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States. The scientific exploration of these wide regions, which has been promoted by the rational policy of the Government at Washington, has revealed more important forms of extinct life, and enriched the sciences of paleontology and comparative biology with more valuable data in recent years than the discoveries in all other lands together. Of these discoveries, the group of toothed birds classified by Professor O. C. Marsh, which he has ranged in a sub-class, giving to this the name Odontornithes, is perhaps of higher scientific value than all the rest, not excepting the hipparion, through which the Darwinians have traced the ancestry of the horse, and which has furnished them with an effective argument in support of the development theory. In the same geological horizon in which the Odontornithes were discovered a great number of pterodactyls, or flying reptiles, were found. All these belong to a new order, the chief characteristic of which helps to bridge the gap between birds and reptiles in an important particular, and one complementary to the missing link afforded in the leading mark of the Odontornithes. This is the absence of teeth, on account of which peculiarity the name Pteranodontia was bestowed upon the order. The affinity is traced further back in a group of wingless reptiles of an earlier period, which are likewise toothless. They are called the Sauranodontia, and are allied to the icthyosaurus. The Pteranodontia were gigantic animals, some of them having a spread of wings measuring twenty-five feet.

In the course of his ten years' researches before the publication of his monograph on the Odontornithes, which forms vol. vii of the publications of the "Survey of the Fortieth Parallel," and the first of the "Memoirs of the Peabody Museum of Yale College," and is the opening volume of a work which will embody all his investigations of the extinct Vertebrata of North America, Professor Marsh had distinguished twenty species and eight genera of toothed birds. Over a hundred specimens of this type of animals were found. These are preserved in the Peabody Museum of Natural History at New Haven. Many of them are remarkably complete; but some of the species are represented by very fragmentary remains. The first discoveries of these fossil birds were made in 1870 by Professor Marsh, who revisited the field the following season and the next, afterward delegating the exploratory work to others.

The eight genera and twenty species described in Professor Marsh's monograph are as follows:

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The remains hitherto discovered in America of these strange forms of the Mesozoic age belong to the Cretaceous period. Earlier types will probably be found in the Jurassic deposits, and possibly still lower down. The three-toed foot-prints in the Triassic beds of the Connecticut Valley, which attracted much attention a few years ago as presumably the tracks of birds, are now almost unanimously ascribed to the dinosaurian reptiles whose bones are found in the same deposits. Remains of birds have been found on the Atlantic coast in the cretaceous rocks, notably in the greensands of New Jersey. These fossils consist only of separate bones, which do not allow of being strictly classified. The specimens from the West are many of them nearly complete skeletons, which cast a flood of light upon the origin of the bird type. They were exhumed from the cretaceous strata of the plains of Kansas and Colorado, which consist for the main part of fine yellow chalk and calcareous shale, marine deposits undisturbed by upheavals, in which the numerous fossils of the reptile age which they contain are preserved in an almost perfect condition. The geological horizon of the Odontornithes thus far discovered is within the Middle Cretaceous. The strata in which they have been found, named by Marsh the Pteranodon beds, contain besides these species abundant remains of Mosasauroid reptiles, Plesiosaurs resembling the Pliosaurus type, the Pteranodons or toothless Pterodactyls, and multitudinous fishes.

The Mesozoic birds divide themselves into two distinct and widely divergent types; but, as they both possess teeth, they are included in the new sub-class of Odontornithes. One type, represented by the genus Hesperornis, is that of large, wingless, aquatic birds, some of them of enormous size, whose teeth were fixed in grooves. The other group, of which the genus Icthyornis may be taken as the typical representatives, are small birds with large wings and remarkably light and hollow bones, whose flying powers must therefore have been enormous. Their teeth were fastened in sockets, and their vertebræ were biconcave.

Marsh has found a fossil bird in the Jurassic Atlantosaurus beds of Wyoming, the oldest representative of the class except, perhaps, the Archaeopteryx. The name given to the species is Laopteryx priscus. The specimen consists of a portion of the skull, which indicates a bird larger than the blue heron. The bones of the skull are pneumatic. In general character it resembles the Ratita. The bird probably possessed biconcave vertebræ, and was furnished with teeth, as one was found in the matrix similar to those of the Icthyornis.

