character which he has written, there is soon accumulated an amount of fact which, without some nucleus of crystalization, is apt to flow away in a state of solution.

The German expedition to the North Pole has started from Bergen, and Professor A. E. Nordenskiöld has announced to the Royal Society that the Swedish Government has granted a steamer, provisioned for one year for the purpose of Arctic exploration, and that some private gentlemen have contributed towards fitting out the expedition.

Earthquakes are recorded in the Sandwich Islands (near the volcano, Mauna Loa, which was in violent eruption) at Tachkent (?) and about Vesuvius. The latter mountain is being watched not only by Palmieri and several Italian savans, but also by Professor Phillips of Oxford. Very valuable records of the lengthy disturbances will have been made by these and other scientific observers of the changes that have taken place, and it is to be hoped that the theory of volcanoes will receive some enlightenment.

We have to regret the death of Mr. John Crawfurd, whose face must be well known to all frequenters of our learned societies. His fame was won originally in the Malay peninsula, of which he wrote a history as well as a dictionary and grammar of the language, but he did not confine himself to matters connected only with that part of the world, but on most subjects, geographical and ethnological, he held, and frequently expressed, opinions of his own. He died at an advanced age in a sudden and peaceful manner.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY.

The safety of Dr. Livingstone having been doubted by some members of the Society in spite of the opinion constantly expressed by Sir R. Murchison, letters from that traveller which were read at the tenth meeting excited some considerable interest. The news in these, however, did not reach to a very late period, the doctor's own letter being dated Bemba (lat. 10° 10′ S.), 2nd February, 1867, whilst that from Dr. Kirk contains news of him up to October last. The traveller, who had with him only the African boys educated at Nassick, Bombay, had remained at the town of Mataka, a chief whose dominions stretched from the watershed between Lake Nyassa and the sea to the lake itself, a distance of fifty miles. Hence the journey seems to have been continued westwards, but whether round or across the lake does not appear. The next points made seem to have been some of the tributaries on the left bank of the Zambesi, viz. the Chambese and the Loangwa, the watershed between which streams the doctor thought he had gained at Bemba. At the time he wrote he was making for Casembes, and thence he was to go to

the lake of Taganyika, which Dr. Kirk says he reached in October last at Ujiji, at the point where stores awaited him. These letters were sent down by Arabs travelling to Ragamoyo, a place on the coast near Zanzibar. Letters, maps, and stores would meet the doctor at Ujiji, being forwarded from Zanzibar.

The Rev. F. W. Holland, during the last winter, has made a third visit to the Sinaitic peninsula. The results of his journey were given in a paper read on the 11th May. Starting from Suez on foot, he reached the monastery at the foot of the Jebel Musa (Mount Sinai), his head-quarters, whilst he explored the whole country in that neighbourhood for four months. Letting himself down from the wall of the convent, he daily traversed some mountain path, assisted by Arabic ibex hunters. Occasionally he took an Arab to carry his blanket and bag of provisions when he intended to camp out for three or four nights. He was thus enabled to take heights of mountains, and to measure and map out valleys hitherto incorrectly given. He found more vegetation than previous information had led him to suppose, and two or three springs were to be discovered on every mountain. Jebel Um Alowee (possibly a corrup tion of Elohim), north-east of Jebel Musa, is a fresh discovery of Mr. Holland's, and he puts it forward as a possible rival to the latter mountain as the true Sinai. The wilderness of Sin he would identify with the plains of Es Seyh; and he adds his protest to that of many others against the theory that the Sinaitic inscriptions are to be esteemed the work of the Israelites on their journey out of Egypt. The next paper was by Commissioner Chimmo on the north-east coast of Labrador.

