Miscellaneous. ALI 
But this process is never so effective as submersion in the 
solution, and may require to be repeated. Some bones are 
better for being dipped a second time, but not allowed to 
remain long enough in the solution to melt the glue they 
had previously imbibed. Delicate shells from the same 
kind of deposits may be treated, with care, in a similar 
manner with advantage.—Geological Magazine. 
PROGRESS OF JOURNALISM.—We are accustomed, as 
each revolving year rolls on, to turn our speculum from the 
outside world to ourselves, and trace upwards the progress 
we are making, and point out the extension of newspaper 
reading in every part of the empire. We are enabled to do 
this through the medium of the yearly statistics presented to 
each House of Parliament, and from the various charts and 
directories of newspapers which are annually published. 
Perhaps we shall in future be able to do this at more fre- 
quent intervals, if we feel so disposed, as newspapers have 
now a collective organ of their own, under the guidance of 
their only living historian, Mr. Alexander Andrews, who 
will make the Newspaper Press interesting and useful to 
his confreres. On the other hand, “Mitchell’s Directory,’ 
and the immense chart published by Vickers and Harring- 
ton, give us the titles, dates, politics, and other particulars, 
of all the papers at a glance, and a very formidable list it 
is. We see by this list that the Caledonian Mercury claims 
to be the oldest Scotch paper still existing, being published 
first in 1660. In England, after the London Gazette, which 
dates its birth from 1665, comes the Leicester, Rutland, aud 
Stamford Mercury, which has gone on uninterruptedly and 
flourishingly since 1695. Of the metropolitan press, the 
oldest daily is the Public Ledger, of 1759, which is still in 
existence, though but seldom heard of outside of com- 
mercial circles. The year 1781 saw the birth of the Morn- 
ing Post and Morning Herald—the Times not coming into 
existence until several years afterwards. Opinions and 
tastes have changed since the days in which we find the 
Examiner born, in 1808, for we know that Leigh Hunt suf- 
fered imprisonment for a very mild libel which appeared in 
its columns shortly afterwards, yet it is now the oldest re- 
presentative of the London Weekly Press. Strange to say, 
Bell’s Life, of sporting celebrity, comes next, with Theo- 
dore Hook’s Fohkn Bull, in 1820. The Sunday Times follows 
in 1822, and six years afterwards the Leamington Spa - 
Courier started into existence. Punch and the [llustrated 
News are dated from 1841 only. There are now published, 
NEW SERIES.—VOL. I. LL 