FRANCE (RÉPUBLIQUE FRANÇAISE). By the terms of the present Constitution, voted by the National Assembly in 1871, and bearing date February 25, 1875, the legislative power is vested in an Assembly of two Houses-the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate; and the

executive power in a chief magistrate called President of the Republic. The deputies are elected, for the term of four years, by universal suffrage, under the scrutin d'arrondissement adopted by the National Assembly on November 11, 1875, each arrondissement returning one deputy; and, if its population be over 100,000, an additional deputy for each 100,000 or fraction thereof. At the general election of 1878 the électeurs politiques (persons having a right to vote) numbered 9,992,329. Citizenship and twenty-one years of age are the only requisites to be an elector. The number of deputies in 1881 was 557. The Senate is composed of 300 members; 75 hold their seats for life, vacancies being filled by the choice of the Senate; and 225 are elective, one third of their number retiring every three years. Twenty-five years of age and citizenship are the only requisites to be a deputy, and forty years of age and citizenship to be a senator. Both the senators and the deputies receive pay for their services, at a fixed rate per diem. In the budget for 1880 the expenses of the Senate were estimated at 3,865,600 francs, and those of the Chamber of Deputies at 6,521,000. Both bodies assemble on the second Tuesday in January of each year unless previously convoked by the President of the Republic, and must remain in session at least five months out of the twelve. The President can adjourn the Chambers, but not more than twice in one session, nor for a longer period than one month at a time. The Senate possesses conjointly with the Chamber of Deputies the right of initiating and framing laws; but financial laws must first be presented to and voted by the deputies. For all practical purposes the four years' existence of the Chamber is a single session, with mere adjournments. A dissolution alone annuls all bills pending in it. The Senate, however, is never dissolved, and bills are now taken up by it one session at the stage they had reached in the previous one. Indeed, a year has repeatedly intervened between the passing of a bill in one House and its passing in the other. A measure which became a law on November 15, 1881, abolishing the last vestige of ecclesiastical control over cemeteries, deserves notice as having been the first to profit by this continuity of parliamentary proceedings. Introduced by a private deputy during the session previous, and adopted by the Chamber, it was sent up to the Senate, but too late for discussion before the prorogation. When, in 1877, the Senate had for the first time to decide how pending bills were affected by a dissolution of the Lower House, and with the option of making a tabula rasa, of taking up bills at the pre-dissolution stage and passing them without sending them back to the Chamber if unamended, or of passing them and sending them down to the Chamber like measures initiated in the Senate, its decision was that bills introduced into the Chamber by private VOL. XXI.-20 A

deputies should be expunged, and Government bills alone proceeded with. In 1881, however, the Senate resolved, under the inspiration of its president, M. Léon Say, to place all predissolution bills on an equal footing. The President of the Republic, elected for a term of seven years by a majority of votes by the Senate and Chamber of Deputies united in National Assembly, may be re-elected; has the initiative of legislation concurrently with the two Houses; promulgates the laws voted by both Houses; disposes of the armed force of the nation, and appoints all civil and military functionaries, including the members of the Cabinet: but every act of the President must be countersigned by a minister. He may, with the assent of the Senate, dissolve the Chamber of Deputies before the expiration of its legal term; but the electoral colleges must in such event be convened for new elections within three months. Pursuant to a special article appended to the Constitution of 1875, and dated July 16th of that year, the President can not declare war without the previous assent of both Houses. In case of a vacancy by death or any other cause, the Senate and Chamber of Deputies must immediately proceed to the election of a new President. The President of the Republic is responsible only in case of high treason; but the Cabinet is responsible to the Senate and Chamber of Deputies for the general policy of the Government, and the ministers individually for their personal acts.

The President of the Republic is M. Jules Grévy, elected January 30, 1879; and the Cabinet, at the end of 1881, was composed of the following ministers: Foreign Affairs, M. Léon Gambetta, President of the Council; Interior, M. Waldeck-Rousseau; Finance, M. Alain-Targé; Justice, M. Cazot; Commerce and the Colonies, M. Rouvier; Public Instruction and Worship, M. Paul Bert; Public Works, M. Raynal; War, General Campenon; Marine, M. Gougeard; Agriculture, M. Devès; Fine Arts, M. Proust; Posts and Telegraphs, M. Cochery.

In this new ministry, dating from November 14, 1881, is to be observed the severance of the Department of Worship from the Interior, and its reattachment to Public Instruction, from which it used to be temporarily disjoined when the latter portfolio was held by a Protestant. By the change, M. Paul Bert, who, in his memorable lecture in September last, affirmed that nations receded from religion in proportion as they advanced in morality, was the man appointed to transact business with the Catholic prelates. The clerical press evinced irritation at the appointment of M. Bert. One paper declared it scandalous and insolent; some republican journals likewise demurred to it; one paper noted that Worship was "handed to a man who has hitherto treated it as a pamphleteer rather than as a statesman"; while another styled it an act both of "bad policy and bad taste"; and the clerical

organs uttered comments on the foreign extraction of both the Minister and the UnderSecretary of Foreign Affairs, the former being the son of a Genoese, and the latter (M. Spuller) of a Baden immigrant. The motives assigned (in the decrees) for the creation of the two new portfolios of Agriculture and Fine Arts, formerly coupled respectively with Commerce and Public Instruction, were as follows: That agriculture is the chief element of national wealth; that the Minister of Commerce is sufficiently occupied with international exchanges, customs, and commercial treaties; that Germany, America, Austria, and Italy have made agriculture a distinct department; that foreign competition, bad harvests, and the phylloxera have placed French agriculture in a critical condition; and, as regards art, that nations, but lately imitators of France, have (as proved by the last exhibition) become her rivals in the influence of art-training on producing forces, and in the importance of strengthening technical education. The Minister of Agriculture was to have charge of surveys and subsidies for irrigation, drainage, dredging canals, water-supply, and agricultural improvements; the Minister of Arts, of public buildings, cathedrals, art and technical schools, and drawing

classes.

