Although I find, in your notice of the 27th of December, it is stated inadvertently that my father projected the first of the Railway "Guides," the rest of the article is correct; and your remark, that "the enterprise was successful greatly through his exertions," in no way exceeds the truth.

In the establishment of a work in which several have co-operated, it is impossible to apportion the credit due to each, and it is but just to Mr. Kay to acknowledge the ability with which he has edited the "Guide" from its commencement, although in his letter he has claimed to speak of matters about some of which he could have had but little direct knowledge. I am sorry to trouble you with details of no public interest, but I could not leave Mr. Kay's letter unanswered.

HENRY J. ADAMS.

THE SHAPIRA COLLECTION.

Jerusalem, Dec. 29, 1873. BEFORE detailing the results obtained on the spot in the elucidation of this question, I may be permitted to record the fact that my opinion on the subject was formed at the outset, and has never varied. The first papers printed in Germany, on the subject of this inscribed pottery, produced upon me the immediate impression that it was the work of a forger, while the drawings sent to London, and shown to me, served to confirm this first impression. Nevertheless, my judgment being based on indirect, and, so to speak, personal proofs, I did not think myself justified in pronouncing my opinion publicly, although several times invited to do so. Before the verdict of scientific authority so considerable as that of Germany, I thought it wise to reserve an opinion which might have seemed rash, or even inspired by a sentiment of jealousy or envy. I had, however, several opportunities of speaking confidentially to members of the Palestine Fund Committee, who can bear witness to my assertions. I had even gone so far as to point out, à priori, and without any information, the probable forger-the author of the mystification. The event has proved me right. The name of the person very soon figured in the official Reports (which accompanied and authenticated many of the specimens) as the principal agent employed by M. Shapira, whose good faith, I hasten to say at once, I have no intention of suspecting, and who appears, so far as I have gone, to be the first dupe, and not the accomplice, of this colossal deception. The forger in question, as I have always said, is Selim el Gari, a painter by trade, to whom the habit of daubing bad Neobyzantine pictures for Greek pilgrims has imparted a certain readiness and skill. I had to do with him at the commencement of the Moabite Stone business. He had copied a few lines from the original seen by him at Diban, and I have always carefully kept this copy, which was rough but faithful, and which, at least, enabled me to detect from the very first, in the fantastic inscriptions of the Shapira Collection, the characteristic and peculiar manner in which our artist sees, understands, and designs the Moabite letters; among other things, there being a certain manner of drawing the mim peculiar to him, which, coupled with other facts of the same kind, enabled me to recognize his workmanship with as much readiness as one recognizes a man's handwriting.

In addition to this, the examination of the inscriptions was, according to me, amply sufficient to show that they were apocryphal. How to explain, for instance, that hundreds of texts found in Moab written in characters sensibly similar (much too similar) to those of the stele of Mesa should be completely unintelligible? For it is impossible to receive as serious translations certain unfortunate attempts made in Germany and England to make sense of these inscriptions-attempts often contradictory, which have served to show, not only the ingenuity and erudition of their authors, but the impossibility of translating texts, supposed, from the alleged circumstances of the "finds," and their palæographic appearance, to be contemporaneous with the Moabite Stone.

At the date, then, of my leaving France, my

mind was perfectly made up on the question, although I had as yet communicated my opinion only to certain scholars of France and England who did me the honour of asking it. I knew beforehand what I should find at Jerusalem, when I proposed to bring to light the whole of this tangled business, and to find material proofs of what, hitherto, I had only advanced with great reserve. One of my earliest cares, therefore, on arriving here was to visit the new collection of M. Shapira, at present in course of formation, and intended to join its elder sister in the Museum of Berlin. It was not without trouble that I obtained the necessary authorization; and it was only through the good offices of Mr. Drake that I was enabled to overcome the scruples of the owner, who believed me, I do not know why, animated by some hostile sentiment. I visited the famous collection in company with Mr. Drake, and in presence of M. Shapira himself. It is composed of statues and vases, covered with inscriptions, supposed to be Moabite, lavished in suspicious profusion. The figures are rudely formed, and yet betray the hand of a modern. It is quite sufficient to compare them with the statues, certainly rough, but authentic, of Cyprus, to see immediately the difference between a work simple and rudimentary, but spontaneous and sincere, and that of a modern Arab reproducing mechanically models more or less disfigured. at once recognized, in these models of badly baked earth, the manner and style of our artist, of whom I already possess certain drawings, which propose to publish with his copy of the Moabite Stone, for the edification of the learned.

