Men, it was also said, could earn more by the use of the small tram, which is therefore advantageous to them as well as to the

masters.

Civil and Mechanical Engineers' Society.-On 8th December last Mr. R. M. Bancroft read a paper before this Society "On the Renewal of King's Cross Station Roof." When this station was opened in 1852 its roof created some little sensation, as it was the largest span-roof of the laminated type constructed in this country. After a period of eighteen years' existence it was found that the timber which formed the ribs was in a state of rapid decay, and it became necessary to replace them with something more durable. The wrought-iron main ribs were formed and accurately curved so as to fit in exactly between the old cast-iron shoes built in the walls on each side, the cast-iron spandril fillings of the old roof being cut shorter to suit the new wrought-iron ribs. The scaffold for the construction of the roof was designed so as not to interfere with the traffic constantly passing beneath it, and the large wrought-iron plate-girders forming it were constructed of such section that they might hereafter be used in bridges down the line.

Institution of Engineers in Scotland.-Professor W. J. Macquorn Rankine read a very interesting paper before this Society, upon being called upon to fill the presidential chair until the next election. This paper partook of the nature of a presidential address, and consisted of a review of the present state of engineering progress in its various and numerous branches; but it is on the subject of "Engineering Education" that Professor Rankine's paper dwelt with most force. In alluding to common errors under existing systems of education, the Professor stated: "One is led to expect results from the scientific branch of education which it is not really capable of accomplishing. The purely practical parts of engineering, such as the use of tools and the superintendence of works, cannot be soundly and thoroughly learned except through experience in real business; and it is a mistake to endeavour to teach them during a university course. The true laboratory for students of engineering science is to be found in the workshops of such cities as Glasgow, and amongst the earthwork, masonry, carpentry, and ironwork of engineering structures in progress."

Institution of Mechanical Engineers.-At the anniversary meeting of this Institution on the 27th January last, a paper "On Le Chatelier's Plan of using Counter-pressure Steam as a Brake in Locomotive Engines," by Mr. C. W. Siemens, came under discussion; and a paper was read by Mr. C. Cochrane, of Dudley, "On the further Économy of Fuel in Blast Furnaces, derivable from the High Temperature of Blast obtained with Cowper's Improved Regenerative Stoves at Ormesby, and from increased Capacity of Furnace, &c." M. Le Chatelier's plan for counter-pressure working

consists in introducing a small jet of hot water from the boiler into the base of the blast-pipe or the exhaust part of the cylinder: this jet being discharged at boiler pressure into the atmospheric pressure of the exhaust passages, the greater portion of the water instantly flashes into steam at atmospheric pressure, and instead of the heated gases from the smoke-box, a moist vapour or fog is now drawn into the cylinder behind the piston, upon the engine being reversed.

LITERATURE.

"Our Iron-clad Ships; their Qualities, Performances, and Cost; with Chapters on Turret Ships, Iron-clad Rams, &c." By E. J. Reed, C.B., Chief Constructor of the Navy, &c. Space will not admit of such a review here as this work deserves. The fact of its coming from the pen of one so experienced in the subject will at once commend it as an authority upon the matter of which it treats. Its title will convey a fair idea of the contents of the 320 pages of which this book consists; and we can only here state that whilst this treatise on Iron-clad Ships evinces a masterly knowledge of the subject on the part of its author, the style in which it is written is perfect, approaching at times to eloquence.

7. GEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY.

(Including the Proceedings of the Geological Society and Notices of recent Geological Works.)

Monographs of the Palæontographical Society, Vol. XXIII.—The success attending combined efforts was never more happily illustrated than in the case of the Palæontographical Society, which was formed twenty-three years ago for the purpose of describing and figuring British Fossils. It has published the works of twenty-six palæontologists, embracing in their monographs every division of the animal kingdom found fossil in this country. Nor is it merely the letter-press descriptions of fossils which it effects (though these now amount to 6405 pages 4to), but it is the superior means of illustration it furnishes which gives such value to the volumes of this Society. The plates now number 1006, and contain 18,991 figures. The volume before us contains 43 plates, some of which are double size. These plates, with descriptive text, are distributed to subscribers for 17. 1s. per annum.

The volumes of the Palæontographical always contain a diverse series of monographs; thus we have in this year's-issue,—Fossil * John Murray. London: 1869.

Corals, Cretaceous Echinoderms, Oxford Clay Belemnites, Old Red Sandstone Fishes, Lias Pterodactyles, and Crag Cetacea. Such a "bill of fare" was never before presented at so modest a price.

Dr. Duncan's part contains six species of Corals from the Greensand of Haldon, thirteen species from the Gault, and six from the Lower Greensand. To this part is appended a complete list of British Cretaceous Corals, fifty-eight in all.

Dr. Duncan remarks, "The Coral-fauna of the British area was by no means well-developed or rich in genera during the long period in which the Cretaceous sediments were being deposited. The Coral tracts of the early part of the period were on the areas now occupied by the Alpine Neocomian strata, and those of the middle portion of the period were where the Lower Chalk is developed at Gosau, Uchaux, and Martigues."

"There are no traces of any Coral-reefs or atolls in the British Cretaceous area, and its corals were of a kind whose representatives for the most part live at a depth of from 5 to 600 fathoms."*

In Professor Phillips's monograph on the Oxford Clay Belemnites, the author notices a singular hiatus between the Inferior Oolite and the Oxfordian stage. It must, however, be borne in mind that pelagic and freely-wandering animals (such as the Belemnitida must have been, judging from their modern representatives, the Squids, Calamaries, and Cuttle-fishes) form a less sure basis for generalization than do the Brachiopoda and other sedentary forms of Mollusca and the Corals.

