9. Burra Burra Copper Mine, South Australia.-The Burra Burra Copper Mine, is the most remarkable one in South Australia. A correspondent of the Mining Journal, (No. 651,) makes the following remarks:-"You are aware that the property consists of 10,000 acres (the remaining 10,000 belonging to the Princess Royal Company), divided into 2,464 shares, of 51. each, paid up; or, 12,3201. capital. Two dividends, of 21. 10s. per 51. share (or 50 per cent.), have been paid in July, by which the whole of the original has been returned; a third dividend, of 5l. per share, or 100 per cent., has just been declared; and, probably, every month or six weeks will see a similar one! The merchants have lately established a sort of market for the purchase of the ore from the different mines as it arrives at the port. Hitherto, the banks would only advance 61. or 81. per ton, even on the best ore. Now, the merchants, who, from the flourishing state of trade, have large remittances to make to their constituents in England, and would otherwise have to pay a premium to the bank for bills of exchange, purchase the ore from the mining companies on the following plan;-parties are now, from experience, able to give a pretty fair guess as to the probable metallic contents of a heap of ore; the Burra Burra Company thus sell 100 tons, for instance, to A. B., guaranteeing that 100 tons at 20 per cent.; A. B. takes an average of the price of metal, from two or three of the last Swansea sales, and says, for that heap, I will give you such a standard; another merchant will, perhaps, raise a little on it so that virtually, the only price settled here and paid for, is the price of the copper metal; the merchant running the risk of profiting or losing by a rise or fall of the metal by the time the ore arrives at Swansea. Should the heap, when sold, be found in Swansea to contain 25 per cent., instead of 20 per cent., then A. B. makes good the difference to the company. In the other case, of a less produce, the mine makes good the difference to A. B. The arrangement suits both parties. A. B. saves premium on bills of exchange, and makes a commission on sale of ore in England. The mine instead of having to wait twelve or eighteen months for the net proceeds, being formerly only allowed to draw barely enough to pay for the prime cost of ore, now is enabled to divide profits as fast as the ore is delivered at the port."

In another part of the same number of the Mining Journal, we read" it appears that, in about eighteen months, these mines have yielded the extraordinary amount of 9841 tons of rich copper ore-so rich, that its total value amounted to 150,000l. The original purchase money of the mines, together with the costs of working, from September, 1845, to March, 1847-the year and a half in question-is something under 75,000l., which has been wholly repaid to the shareholders, in two dividends, of 50 per cent. each; and the directors are about to declare another dividend of 100 per cent. We make no comment whatever on this extraordinary statement. We suppose it to be without a parallel in the whole history of mining successes. A large part of the ore has arrived at Swansea for smelting, another portion is on its way, and a remnant of some 1600 tons will be forwarded to this country, or America, with as little delay as possible."

10. Histoire des Progrès de la Géologie de 1834 à 1845; par LE VICOMTE D'ARCHIAC. Publiée par la Société Géologique de France,

sous les auspices de M. LE COMTE DE SALVANDY, Ministre de l'Instruction Publique. Tome Premier. Cosmogonie et Géogenie, Physique du Globe, Géographie Physique, Terrain Moderne. 680 pp., 8vo. Paris, 1847.-In a science advancing with the rapidity of geology, a work like the one before us, giving a review of its progress for a period of years, is of great value to science. The laborers in the field are scattered over the whole civilized world, and these publications are in many languages.