I

Not only the form of the objects, but the material itself of which they are made, cry aloud, "Apocryphal!" The clay is absolutely identical with that used now by the Jerusalem potters; it is hardly baked at all, and yet you will observe under the faces of the little discs of properly-baked clay with which some of the vases were full, and which are taken for coins and tessera, the mark of the threads of the linen on which the soft plate had been laid in order to be cut into circles. I have also seen on some of the specimens the famous deposits of saltpetre, which play so great a part in the question, and which have been produced by the partisans of authenticity as proofs of their extreme antiquity. These saltpetre deposits are only superficial, and must have been obtained, as I have always said, by plunging the things in a solution of nitre. If in some of these specimens which I have not seen the saltpetre has penetrated through the whole mass, it is because the clay was still less baked and the bath was longer prolonged.

In short, I did not see, in the whole collection, one single object which could be regarded as genuine, so that I remarked to Drake when we came out, "There is only one thing authentic in all that we have seen, the live ostrich the Arabs have brought here with the pottery. And as to the pottery itself, it only remains for us to find who is the potter that made it." My opinion is, and always has been, that the collections of M. Shapira, all derived from the same source, are false from beginning to end, not only the inscribed pottery, but also that which has no letters on it, and is like the other in form and material.

The preceding may be regarded as furnishing no sufficient proof. Accordingly, since my arrival here, I have been looking about for arguments more positive and material, and for palpable proofs. Convinced that the pottery was the work of Selim el Gari, and that it was made at Jerusalem, I took It measures to surprise him, la main dans le sac. was evident to me that Selim himself made the statues; as to the vases, he might either make them himself, or cause them to be made by a professional potter, adding, for his own part, the inscriptions intended to make them valuable; in either case he must have recourse to a potter, in order to get his things baked in a proper oven. Starting with this certainty, I looked about among the potters of Jerusalem, five or six in all, and very soon found out the whole truth.

The first piece of information, which put me in the right track, was given me by a certain Abd el

Bagi, surnamed Abu Mansura, a journeyman now in the employ of the potter Hadj Khalil el Malhi, whose shop is between the Spanish Consulate and the Damascus Gate. This man, whom I questioned with the greatest care, for fear of his discovering the object of my curiosity, told me that he had once worked for a certain Selim el Gari, who made statues and vases in earthenware (terre cuite) with writings, but that he had left off working for him for some time. In order not to awaken suspicions, I did not press my questions any further, but confined myself to asking him if he knew to what potter Selim now sent his vessels to be baked. Abu Mansura indicated a potter by name Bakir el Masry, to whom I then went. This information was not correct. Bakir, whose name and accent indicate his Egyptian origin, had never worked for Selim, but he had, and still has, in his service a young apprentice, Hassan ibn el Bitar, who has for a long time worked at the pottery of Ahmed 'Alawiyé, at the present time employed by Selim, whose shop is between the Mawlawiyeh and the Damascus Gate.

What follows is the exact narrative which I took from the mouth of Hassan, always being very careful to let him speak, without suggesting anything by injudicious questioning :—

"Hassan entered into the service of Bakir about four months ago: he was formerly apprenticed to Ahmed, with another boy named Khalil, son of Said the barber, and Abu Mansura, journeyman.

"Selim el Gari got soft clay of Ahmed, made out of it, at his own house, statues of men, dogs, and women, with noses, hands, feet, and breasts, the whole covered with writings: he also made little discs of clay like sahtout (pieces of money): then he sent them to Ahmed's to be baked. Ahmed also made vases for him in turn, and Selim wrote letters on them.

"It was Hassan and his fellow apprentice Khalil who were charged with carrying the things from Selim's house to the shop, and vice versa. The first time Selim himself took him to his house to make him know it he was then staying in the street called Harat el Djonwalidé, near the Latin Patriarchate. He has since moved, and has gone to the street Agabat el Battikh, near the Spanish Consulate.

"Hassan has only been once in the latter house. Selim at first addressed himself to the potter, Hadj Khalil el Malhi, but could not come to terms with

him.

