Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 4.djvu/651

Rh Moresby's vessel mixed freely with them. They practise several useful arts, such as pottery, and possess extensive well-fenced plantations.

Several attempts were made to reach the mountainous interior, by ascending the rivers emptying into Redscar Bay, but the boats were in every case brought to a stand by the increasing velocity of the current, after the first thirteen or fourteen miles. Farther east a fine port and inner harbor were discovered, and named Port Moresby and Fairfax Harbor. The southeastern extremity of New Guinea was found to have the form of a fork, off the lower tine of which lies a group of islands, but leaving a deep navigable channel between them and the main-land. Captain Moresby doubled the northern extremity of the fork, and found the northern coast of New Guinea washed by a grand, clear, reefless sea. The natives here were of the same Malayan or Polynesian race as those of Redscar Bay, and the hill-slopes near their villages were terraced and cultivated to a great height, in a manner that even a Chinaman might envy. With these people the intercourse of Captain Moresby's men was of a most satisfactory, pleasant nature. Pieces of hoop-iron were the medium of exchange, with which the crew purchased food and curiosities, including specimens of their handsome stone hatchets.

Prof. E. L. Youmans—

Be so kind as to allow me room for a word in relation to the article "The Great Cemetery in Colorado," in the last number of this magazine. It was already in print when my attention was called to Prof. O. C. Marsh's article in the American Journal of Science and the Arts, "On the Structure and Affinities of the Brontotheridæ," in which the professor says of Symborodon and Miobasileus: "Both names should be regarded as synonyms of Brontotherium." While I would avoid as sheer officiousness the intrusion of one word as arbiter, yet I cannot permit the apparent discourtesy to rest upon me of even so much as seeming to ignore the professor's statement. I suppose that Prof. Marsh is entitled to be regarded as the discoverer, in 1870—and pioneer explorer then and in 1872—of that wonderful burial-place, whose dry bones you did me the honor to assign the task of imbuing with enough of life to make them presentable to your many readers. Hence any thing from Prof. Marsh on that theme is worthy of far more than ordinary consideration.

Let me here correct a typographical error. In my article, on page 475, the first word in line twelve from the bottom of the page, "Eobasileus" should read "Miobasileus.

Autopsy of Agassiz..—Autopsy by Drs. R. H. Fitz and J. J. Putnam; present, Drs. J. B. S. Jackson, J. Wyman, C. Ellis, M. Wyman, S. G. Webber.

Frame large. Fatty tissue abundant. Cranium, brachycephalic, falling off abruptly from the middle of the sagittal suture. Greatest antero-posterior diameter, 197 millimetres; greatest lateral diameter, 163 millimetres—these measurements made before the removal of the skin. Depth of frontal bone, measured externally at the median line, 5 inches$$=$$135 millimetres; length of sagittal suture, 5 inches$$=$$128 millimetres. The walls of the skull were thick and heavy; the dura mater exceedingly adherent to the bone and remarkably thick. The pia mater moderately transparent. Along the arachnoid veins were white lines indicating chronic thickening; the veins themselves rather more injected than usual. The cerebral sulci were deep and wide. On each side of the median line, near the anterior ascending convolution on the left, and the posterior ascending convolution on the right, was a depression which might have held a prune-stone or a little more. The brain-tissue around was diminished without evidence of disease. The arteries at the base of the brain showed evidence of extensive chronic disease of their lining membrane, with narrowing of the calibre of the carotids. The basilar artery was apparently a continuation of the left vertebral alone, the right vertebral being represented by an exceedingly small vessel which united the basilar with the inferior cerebellar, the latter being merely the prolongation of the exceedingly small right vertebral. The left vertebral was larger