovelling, and the scratching, and the car- 
rying, of the summer in the Bad Lands, it doesn’t 
seem as if it was much of a vacation after all. 
And when he comes to tell off the Mice, and the 
Mastodons, and the Rabbits, and the Rhinocer- 
oses, and the Elephants, and the Horses, and the 
Camels, and the Dromedaries, and the Tapirs, 
and the Deer, and the Pigs, and the Dogs, and 
the Cats, and the Saurians, and the Turtles, and 
the Birds, and the Fishes, and the Megatheriums, 
and the Brontotheridae, and the nondescripts in 
the collection, the showing is very satisfactory 
for a summer’s work. Here they consider it a 
very successful one. And yet, though I haven’t 
the slightest reason to complain of the Shoshones, 
or the Chiennes, or the Sioux, I was quite glad to 
get back among the Bostons again. I wish I 
could give you some account of the work and its 
results, but my time is all too much called for, 
and I must deny myself the pleasure at present. 
Hastily yours, 
Samuel Garman. 