"Selim, after having shown his house to Hassan, gave him two bechliks: for every journey he made he gave him one bechlik, or a bechlik and a half, sometimes two. To the workman, Abu Mansura, he gave one or two mejelies, and to Ahmed a sum much larger (a pound, if I remember right).

"The journeys were made between the Maghreb and the Icha; that is to say, in the three or four hours which follow sunset: Hassan, for his part, carried the things under an abaye, hiding them as much as possible, as he had been instructed. He even asserts that he left Ahmed in order not to continue an occupation which made him fearful of being arrested by the patrol.

"Not only were the objects minutely counted, but if any one got broken, the very smallest fragments were carefully picked up. Selim gave, one day, two piastres to a boy who picked up a sahtout in clay that Hassan had dropped.

"Once they gave Hassan to carry a large statuette, still hot, which burned his hands, his chest, and his arms.

"When he brought the things to Selim, he saw him on many occasions dip them into a caldron filled with water; one night Hassan himself, at the request of Selim, drew water from the cistern to fill the caldron. Selim left them to soak for some time, and then took them out to dry: he said that it was to make them grow old."

I insist particularly on the spontaneous character of this narrative, which I have purposely reproduced in its own simple and methodless style; it contains details which cannot have been invented, and the exactness and veracity of which I have been able to establish by other means. I believe it

conclusive: it is notably instructive as to the process adopted by Selim in order to impregnate his things with that couche of saltpetre which was to be their brevet of authenticity. I think that we can henceforth, with these elements of information, consider the matter as settled.

C. CLERMONT GANNEAU.

In forwarding the above extract from M. Ganneau's letter, it will, perhaps, be well to state the line of action taken up by the Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund from the first announcement of the "find." It is to Mr. Tyrwhitt

Drake that the Committee owed their first sketches and copies of the jars, idols, and inscriptions. Other copies were very kindly sent by Dr. Chaplin. On Lieut. Conder's arrival in Jerusalem, he made careful water-colour sketches of the more important objects; but the figures and vases failed to carry with them to the eyes of English archæologists any evidence of their genuineness. Still, as nothing but copies had been sent home, opinion was withheld until specimens could be seen and handled. With the inscriptions it was different. Mr. Vaux, himself a member of the Executive Committee, at once declared, without hesitation, that these were, one and all, forgeries. Acting chiefly on his opinion, the soundness of which is now clearly established, the Committee refused to have anything to do with the collection. Meantime, fresh intelligence arrived. Two German travellers, with M. Shapira, had dug up similar fragments of vessels themselves in Moab. New specimens came in freely. It was reported that whole camel loads of pottery were habitually transported to Damascus to be broken up; pamphlets were written on the inscriptions; and then the German Government buying the whole of the first collection, gave a stimulus to the production of a second, which has since been proceeding rapidly. Against this evidence were to be placed the facts, that recent travellers had found nothing similar in Moab; that the American survey party in Moab had positive assurance from all quarters that nothing ever had been found; that Mr. Wright, of Damascus, had disproved the camel-load story; and that the English archæologists refused to be convinced

It is due to another gentleman, now in Jerusalem, to state that corroborative evidence of the strongest kind will also be shortly forthcoming. This it is hoped to publish in a week or two.

NOTES FROM EGYPT.

W. BESANT.

Cairo, Jan. 11, 1874.

I RECEIVED the other day a pleasing visit from Dr. Schweinfurth on his way through Cairo to the Oasis Khargeh, or Great Oasis, which he purposes exploring thoroughly. From him I learned several items of interesting news. The well-known Italian traveller, Signor Miani, died recently at Khartum. He had penetrated as far to the south-west as Schweinfurth himself, but not being so young or so robust as the latter, he sank under the fatigues of a journey, which, from Dr. Schweinfurth's description of it, now probably before the public, could be borne by few. On the other hand, the German traveller, Dr. Nachtigall, has succeeded in traversing the hitherto untrodden country of Wadai, where, unhappily, my young friend Vogel lost his life, and in reaching Khartum in safety, by the way of Darfûr and Kordofan. As regards himself, the Doctor assured me that the report of his having received material aid from the Khedive is without foundation, for he obtained only the moral support of the Egyptian Government. So, too, the assistance rendered by the Viceroy to Dr. Rohlf's expedition into the Libyan Desert has been greatly exaggerated, his subsidy to it being limited to the sum of 4,000l. sterling.