The difficulty of commanding the works issued, is especially felt in America, where libraries in science are slowly supplied with European publications, particularly the Transactions of the various learned societies of different countries. Moreover, few have the time requisite to study and digest thoroughly the publications within reach. M. d'Archiac has done an invaluable service to geologists, in his labors. The work is divided into chapters and sections. Each chapter contains a fair and interesting review of the subject of which it treats, and is followed by a list of publications. The following are the subjects treated of in this, the first volume: 1. Cosmogony.-2. Geogenyconstituting the First Part.-Second Part: 1. Size of the Earth, Irreg ularities of Surface and Density.-2. Interior temperature of the globe.-3. Meteorology.-4. Terrestrial magnetism and electric currents within the earth.-5. Physical Geography.-6. Orography and Relief of the Continents.-7. Hydrography.-8. Continental Depressions.-Third Part: On Modern Deposits and Phenomena upon the Earth's surface-1. Atmospheric and Terrestrial products.-2. Aqueous and Glacial products.-3. Lacustrine and Fluviatile Deposits.4. Vegetable and Animal productions of these deposits.-5. Marine Deposits.-6. Organic productions of the last.-Fourth Part: Phenomena originating beneath the Earth's Surface.-1. Gaseous, Bituminous and Saline.-2. Mineral and Thermal Waters.-3. Volcanic products.-4. Earthquakes.-5. Elevations and Subsidences.

This volume is to be followed by a Second on the Diluvial or quaternary and tertiary strata; a Third on the secondary and intermediary or Transition strata-and a Fourth on Primary rocks, Palæontology, Theories of Elevation, Subsidence, Veins, and Metamorphism, Analysis and Structure of rocks, Artesian wells, Meteorites, Selenology, together with a Bibliographical Supplement, a review of the bibliographical statistics of each country, and a list of authors cited in the four volumes.

The work should be in the hands of all interested in geological science.

III. BOTANY AND ZOOLOGY.

1. Gutta Percha.—The trec affording the gutta percha, of which an imperfect description was given in our last volume, p. 438, has been referred to the new genus Isonandra, of Wight. Dr. Wight described two species, to which M. A. De Candolle has added two others referred hitherto to Sideroxylon. W. J. Hooker calls the species affording the gutta percha, Isonandra gutta.

2. On the Eyes of the Balanus; by Dr. LEIDY, (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci., Jan. 11, 1848, p. 1, vol. v.)—Dr. Leidy remarked, that the exist ence of eyes in the perfect condition of the Cirrhopoda, has been denied by all anatomists up to the present time, but its presence in the larva or imperfect stages is very generally acknowledged. Several years since, having received some living specimens of Balanus rugosus adhering to an oyster, he submitted them to dissection, in the course of which, he noticed upon the dark purple membrane which lines the shell and muscular columns running to the opercula, on each side of the anterior middle line, a small, round, black body, surrounded by a colorless ring or space of the membrane, which, upon submitting to a low power of the microscope, he found to be an eye, composed of a vitreous body, having nearly two-thirds of its posterior part covered by pigmentum nigrum, and attached to a nervous filament, which he afterwards traced to the supra-esophageal ganglia. The presence of this organ in other species or genera, he had not yet had an opportunity of determining.

3. A comparison between Sterna Cantiaca, Gm., of Europe, and Sterna acuflavida, Nobis, hitherto considered identical with S. Cantiaca, and a description of a new species of Wren; by Dr. CABOT, (Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., Nov. 17, 1847, p. 257.)-The following meas urements from adult, full-plumaged specimens were given:

Length of lower mandible along the centre, (meas

uring to the feathers,)

Length of do. do. along the side, do. do.

Depth of do. do. do.

Length of wing from flexure,

Besides these differences in the measurement of parts not subject to change from improper stuffing, &c., we find that the coloring differs in some very important particulars. In the American bird the yellow is strictly confined to the tip of the bill, and the line of union of the yellow and black is perpendicular and unbroken, whereas in the European bird the yellow runs up to the inner edge of the symphysis on the under side of the lower mandible, and almost as far on the upper edge; and on the upper mandible also, it extends both on the edges and on the ridge much higher than in the American bird. The primaries are much darker in the American bird than in the European, and the white

line which runs along the inner edges and forms their tips in the European bird, disappears in the American before it gets within half an inch of the tip; besides being much narrower. There are also some impor tant differences in form. The projecting point at the symphysis on the under side of the lower mandible is more marked in the American than in the European bird. The claws of the European bird are larger and much more arched than those of the American. The bill of the European bird is much narrower in proportion than the American, and is more bent.

The specimen of S. acuflavida in his collection was procured at Tancah, on the coast of Yucatan, on the 25th of April, 1842, and is mentioned in the appendix of Mr. Stephens's Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, under the name of S. Boysii.

