circled round an interior marshy or lacustrine country, in which the dicynodon flourished at a time when not a single animal was similar to any living thing which now inhabits the surface of our globe. The present central and meridian zone of waters, whether lakes, rivers, or marshes, extending from Lake Tchad to Lake Ngami, with hippopotami on their banks, are, therefore, but the great modern, residual, geographical phenomena of those of a mesozoic age.' The publication of special scientific works is going on under the auspices of different European governments. The Batavian Society of Rotterdam have just issued an elaborate illustrated Report on the best method of improving permanently the estuary of Goedereede--a question of considerable moment to the merchants of Rotterdam. The French government have had a new fount of Ethiopic types cast, to enable M. d'Abbadie to prepare a catalogue of African manuscripts. And our Secretary of State for the Home Department has presented various libraries and public institutions with two portly folios, entitled _Liber Munerum Publicorum Hiberniae, or the Establishments of Ireland, from the Nineteenth of King Stephen to the Seventh of George IV._, which we may accept as an addition to the _Memorials of History_, commenced two or three years since. Then, as a private enterprise, we have a scheme for a new edition of Shakspeare, in twenty volumes folio, which is to be completed in six years, with all that can be required in the way of illustration, be it archaeological, philological, historical, or exegetical. Mr Halliwell is to be the editor; and it is said that not more than 150 copies will be printed. Another birth for the spirit of the dust that lies in the tomb at Stratford. Research is as active as ever in France. M. Bernard, who is well known as a physiologist and anatomist, after a careful study of the salivary glands, finds that each of the three, common to nearly all animals, furnishes a different secretion. The saliva from the sublingual gland is viscous and sticky, fit to moisten the surface of substances, but not to penetrate them, giving them a coat which facilitates their being swallowed. That from the parotid gland, on the contrary, is thin and watery, easily penetrates substances taken into the mouth, and thereby favours their assimilation; while the saliva from the submaxillary gland is of a nature between these two. These facts were verified by soaking portions of the membrane in water, as well as by experiments on the living subject; the liquid in which they were soaked presented the same character as that of the secretions.