At the anniversary meeting, on Monday, 25th of May, the Founder's Medal was awarded to Dr. Augustus Petermann, the well-known geographical writer, the originator of the German expedition to the North Pole, the editor of the 'Geographische Mittheilungen;' and at the same time the Patron's or Queen's Medal was assigned to M. Gerhard Rholfs, on account of his journeys into the interior of Africa from the northern coast, from which, on one occasion, he penetrated as far as the Guinea coast. A gold watch also was awarded as an extra distinction to the pundit, whose name has not yet appeared, but who was employed by Captain Montgomery to survey in Thibet. The report of the Council, recommending the presentation of two gold and two bronze medals to the successful candidates at an annual examination in physical and political geography, was afterwards received and approved. The Chief Commissioner of Crown Lands has promised the Society a site for building facing the Thames Embankment, where the maps and books of reference of the Society might be readily accessible to the public.

The President, in his address, enumerated those works that had been added to this library during the last year, amongst which may

be mentioned Keith Johnson's New Atlases, and Major's Life of Prince Henry.' The obituary of the year included the names of the late President, Mr. William John Hamilton, Lord Rosse, Lord Colchester, the Right Hon. Sir George Clark, Captain James Mangles, R.N., Mr. Ashurst Majendie, the Rev. Pierce Butler, Sir Charles Lemon, &c., and as we have mentioned before, Mr. John Crawfurd. After a brief sketch of the additions to our geographical knowledge, as they have from time to time appeared in these Chronicles, Sir R. Murchison dwelt at some length upon the progress of Dr. Livingstone, and the success of the expedition sent in search of him. He then pointed out the three routes which were open to the traveller on his return, showing that, according to his own calculation Dr. Livingstone might return to England by August next, whereas according to Sir Samuel Baker he possibly might arrive at Gondokoro next April, but not before, and he scarcely could with probability be expected until a much later date. The President referred to the appointment by the Government of Mr. Clements Markham, as geographer to the Abyssinian expedition. One positive gain to the Society, resulting from this appointment, was the desire of Sir Robert Napier to become a member of that body. The memoirs of Mr. Markham might be looked forward to as one of the most worthy parts of the Journal of the Society.

8. GEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY.

(Including the Proceedings of the Geological Society.) "THE unique specimen of Archaeopteryx lithographica (von Meyer) which at present adorns the collection of fossils in the British Museum, is undoubtedly one of the most interesting relics of the extinct fauna of long-past ages; and the correct interpretation of the fossil is of proportional importance." With these words, Professor Huxley commences a paper, read before the Royal Society on January 30th, the object of which is to show that Professor Owen has mistaken the dorsal face of most of the bones for the ventral; the left femur, left tibia, and bones of the left foot for the "right femur, tibia, and bones of the foot," and so forth. Professor Huxley concedes that the furculum (if it be such) turns its ventral surface to the eye, and he suggests "that it is the bouleversement of this bone which has led to that reversal of the proper nomenclature of the other bones, which, could it be sustained, would leave Archæopteryx without a parallel in the vertebrate sub-kingdom." By the light of his correction, however, he considers that many points of

the structure of this remarkable fossil "acquire an intelligibility which they lose to those who accept the interpretations given in the memoir" by Professor Owen. But the "furculum" still presents an osteological difficulty which even Professor Huxley cannot surmount. He is also of opinion that if the head of Archeopteryx, when discovered, should possess jaws containing teeth, it would not, to his mind, on that account, cease to be a bird, any more "than turtles cease to be reptiles because they have beaks." An abstract of this important paper will be found in No. 98 of the 'Proceedings of the Royal Society.'