Free swimming Cephalopoda might forsake a large area for ages, if conditions were unfavourable, returning again at a later epoch, and again becoming plentiful as fossil remains in the mud of the period.

It is interesting to observe that Professor Phillips, who is perhaps the most careful observer living, and the last man to be carried away by an idea, has adopted the doctrine of descent with modifications, as may be gathered from the following extract; t speaking of Belemnites explanatus, sp. nov., from the Kimmeridge Clay, Professor Phillips observes, "On many accounts this form of Belemnite is of interest in the study of the series to which it belongs. On the one hand its resemblance to the older type of B. abbreviatus (excentricus) of the Oxford Clay and Oolite, and on the other to that of Speeton, in Yorkshire (B. lateralis), is such as to offer a most instructive example for study, in relation to the derivation of successive specific forms by hereditary transmission with modification."

Some interesting modern types of Loricarian fishes illustrate Mr. Ray Lankester's monograph on the Cephalaspide of the Old Red Sandstone.

These curious buckler-headed fishes are certainly among the most interesting as they are undoubtedly the very earliest forms of the vertebrate type with which we are acquainted.

One head-shield figured measures more than 6 inches across and above 7 inches in length.

Mr. Fielding has most successfully rendered the fine and delicate striæ on the plates of Pteraspis in plates vi. and vii. The histology of these fish-plates is carefully worked out and most beautifully illustrated by Tuffen West.

Professor Owen's monograph on the Lias Pterosauria deserves more than a passing notice.

For the first time we see before us an entire British Pterodactyle in his Dimorphodon macronyx, not restored at random, but carefully put together bone by bone from the three specimens in the British Museum. Dimorphodon, as we thus know it, has a long and slender tail firmly set and imbedded in ossified tendons, rendering it apparently an inflexible rudder; the hind limbs are well developed, as also are the claws and the wing-fingers. The head is very large, with beautiful contrivances for lightening it by means of large vacuities; the jaws are armed with larger laniary teeth, and rows of more regular minute and pointed teeth. There is no evidence that this species had a beak or horny termination to its jaws as Von Meyer believes to have been the case in Rhamphorhynchus from the Solenhofen beds.

Upon the affinities of the Pterosauria Professor Owen is at issue. with Professor Huxley, the former arguing against their Ornithic and in favour of their Reptilian affinities, the latter placing them in the same group with the Dinosauria, the Crocodilia, and the Anomodontia (called by Professor Huxley the Ornithoscelida), the most bird-like of the Reptilia.

Professor Owen argues that the possession of feathers and warm blood are essentially bird-like attributes, whilst the absence of feathers in the Pterosauria proves them to have been cold-blooded reptiles. The Cockchafer is cited by Professor Owen to prove that powerful flight may co-exist with cold blood; but if we could compare the bulk of the insect with that of the Pterodactyle, there seems little doubt that the temperature would also increase with the size of the animal, and in proportion to the increased muscular work required to be accomplished.

We deprecate the tone adopted by the author in his critical review of Professor Huxley's observations,* and earnestly hope it may not be found in any future monographs.

The concluding Monograph, also by Professor Owen, treats of the Cetacean remains, occurring in the Red Crag, belonging to the genus Ziphius of Cuvier. These curious rostra are found in tole

* P. 74.

rable abundance in the Coprolite-workings in the Red Crag of Suffolk, and are usually much water-worn and eroded, as if the bed in which they were originally deposited had undergone subsequent denudation on some later Tertiary sea-beach. They often appear to have been bored into by Pholades.

Twenty-three articles appear in the last three numbers of the Geological Magazine.' Of these the most important are: "On the Sequence of the Glacial Beds," by Searles V. Wood, jun.; "On Lithodomous Perforations," by J. Rofe, F.G.S.; "The Millstone Grit of the North Wales Border," by D. C. Davies; "The Character of Lavas," by G. Poulett Scrope, F.R.S.; "On Faults in Strata," by W. T. Blanford and by G. H. Kinahan; "New Zealand Plesiosaurs," by Professor Owen; "Boulder-Clay," by Mr. James Geikie; "Banded and Brecciated Concretions," by Dr. Ruskin. If Mr. Searles Wood, jun., can only induce the Geological Survey to adopt his classification for the later deposits of our island, much of our misery and uncertainty about the Contorted Drift and Boulder-Clay ends, and we may find a place for every pebble-bed and drift-deposit which we meet with, and can colour it at once.

But the Geological Survey are not converted, although they will, doubtless, gladly adopt much of Mr. S. V. Wood, jun.'s, admirable work on East Anglian surface-geology, when they come to Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex.

Mr. Scrope continues his favourite theme, the character of Lavas. We hear, by-the-by, that he is arranging with Mr. Archibald Geikie a descent upon the Lipari Islands and Stromboli this summer, so we look for a new view of modern volcanoes from a leading man of the day in Geology.

may

PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON.

The present number of the 'Quarterly Journal' of this Society deals in Australian Geology and Palæontology. On Dinosaurian Reptiles and their affinity with Birds. The evidence afforded by corals as to the physical geography of Western Europe in Secondary and Tertiary times. The Brachiopoda of the Budleigh-Salterton pebble-bed. A comparison of the Boulder-clay of the North of England with that of the South. On the Graphite of the Laurentian of Canada. On the Geology of the country around the Gulf of Cambay. On the Rodents of the Somersetshire Caves.

With rocks of Secondary age in Australia we have been hitherto unacquainted, and there seemed good reason to believe that this remarkable country held its head above water through the Mesozoic period.

Mr. Charles Moore has, however, brought before us evidence of