Inocerami, related to the recent Pearl-oyster; Spondyli; Scallops (Pecten), of peculiar form; "Cockscomb oysters, and species of Lima and Pleurotomaria. One peculiarity of the Chalk Fossils is, the constant absence of the interior pearly layers of the shells, which have been removed subsequent to their imbedding. In the Green-sand strata, Trigonia abound, and peculiar bivalves, of an extinct family (Hippuritida), related to the recent Chama. Case 1, Room VI.

6. JURASSIC, or OOLITIC SHELLS. (Cases 2 and 3, Room V.) The shells of the Portland stone, Bath stone, and other Oolitic rocks, and of the Lias, include numerous species of Trigonia, the internal casts of which are often found, whilst the shells have been dissolved and removed from the rock; they are called "horse-heads" by the quarry-men, and are sometimes silicified, and contain traces of the shell-fish itself. Amongst the Oolitic oysters, are some whose shells have been moulded on Trigonia and Ammonites.

7. The SHELLS OF THE TRIASSIC SYSTEM in Case 4, Room V., consist of the original specimens figured and described by Dr. Klipstein, in his work on the fossils of the salt-marls and Alpine limestone of Austria.

PALEOZOIC SHELLS.

8. MAGNESIAN LIMESTONE (Permian), of Northumberland and Durham. (Case 4.)

9. CARBONIFEROUS LIMESTONE, and Coal-measures of Britain and Belgium. (Cases 4 and 5.) Chiefly from the collection of Professor

De Koninck, of Liege.

10. DEVONIAN SYSTEM. (Case 5.) Devonshire and the Eifel. 11. SILURIAN SYSTEM. (Cases 5 and 6.) Presented by Sir Roderick Murchison, Bart., K.C.B.

CHAMBERED SHELLS (Cephalopoda).

The Shells of the chambered univalves (Cephalopoda), related to the recent Nautilus and Cuttle-fish (Sepia), are placed in the Table Cases (7 to 12 and 14) of Room V.

In Case 10 are placed the curious fossils named Aptychi and Trigonellites, now known to be the operculum or covering to the mouth of the shell of the Ammonite.

In Case 11 the fossil Nautili are displayed. Those from the London Clay of Highgate and Sheppey are specially worthy of notice.

ROOM VI.

Room VI. is occupied chiefly by the osseous remains of the Edentata (quadrupeds without front teeth), and large Pachydermata (thickskinned herbivorous quadrupeds), such as the Elephants and Mastodons. Of the Edentate order of quadrupeds, the most striking example is presented by the skeleton of the Megatherium. The remains of this animal have been met with in the southern parts of South America and more especially in the region of Buenos Ayres. A slight acquaintance with the bony framework of animals may enable the visitor to appreciate the enormous muscular power which this animal must have

possessed; the huge Mastodon near it must have been a comparatively feeble animal. The strength of the Megatherium is indicated by the form of the bones, and especially their tubercles and ridges, to which the muscles were attached. In the fore parts of the body the framework is comparatively slender; the contrary is the case with the hind quarters, where enormous strength and weight are combined, indicating that the animal habitually rested on its haunches and powerful tail, and whilst in that position could freely use its flexible arms, and the large claws with which its fore-feet were provided.

The affinity of this animal to the existing Sloth is evident, from the structure of the skull, blade-bone, &c.; the teeth are the same in number, kind, structure, mode of growth, and mode of implantation, as in the Sloth, whence the similarity of food may be inferred; but the different proportions and colossal bulk of the Megatherium indicate that instead of climbing trees, like the Sloth, it uprooted and tore them down, to feed upon the leaves and succulent branches.

This skeleton is composed, in part, of casts of bones, in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, brought from Buenos Ayres by Sir Woodbine Parish, and, in part, of casts of bones of the same species and size in the British Museum. In the Wall Case No. 4, between the windows, is deposited an extensive series of the bones of different individuals of the Megatherium, all of which are from the region of Buenos Ayres. In Case No. 3 are deposited the bones of allied animals, Scelidotherium, Mylodon, &c., also from South America. On the stand with the Megatherium is placed a portion of a carapace or shell of a species of Glyptodon, an extinct genus nearly allied to the Armadillos, and of which several species have been discovered in South America. In some of these species the carapace must have been from ten to twelve feet in length: in all, as in the smaller species here exhibited, it was devoid of those "bands" or "joints" which give it flexibility in the small existing Armadillos. In the Wall Case, at the end of the room, may be seen the tail, with the bony sheath, of two of the largest kinds of Glyptodon. In the centre of the Room has been placed the cast of an entire carapace, with the singularly-armed tail-sheath of this animal; and on the tops of the Wall Cases are considerable portions of the carapaces of species of Glyptodon.