Troglodytes albinucha, a new species of Wren.

The bill is bent from the base to the tip. The claws are much curved and very sharp. The head, back, and upper sides of the wings and tail, brown; a line of white, with black or dark brown intermixed, passes over the eye, and meets with a similar line, which passes under it, and they form a patch on the sides of the neck extending round to the nape. Chin, throat, and breast white; flanks and abdomen light yellowish brown, darkest near vent. On the rump are some white and dark brown or black spots intermixed with the brown of the rest of the back. Under tail-coverts, the outermost, and outer webs of next three tail-feathers, and outer edges of first and second primaries, barred with white or yellowish white, and dark brown or black. There are many black bars running across upper side of wings and upper tail-coverts. The four middle tail-feathers are brown, with many black spots. The upper mandible is dark horn color; the under mandible is the same at its tip, but is almost white on the under side and at base. The fourth and fifth primaries are longest and the first is shortest. The specimen from which the description was taken was the only one observed, and was procured near Yalahao, in Yucatan, April 6th, 1842. 4. Notice of a fractured and repaired Argonauta argo; by C. B. ADAMS, Professor, &c. in Amherst College.-The familiar examples of the repair of the shells of Mollusca are interesting, since they illustrate the mode of growth of the shell.

SECOND SERIES, Vol. VI, No. 16.-July, 1848.

18

We have before us examples in which the whole of the last whorl has been destroyed and reproduced. On account of the extraordinary relations subsisting between the animal and the shell in the genus Argonauta, a fractured and repaired shell possesses more than usual value.

In the collection of shells in the cabinet of Amherst College, is an individual of the Argonauta argo, which appears to furnish an additional argument in support of the opinions which are based on the researches of Madame Power. In this shell a portion has been broken out near the middle of the left side, and not far from the sinus of the aperture. The opening was of a semilunar form, about 14 inches long, with an average breadth of half an inch. A new deposit of testaceous substance, together with a broken fragment, has closed the opening in the rude manner common in the shells of Mollusca.

But the most extraordinary circumstance is this; that a fragment, which was broken out in the accident which befel the animal, now constitutes two-thirds of the repaired portion, and that the originally inner surface is now the outer surface, as is evident from its concavity, style of undulation, and texture. It is also nearly at right angles to its origi nal position. These facts show that the piece was totally detached from the shell by the accident.

We apprehend that a case could scarcely occur, especially in a shell moving in water, except in consequence of the functions now ascribed to the vela of the Argonaut. These once-reputed sails, performing the less poetic function of clasping and enveloping the shell, prevented the loss of the large fragment.

It is obvious also that the new deposit of testaceous matter, was secreted from the part of the animal within the shell, and not from the vela, since the edges of the original shell around the fracture appear exclusively on the outside.

Since none but the original inhabitant of the shell could repair it, the case described is corroborative of the opinion, that the animal usually seen in these shells is the original owner.

5. Description of a Species of Haliotis, supposed to be new; by C. B. ADAMS, Prof. &c. in Amherst College, (communicated for this Journal.)

HALIOTIS PONDEROSA: H. t. magnâ, ovatâ, crassissimâ, convexâ; striis incrementi magnis, irregularibus; rugis concentricis, irregularibus, subnodosis; spirâ elevatâ, subterminali; foraminibus quatuor, magnis; externè rubrâ, intùs maculis plurimis rubris viridibusque iridescente.

Shell ovate, convex, ponderous, with coarse unequal incremental striæ and concentric ridges (not folds), and a few broad low tubercles on the ridges; spire elevated, subterminal; four perforations open, the inner one very large; exterior surface brick red; inner surface elegantly iridescent with innumerable shades of delicate red, purplish red, and green.

Length 8 in.; breadth 63 in.; depth within 3 in.

Comparison with the well known H. rufescens, Swains., will render a figure unnecessary. A large specimen of Swainson's shell before me, has exactly the same superficial dimensions, but is only 2 inches deep. H. ponderosa is nearly or quite destitute of the spiral waves of H. rufescens, is of a darker red without, wants the red inner margin