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Another of Professor Owen's papers has been severely criticized by Messrs. Albany Hancock and Thomas Atthey. On June 3rd of last year Professor Owen read a paper " On the Dental Characters of Genera and Species, chiefly of Fishes, from the Low Main Seam and Shales of Coal, Northumberland," before the Odontological Society of Great Britain. An abstract of this paper appeared in the next (July) number of the Geological Magazine,' and the following number of that periodical contained a criticism upon it from the pen of Mr. Thomas Atthey. The paper having been published in full, with illustrative plates, in the Transactions of the Odontological Society' for 1867, Mr. Atthey, now in conjunction with Mr. Hancock (a well-known naturalist, and one of considerable eminence as a malacozoologist), has published his criticisms in detail in the April and May numbers of the Annals and Magazine of Natural History.' Professor Owen describes twelve genera of Fishes and Batrachians; but Messrs. Hancock and Atthey find themselves "compelled to conclude that there is positively not a single novelty in the whole series." For instance, they state that "it is apparently on fragments of the jaw-bones and on the teeth of Rhizodopsis sauroides that Professor Owen has founded the Dittodus parallelus, Ganolodus Craggesii, Characodus confertus, and the Batrachian genus Gastrodus!!" Again, other remains, described as teeth of a small fish by the name of Mitrodus quadicornis, his opponents consider to be a large kind of dermal tubercles, and remark, "this minnow,' then, of our shales is found to be identical with Gyracanthus tuberculatus, perhaps the largest fish of the Coal-measures." To the younger palæontologists these confident assertions of Professor Owen's errors will appear incredible. It therefore seems highly desirable that the matter should be investigated by yet one more eminent odontologist.

The fossils of the Portlandian deposits of the department of the Yonne have been carefully described and figured by M. de Loriol, in a monograph by that paleontologist, and M. Cotteau.* The latter author divides the series into two zones, namely, a lower one characterized by Ammonites gigas, and an upper by Pinna supra

* Bull. Soc. d. Sciences hist. et nat. de l'Yonne, 2o série. Vol, i., 1868.

jurensis. The richness of the upper zone contrasts very strongly with the poverty of the lower, the species yielded by the whole formation numbering 122, of which only thirteen belong to the zone of Ammonites gigas, four of them being common to both. Twenty-six species are common to these beds and the lower zones of the "terrain Kimméridien," and twenty-two occur in the Lower Portlandian of the Boulonnais, while only four are common to them and the Upper and Middle Portlandian. To the Lower Portlandian, therefore, the authors refer the two zones of the Yonne formation. M. Cotteau, who has contributed the geological portion of this excellent monograph, records that the Neocomian beds are found reposing sometimes on the zone of Ammonites gigas, and sometimes on that of Pinna suprajurensis. From this fact he infers the existence of a stratigraphical break or unconformity between the two formations. M. de Loriol, however, from a paleontological standpoint, regards these two zones as two facies of the Portlandian, inferring that in the west of the Yonne district circumstances favoured the deposition of the zone of Pinna suprajurensis, or, in other words, the existence of its rich fauna, while in the remainder the more scanty population of the zone of Ammonites gigas could alone flourish. Similarly with the Neocomian, which at Bernouil is represented by the remarkable zone of Peltastes stellulatus, covering the Portlandian beds in that area, while at Auxerre the latter are succeeded by the ordinary marls and yellow limestones of the Lower Neocomian formation. M. de Loriol also remarks that the division between the Cretaceous and Jurassic series appears to be less decided in the Alpine area than in any other.

In a paper on the classification of certain Fossil Corals, published in the recently issued volume of the Philosophical Transactions for last year, Dr. Duncan comes to the conclusion that the genus Palæocyclus must be abolished, and that its species must be added to the genus Cyathophyllum. Thus a representative of the Tertiary coral-fauna is removed from the Paleozoic. The author also shows that the genus Battersbya does not belong to the Milleporida, but should be associated with the formerly solitary genus Heterophyllia in a division of the Astræidæ. Thus two genera with Mesozoic affinities are introduced into the Palæozoic coral-fauna.

On March 12th Mr. J. A. Phillips read a paper before the Royal Society on the "Chemical Geology of the Gold-fields of California."* He infers that quartz-veins have generally been produced by the slow deposition of silica from aqueous solutions, that their formation is due to hydrothermal agencies, and that the silica may have been slowly deposited at low temperatures. The author also speculates on the cause of the presence of gold in the same solution, and sug

*Proceedings of the Royal Society,' vol. xvi., No. 100, p. 294.

VOL. V.

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