The Elephant remains exhibited in the Wall Cases opposite the windows have been referred by Dr. Falconer to nine species; viz., three European, and six Indian; but of the European species one (the Mammoth) is common to the northern parts of Europe, Asia, and America: a skull of this animal, found at Ilford, in Essex, having tusks of ten feet eight inches in length, has been recently set up in the middle of the Room. The Mastodon genus presents three European species (one of which is found in England), three species from India, one from North America, and one from South America. The Mastodon of which the entire skeleton is mounted in Room VI. is of the North American species (Mastodon Ohioticus). All these species of Elephant are extinct; that is to say, not any of them

resembles either of the two living species, the African and Asiatic Elephants; and of the genus Mastodon there is no living representative. The European Mastodons are found in strata which are more ancient than those which contain the Elephant remains: but the Indian species of Mastodon were coeval with the fossil Elephants from the same country. The two genera, Elephas and Mastodon, have

much resemblance in most of the characters exhibited in their skeletons, but they differ considerably in their dentition. In the Elephant the grinding tooth is made up of a number of flattened plates cemented together, each plate being enclosed by enamel; the enamel being considerably harder than the other substances which compose the tooth, wears less readily, and hence projects in the form of transverse ridges on the crown of the tooth, which has been subjected to much attrition. The crown of the tooth in the Mastodons presents, before it is worn, a number of conical prominences, which are more or less united in the transverse direction of the tooth, so as to form high ridges.

Nearly allied to the Mastodons is the extraordinary animal the Dinotherium, of which the skull, lower jaws of individuals of different ages, and detached teeth, will be found in Wall Case No. 2, between the windows. Here it will be seen that the large tusks with which the animal was provided, instead of being in the upper jaw, are implanted in the lower jaw, and are directed downwards.

In Wall Case No. 1 are exhibited fossil remains and casts of large extinct quadrupeds of the Marsupial, or pouched order, which have been recently discovered in Tertiary formations in Australia. Of these the most gigantic is the Diprotodon Australis, the skull of which measures upwards of three feet in length, and exhibits a dentition corresponding, in the number of teeth and in the shape of the grinders, with that of the Kangaroo, but resembling that of the Wombat in the large size and curvature of the front incisors. A fossil lower jaw, and the cast of the skull of a smaller herbivorous marsupial quadruped (Nototherium Mitchelli, Owen), are here shown. The largest aboriginal quadrupeds now known to exist in Australia are the great Kangaroos; and it is to the Kangaroo family that the above-named extinct species present the nearest affinities. In this Case is also placed remains of a large Marsupial Tiger, the Thylacoleo carnifex, from Darling Downs, near Sydney. The remains of the smaller species of Marsupials will be found in Table Case 6, of Room IV.

At the end of the room opposite the entrance doorway, is the Fossil Human Skeleton brought from Guadaloupe in the West Indies by Sir Alexander Cochrane, and presented to the Museum by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. Human skeletons are found in the island just mentioned in a solid and very hard limestone rock, which occurs on the sea-shore at the base of the cliffs, and which is more or less covered by the sea at high water. The rock is composed of sand, the detritus of shells and corals of species still inhabiting the adjacent sea; it also contains some species of land shells, identical with those now living on the Island: and, accompanying the skeletons, are found arrow-heads, fragments of pottery, and other articles of human work

manship. Beneath this specimen are placed masses of stalagmite, containing imbedded bones and skulls, the remains of aborigines, from the ossiferous cavern of Bruniquel in the South of France. On the lower shelves of the adjoining case (No. 11) are placed other human remains, together with worked implements of stone and bone, and numerous horns, teeth, and bones of the Reindeer, gigantic Ox, Ibex, Chamois, Wild Horse, Bird's bones, &c., the remains of the animals which served as food for the men of the Flint Period in that part of Europe. These are also from the Bruniquel Cavern.

On the upper shelves of the Cases to the right and left of the Human Skeleton (Cases No. 10 and 11) are arranged numerous mammalian remains from South America.

The lower half of Case No. 11 is devoted to an extensive series of remains of the "Pigmy Elephant," discovered by Dr. Leith Adams, in the caverns and fissures of the Island of Malta. These remains belonged to individuals of different ages, from the young to the adult, and furnish evidence of the former existence in Malta of a race of Elephants which, as compared with the living species, were of exceedingly diminutive size.

GEORGE R. WATERHOUSE.

NORTH GALLERY.

THE six rooms forming the North Gallery are numbered over the doorways. The first four of these rooms contain sixty large and four small Table Cases in which the Collection of Minerals is displayed, besides two Cases containing the Meteorites. The Wall Cases and a few small Table Cases in these Rooms, and the whole space in Rooms V. and VI. are devoted to Fossils.

THE MINERAL COLLECTION.

The sixty large Table Cases containing the Minerals are numbered consecutively. Commencing at the east end of the Gallery in Room I. and passing down the south side of the four rooms, the numbers return up the north side, the sixtieth table standing opposite to the first. Corresponding with this order of the numbers on the Table Cases is that of the Minerals arranged in them.

The following sketch will serve to indicate the general features of the arrangement, and, by giving the numbers of the particular Table Cases, through which the principal divisions, sections, &c., are distributed, it will serve as a guide for finding any particular Minerals. The names of the species, as well as of important varieties, will be found within the Table Cases, associated with the Minerals to which they belong.

At the eastern end of Room I., adjoining the wall, are two glazed In these, the important Collection of Meteorites is displayed. In Case A. are seen the stony varieties, the "Aërolites." Of these there are a large number characterised by the presence of minute stony spherules. They are the "Chondritic" Aerolites: they all contain meteoric iron in fine particles disseminated through them, and the more chondritic varieties are on the left hand side of the Case. Among other kinds of aërolites the carbonaceous stones that fell at Cold Bokkeveldt, Kaba, Grosnja, and Montauban, on the right hand end of this Case, are remarkable. So is the great chondritic aërolite that fell at Parnallee, in Madras, on February 28, 1857; presented to the Museum by Sir Wm. Denison, the Governor of that Presidency. The stone that fell at Busti on December 2, 1852, is also