When Mr. Milne and I came to Cairo, from Alexandria, on the 23rd ult., nothing was more striking to me, who have visited Egypt several times since 1840 (when I went on my first journey into Abyssinia, but have not been here since 1866, when I passed through in company with my wife, on our way to and from the latter

country) than the many great changes for the better that have taken place throughout Egypt. When once Lake Mareotis and the dreary waste on the western side of the Rosetta branch of the Nile are passed, the country, far and wide, exhibits unequivocal signs of improved and extended cultivation. I am told, that whereas in 1850 there were only two millions and a half of acres under culture, there are now at least five millions. The cotton harvest is just at an end, and the peasants are busily employed in cleaning and ploughing the land. In one instance, I saw what I do not remember to have remarked before, a camel drawing the plough. Green crops of various kinds are growing luxuriantly, and it is pleasing to see the animals, black cattle, asses, sheep, and goats, grazing in the rich pasture without stint. Trees not only line the road on both sides, but have been planted so extensively that many parts of the country have the appearance of being well-wooded. Altogether, the run across the Delta on a lovely, cool, but sunny day, was most delightful; and I am not in the least exaggerating when I say that I was often inclined to doubt whether I could really be in Egypt. The sight, here and there, of tall factory chimneys rising out of the midst of the villages, or from among the trees, tended to increase the illusion.

The fact is, that Egypt, though geographically forming a part of Africa, is rapidly assimilating herself to Europe, of which she desires to be regarded as a member.

The condition of the lower classes generally, both in town and country, has likewise much improved. Ophthalmia, perhaps the greatest curse of Egypt, is far less frequent and less virulent. If the people are not better fed, they have, at all events, constant food. Those in the towns seem to be better clad. In Cairo shoes are worn much more than formerly, not merely the native slippers, but European boots. I have just noticed a man in the usual native blue cotton frock, apparently the driver of a hackcarriage, actually having his boots blacked by a lad scarcely less meanly clad than himself. As regards the Fellahin, or peasants, they are better protected from the weather in their mud-huts, which are generally much better roofed than formerly, and oftentimes better built. In some places one sees dwellings for the labourers approaching to our European type. On the other hand, several of the native villages of the last generation are deserted, and their mud-huts are rapidly falling into decay. Such must have been the fate of the "treasure cities" built by the Israelites for Pharaoh with bricks, which there is no reason to suppose to have been burnt bricks and straw; and hence it is intelligible that no traces of them should now remain. No doubt there is a dark side to the picture of Egyptian prosperity. The people, like the Israelites of old, work not for themselves, but for taskmasters, who "make their lives bitter with hard bondage; all their service, wherein they render them service, is with rigour." Still, on the whole, the balance is decidedly on the side of good. The greatest and most important change, as being likely to be the most lasting, is, however, in the climate, consequent on the bringing of the land under culture and on the planting of trees. Egypt is fast losing its proverbial rainless character. At Alexandria, as is well known, rain is now so frequent as to have become a source of annoyance; but, until quite recently, Cairo has prided itself on its almost total exemption from rain. "At Cairo," says the new edition of Murray's 'Handbook," "five or six showers would be the (yearly) average, and these not at all heavy." But I am assured, on good authority, that during last year there were no less than twenty-one or twenty-two days of rain; and only a week ago, since my arrival here, we had four-and-twenty hours of rain, as heavy and continuous as any in London,-in fact, a regular English wet day. The consequence was, that the unpaved streets were ankle-deep in mud, and all "circulation" was suspended, except in carriages: there was even "riposo " at the Opera for want of an audience. It may easily be imagined that the

ago

ignorant Arabs attribute this extraordinary change in the seasons to some supernatural cause, and, as it has taken place since the accession of Mohammed Ali, they conclude that he and his dynasty have possessed the means of bringing it about. And so they have in fact, though not in the way imagined by their superstitious subjects. Another curious instance may be given of how these people It is matter of attribute results to wrong causes. history that four-and-twenty centuries the Persian invader, Cambyses, injured and destroyed many of the monuments of ancient Egypt, and among them (as is generally considered) the Vocal Statue of Memnon, at Thebes. It is also matter of history that, during the present century, Prof. Lepsius defaced several of the existing monuments by depriving them of their sculptured figures and inscriptions. The natives of the country, who know nothing of dates, and entertain the most vague notions respecting everything that occurred before their own time, having heard from their fathers of Lepsius's vandalism, but nothing of that of Cambyses, not unnaturally confound the one with the other, and so Dr. Lepsius is said by them to have been the destroyer of the Vocal Memnon, as if he had not already sins enough of his own to answer for.