France, with an area of 528,572 square kilometres (204,081 square miles), is divided into 87 departments, and had, according to the census of 1876, a population of 36,905,788. The movement of population from 1869 to

1878 was as follows:

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Totals........

Francs.

France.

12,101,252.167 368,010,565 1,788,114

11,152,400

446.096

786

832,061,176 27.442,779 139,459 6,917,472,240 845,878,512 2,482,574

19,862,085,983 748,404,952 4,380,983

The following table shows, from official returns, the number of holders and the amount of rente, at decennial periods, from 1798 to 1870, and in each of the later years therein expressed:

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24,791

1810.

145,663

1820.

199,697

172.784,838

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On January 1, 1873, the new army law of July 27, 1872, went into operation. Its first article enacts universal liability to military service. Every Frenchman capable of bearing arms must serve for twenty years, namely, five years in the standing army, four years in the reserve of the standing army, five years in the territorial army, and six years in the reserve of the territorial army.

By a law of July 24, 1873, on the reorganization of the army, France is divided into eighteen districts, each of which is occupied by an army corps. One army corps is also organized in Algeria. Each of the eighteen army corps consists of two divisions of infantry, one brigade of cavalry, one brigade of artillery, one battalion of engineers, one squadron of the train, a general staff and the subordinate staffs. By a law of March 16, 1880, the former general staff, which was a closed corps consisting of 513 officers, has been dissolved, and has been replaced by a new staff which is accessible to all officers who, after completing the course of studies in the military school, have obtained the staff brevet on the ground of their final examination. In this examination all captains may take part, even if they have not passed through the school. Moreover, officers of the staff may receive the brevet under special conditions fixed upon by the Minister of War. The Minister of War selects among the brevetted officers those who are to enter into the service of the general staff. In time of peace they remain in this service for four years, after which they return to their former position. They can not be recalled to the general staff until two years later. While serving in the general staff, their names remain on the lists of their own branch of the army, but they are kept there

GENERAL COMMERCE.

"hors cadre." The brevetted officers who are not called into the service of the general staff form a reserve. The new general staff consists of 300 officers and 150 archivists. Outside of this cadre a land-surveying commission has been established in connection with the war depot, consisting of twelve officers.

The actual strength of the army on a peace footing in 1881 was 498,497 men, of whom 52,750 were in Algeria, while about 39,000 were absent on leave and in hospitals. Here follows the latest published classification by arms:

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The total number of recruits in 1879 was 316,662, of whom 34,857 were rejected. Of the total number, 46,636 were unable to read and write, 9,931 were able to read only, 64,409 could read and write, 181,680 had an elementary education, 5,851 held degrees and diplomas, and of 9,155 the degree of instruction was unknown.

The navy, on January 1, 1881, comprised 356 vessels. Of these, 59 were ironclads (32 large war-vessels and 27 for coast defense); 235 steamers (57 cruisers, 39 dispatch-boats, 47 gunboats, 61 transports, and 31 torpedo-boats); and 63 sailing-vessels.

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The foreign trade of France is officially divided into "commerce général," which comprises the entire imports and exports, including goods in transit, and commerce spécial,” which embraces the imports consumed and the exports produced within the country. The following table exhibits the movements of French commerce from 1859 to 1880 (value expressed in francs):

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The senatorial amendments to the Merchants' Shipping Bill having been accepted by the

The principal articles of import and export Chamber on January 30, 1881, the bill was in 1880 were as follows (in francs):

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promulgated on the following day. Clause four provides that, as compensation for the burdens imposed on ship-building by customs duties, a bounty shall be granted of 60 francs per ton gross on iron ships, of 20 francs on wooden ships of not less than 200 tons, of 10 francs on wooden ships of smaller size, of 40 francs on mixed constructions, and 12 francs per 100 kilogrammes on steam-engines and their accessories. Clause five accords, on vessels enlarged,

The port movements of the republic for the similar bounties proportionate to the increase year 1880 were as follows:

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of tonnage, as also for steam-power inserted after the completion of the ships, together with a bounty of 8 francs per 100 kilogrammes for new boilers of French build. Clause nine grants a premium on long voyages for ten years, a compensation for the burden imposed on merchant shipping by navy recruiting and service. The premium begins at 1 franc 50 centimes per ton net for every 1,000 miles traversed by vessels of French build, and is reduced by of a centime for wooden or mixed ships, and by

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