If the changes in the agricultural districts and in the climate of Egypt have been great, those in and about the capital of the country are not less so. The Khedive seems determined to make Cairo the Paris of the Levant. The western portion of the city is being almost entirely rebuilt, and extensively enlarged in the direction of the Nile, whilst new streets are being opened through the other quarters. But on this subject I need not dilate. It is only to be hoped that, in his zeal to modernize and Europeanize Cairo, the Viceroy will not deprive it of its Oriental character, which constitutes its great charm and attraction.

But

Sir Samuel Baker's expedition, it is reported here, cost half-a-million sterling. I have since been informed, on good authority, that the sum the Viceroy is out of pocket somewhat exceeds 400,000l., and, according to all accounts, the results are anything but commensurate with the immense outlay. However, after he had recovered from his first disappointment, the Khedive is said to have felt not dissatisfied. Col. Gordon, who has entered His Highness's service to undertake the exploration, and, it must be added, the conquest and annexation, of those southern regions, will know how to take up and unite the broken threads; and there can be little doubt that under his skilful management the policy of the Egyptian Government will eventually be successful. That policy is broadly and unequivocally stated by Mariette Bey, in the Introduction to his 'Aperçu.' "History," says he, "teaches us that Egypt is bounded on the north by the Mediterranean, and on the south by the Cataract of Assuan. history, in fixing these limits, does not take into account the indications furnished both by geography and by ethnography. At the north-east of the African continent, from the sea to the equator, there extends an immense tract of country formed by the river, and fertilized by it alone. On the other hand, of the various races that people the banks of this river some are uncivilized, savage, and incapable of governing themselves; whilst on this side of the tropic we meet with a nation, which, on the contrary, merits the admiration of mankind on account of its glory, its industry, and all the elements of civilization contained in it. History, then, ought rather to say that Egypt extends wherever the Nile flows, and that consequently Egypt has the right to claim as her domain all the countries watered by this celebrated river as far as they extend towards the south." It would not be difficult to expose the fallacy of this reasoning. But all that needs now to be said is that such being the avowed object of the Khedive, it is manifest that the task of the accomplished British engineer officer who has just entered His Highness's service, in the place of Sir Samuel Baker, is not only to explore the basin of the Upper Nile, but to enforce Egypt's claim to all

AT the First Annual Conversazione in connexion

with the Naturalists' Club of Sheffield, Mr. H. C. Sorby, the President, described some investigations upon which he is now engaged. He stated that he had studied the changes that had occurred in the colouring matters of leaves and flowers during their development from a rudimentary to a perfect state, and the connexion between them and the action of light, and had found that there was, apparently, a most remarkable correlation. When more and more developed under the influence of light, coloured compounds were found more and more easily decomposed by the action of light and air, when they were no longer parts of living plants, but dissolved out from them. There was thus, apparently, some condition in living plants which actually reversed these re-actions. He had also found that in the more rudimentary state of the leaves of the highest classes, the colouring matters corresponded with those found in lower classes, and in the case of the petals of flowers, their more rudimentary condition often corresponded with some other variety, which thus appeared as if due to a naturally arrested development of a particular kind. This principle would, perhaps, serve to explain the greater prevalence of flowers of particular colours in tropical, or colder regions, and at different elevations. Mr. Sorby is about to extend his inquiries, to determine (what he at present only infers from the indications of his previous experiments) whether light, with a relatively greater amount of the blue rays, might not be relatively more favourable to the cryptogamia than to the flowering plants.

In the Berichte der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft zu Berlin a paper by Prof. Schöne appears, "On the Reciprocal Behaviour of Ozone and Water.' The chief points of interest resulting from this investigation are, that ozone does not convert water into peroxide of hydrogen; that a considerable quantity of ozone is absorbed by water, even at ordinary temperatures, but that it suffers no qualitative change; that there is a loss of ozone when it is passed through water, beyond that which is absorbed, which is due, it is thought, to the conversion of ozone, by the action of water, into common oxygen. In the Journal of the Scottish Meteorological Society, Dr. T. Moffat, of Hawarden, has a curious paper On Atmospheric Ozone and its Sources.' He thinks that he has proved, by observation and experiments, that there is an intimate connexion between phosphorescence and ozone. He states that the brilliancy of phosphorescent bodies varies with the state of the weather; that the glow-worm is more luminous in unsettled than in settled weather; that the luminosity of the sea, produced mainly by the night shining Neries, is a precursor of storms, and that then ozone is produced. The atmospheric conditions of periods of phosphorescence are the same as those of ozone, and periods of non-phosphorescence and no-ozone periods occur under similar conditions. We conceive that Dr. Moffat has entirely neglected the ever-varying electrical conditions which are known to be intimately connected with the development of ozone.

An improved form of tangent-galvanometer has been devised by Dr. F. Müller, of Osnabrück, and is described by him in Poggendorff's Annalen.

The same journal contains an account of Poggendorff's researches on the action of that form of Holtz's electrical machine, in which there are two plates rotating in opposite directions.

Some observations on the spectrum of the precious opal have been recently published by Dr. Behrens, of Kiel. The light reflected from the surface of this gem gives a spectrum consisting of one or two bright lines; the purity of the colours of the opal may be referred to the homogeneity of this reflected light. Behrens's researches are described and illustrated in the last number of Leonhard and Geinitz's Neues Jahrbuch.

A somewhat novel idea is started by M. Desdemaines Hugon, in a paper 'On the Diamond Diggings of South Africa,' which is printed in the Revue Scientifique de la France et de l'Étranger. He states that the air is always highly electric where diamonds abound, and he intimates his opinion that this may throw some light on the formation of that gem.

We would refer to a paper presented to the Académie des Sciences on November 27, by M. de Mondésir, 'On the Maximum Density of Water, and a Mechanical Explanation of this Phenomenon.' The hypothesis advanced cannot be satisfactorily explained in the space at our disposal, but it appears to be exceedingly ingenious, and in the Comptes Rendus it is very clearly explained.

SOCIETIES.

ROYAL.-Jan. 15.-The President in the chair.

-The following paper was read: Preliminary Account of an Investigation on the Transmission of Sound by the Atmosphere,' by Dr. Tyndall.

SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES. —Jan. 15.-C. S. Perceval, Esq., LL.D., V.P., in the chair.-Mr. M. H. Bloxham exhibited a Charter granted by King John, A.D. 1209, to the nuns of Steynfield, Lincolnshire; a horn cup found in the wall-plate of Lapworth Church, Warwickshire; and a drawing of a glass bottle found under the floor of the nave of the same church; and two leaden tokens found in the playground of Rugby School.-Dr. C. Bruce communicated an account of discoveries recently made near the Roman Wall. During the construction of a new bridge over the Tyne, at Newcastle, the workmen came upon what Dr. Bruce believed to be the substructures of three bridges previously built over the Tyne, viz., (1) Hadrian's bridge, (2) a bridge built in the twelfth century, and (3) a bridge built in the eighteenth century. Of the two former bridges, Dr. Bruce exhibited portions of the timbers so found, as well as plans showing the positions in which they were found.-Dr. Bruce also exhibited drawings and photographs of various inscriptions and bas-reliefs which had recently been acquired through the zeal of Mr. Clayton.

NUMISMATIC.-Jan. 15.—J. Evans, Esq., in the chair.-Capt. J. S. Swann was elected a Member. -Mr. Evans exhibited a cast of a copper coin of Tranquillina, found in a tomb near the site of the ancient city of Anchialus, on the Euxine, on the reverse of which were a dolphin with the legend ATXIAAEON.-Mr. B. V. Head read the first portion of a paper 'On the Chronological Sequence of the Coins of Syracuse,' in which he endeavoured to determine with greater exactness than has hitherto been attempted the dates of the various issues in all metals, from the time of the Oligarchy of the Geomori, in the sixth century B.C., down to the usurpation of Agathocles, in B.C. 317.-Mr. Head exhibited, in illustration of his paper, a selection of electrotypes and casts from the most characteristic specimens of the Syracusan series preserved in the national coin cabinet; among which, as an example of archaic art, may be mentioned one of the famous dekadrachms struck after the victory of Gelon, tyrant of Syracuse, over the Carthaginians, at Himera, in B.C. 480, the issue of which pieces is recorded by Diodorus (xi. 26). As specimens of the later or fine period of Greek art, Mr. Head exhibited the dekadrachms and tetra

drachms executed during the reign of Dionysius the Elder, by the celebrated die - engravers, Eumenus, Evænetus, and Kimon.

STATISTICAL.-Jan. 20.-Dr. Guy, President, in the chair.-Mr. R. D. Baxter read a paper 'On the Recent Progress of National Debts.-In the discussion that ensued, Dr. Hyde Clarke, Mr. W. Fowler, M.P., Sir G. Balfour, M.P., the Right Hon. H. C. Childers, M.P., and others, took part.

LINNEAN.-Jan. 11.-G. Bentham, Esq., President, in the chair.-Mr. S. Jennings, Dr. Mr. R. G. Watt, Fitzgerald, and

Mr.

F. J. M. H. Stone were elected Fellows.-Dr. Hooker exhibited a series of specimens of

fossil copal, the product of Trachylobium Hornemannianum, some specimens of recent copal from the same plant, and some fruits of a Momordica, all forwarded from Zanzibar by Dr. Kirk for the Kew Museum.-A framed plate of coloured drawings of edible and poisonous British fungi, presented to the Society by T. Walker, Esq., was exhibited. The alterations in the by-laws proposed by the Council, and read at previous meetings of the Society, were passed. The following papers were read: 'On Some Species of Japanese Marine Shells and Fishes which Inhabit also the North Atlantic,' by Mr. J. Gwyn Jeffreys, -and 'Note on Japanese Brachiopoda,' by Mr. T. Davidson.

ENTOMOLOGICAL. -Jan. 5.-Prof. Westwood'

M.A., President, in the chair.-Capt. G. Cackle was elected a Member.-Mr. Meldola exhibited some photographs of minute insects taken with the camera-obscura and microscope.-Mr. M'Lachlan called attention to a paper in the last part of the Annales de la Soc. Ent. de France, by M. Bar and Dr. Laboulbène, on a species of moth belonging to the Bombycidæ, described and figured by extraordinary habits, the larva being aquatic, M. Bar as Palustra Laboulbenei, and of very living in the canals of the sugar plantations in Cayenne, and feeding upon an aquatic plant. The hairy larva breathed by means of small spiracles, a supply of air being apparently entangled in its hairs. Mr. Butler remarked that Mr. J. V. Riley, in the Journal of the St. Louis Academy of Sciences, had alluded to Apatura Lycaon, Fab., and A. Hyrse, Fab., as distinct species, whereas he Edwards.-A letter from M. E. Olivier stated believed them to be identical with the A. Alicia, that he had recently come into possession of a portion of the collection of his grandfather, the celebrated French coleopterist, and that he would be happy to show it to any entomologist who might desire to examine the types.—Mr. Smith communicated a paper 'On the Hymenopterous Genus Xylocopa,' and Mr. D. Sharp, a paper On the Pselaphide and Scydmænidæ of Japan,' from the collections of Mr. G. Lewis.

CHEMICAL-Jan. 15.-Prof. Odling, President, in the chair.-Mr. W. C. Roberts handed in a table, supplementary to his paper read at the last meeting, and containing complete analyses of all the Standard Trial Plates still extant, dating from A.D. 1477, namely, seventeen gold plates and fourteen silver ones.-The following papers were read: 'On the Action of Trichloracetyl Chloride on Amines, I. Action on Aniline,' by Dr. D. Tommasi and Mr. R. Meldola. This re-action gives rise to a substance called phenyl-triacetamide, which crystallizes in lustrous plates. It is acted on by nitric acid with production of dinitrophenyltriacetamide, crystallizing in yellow needles, 'Note on the Action of Sodic Ethylate on Ethylic Oxalate and other Ethereal Salts,' by Dr. H. E. Armstrong,-"On the Products of Decomposition of Castor Oil, I. Sebacic Acid,' by Mr. E. Neison, giving an account of the preparation and properties of pure sebacic acid, and of many of its salts.

METEOROLOGICAL.—Jan. 22.—Annual Meeting. Dr. R. J. Mann, President, in the chair.-The Report of the Council dealt principally with the various alterations made at the Society's library at