interests of the country would suffer from lack of this kind of knowledge. There is besides a vast amount of drudgery to be done, which no amateurs will ever undertake, but the execution of which opens up the way for them. The writer has himself worked at some little points of Canadian geology, of which, but for the labours of the Survey, he would perhaps not have known the existence, and from which these labours had already removed the preliminary difficulties. A stimulus is thus given to uriginal investigation by private persons; and there are not yet enough of labourers to occupy the openings already presented. Not to be tedious in this matter, we hope what Sir William Logan is now doing for Canadian palaeontology will be appreciated in such a manner as to induce him still more extensively to prosecute this very important department of his work. Prof. Hunt's portion of the Report is occupied with two distinct subjects;-one, a contribution to the solution of an intricate problem in theoretical geology which has more or less baffled previous enquirers; the other, an enquiry into the value of fish manures and the inducements to their manufacture in Canada. In the first part Mr. Hunt has summed up the principal facts in the history of dolomites or magnesian limestones, and has described with many analyses a great number of there rocks occurring in various formations in Canada. He then considers the theories which have been proposed to explain the formation of these rocks, and rejecting them all as untenable, maintains that the carbonate of magnesia was precipitated mixed with carbonate of lime, and finally united directly with it to form a dolomite. The conditions of this precipitation are illustrated by a series of experiments upon the action of solutions of bi-carbonate of soda on sea-water, and of bi-carbonate of lime upon waters holding sulphate of magnesia. In the latter case by an unexpected reaction there are formed under certain conditions, gypsum and bi-carbonate of magnesia. These researches form a part of a series of investigations in which Mr. Hunt is engaged on the chemical conditions of geological deposition and metamorphism, and which we hope he' will one day combine in a systematic treatise on the subject. Of the second subject, the fish manures, we shall attempt no summary, as the paper itself is reprinted in this number. It should be copied into all the agricultural journals, and extensively circulated. The three facts, that in all the old and run-out soils of Canada, phosphates and ammonia are urgently required; that these substances are actually worth to the farmer for manure 10 and 20 cents per pound; and that immense quantities of fish garbage, capable of affording these valuable substances, are annually wasted in the fishing districts,-should lead to some practical action in the matter. Some years ago we strongly urged this subject on the attention of the farmers of one of the maritime provinces. A manufactory now exists in Newfoundland; and we hope the time is coming when the culture of wheat may be restored to old farms by the liberal application of this manure. A new feature in this report is the appearance of Mr. Bell's observations on the living fauna of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It has often been remarked, in the press and elsewhere, that without much increase of expense the Geological Survey might collect an immense amount of information on the zoology and botany of the province, and more especially on the geographical distribution of its animals and plants The introduction of the subject in the present report is a small step in this direction, and gives promise of useful work. Mr. Bell is a very young man, the son of the late Rev. Mr. Bell of L'Orignal, himself a geologist, whose collection, very ingeniously arranged, is now in Queen's College. He has in him the material of a good naturalist, and we hope to meet him in many succeeding reports laden with new facts on the distribution of the invertebrates of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. survey On the importance of the observations of longitude, by Lieut. Ashe, it is unnecessary to say anything, except that they remind us of the forthcoming map, on which so much of the labour of the is at present concentrated. One part of the report, however, is zoological, and relates to certain recent animals of singular "My past experience," says Lieutenant Ashe, "had taught me to avoid the tops of houses, and to select the solid earth and solid rock for the support of my transit instrument. Still I had another lesson to learn. This neighbourhood was infested with boys, who when they saw a light shining through the cracks of the boards, commenced throwing stones with a determination and precision worthy of a better cause; and some of the few clear nights that occurred in this month were lost in consequence of boys' love of mischief. I first tried uild entreaties, and then severe threatenings; they laughed at the former, and made faces at the latter. I then procured the service of the police, who partly succeeded in keeping the boys from further interference with my duties." This narrative raises the question, which is applicable not only to the Kingston boys but to other assailants of the Survey, whe ther their ire was excited by the little light which they saw "through the cracks," or by their want of more light on the subject. This is, in some sense, an educational question; and leads to a remark on the circulation of scientific reports, which we think has throughout the United States and British Colonies been greatly mismanaged. Such reports, got up as attractively as possible, should be placed in the hands of the trade, with a fair commission on their sale; and the gratuitous distribution should be limited to public persons and institutions In this way a much greater and better circulation would be secured, the reports would be more extensively read and appreciated, and would be more accessible to those who really require them, and a large portion of the expense of printing might be saved. This course has been successfully pursued by the Geological Survey of Great Britain. It has also, we are glad to observe, been adopted in the case of the decades of Canadian fossils; and we can scarcely doubt that these will eventually be found even remunerative as a publishing speculation, though the sale may be too slow to enable them to be profitably issued by private enterprise. J. W. D. MISCELLANEOUS. GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON.-The Meeting of this Society, on the 5th January, was occupied principally with Canadian subjects: a paper, by Principal Dawson, on the "Devonian Plants of Canada," and one by Mr. T. Sterry Hunt, on some points of Chemical Geology. The paper on Devonian plants related chiefly to the observations made by the writer last summer in Gaspé, which enable him to describe two species of a new genus, to which he gives the name Psilophyton. They are lycopodiaceous plants, with many dichotomous branchlets and rudimentary leaves, allied in some respects to the modern genus Psilotum, but springing from a horizontal rhizome, similar to that of some ferns, and having the branchlets rolled up circinately in vernation. Plants of this kind in fragments, have been recognized previously in the Devonian rocks of Scotland and the continent of Europe, but were referred to sea-weeds, &c. The Gaspé specimens, for the first time, enable their true nature and affinities to be made out. Two species, P. princeps and P. robustius, were described. A fossil conifer, first found in Gaspé by Sir W. E. Logan, was referred to the Taxinec, and described under the name of Prototaxites Logani. A lepidodendron (L. Gaspianum) and two species of Knorria, one not distinguishable from K. imbricata, were added to the Devonian flora of Canada; as also a Noeggerathia, of which fragments only were obtained. The paper also described the mode of occurrence of the small Devonian coal seam, discovered by Sir W. E. Logan in Gaspé, probably the oldest true coal seam known. The occurrence of impressions of rain-marks, sun-cracks, &c., in these beds, was also noticed. Professor Hunt's paper contained an elaborate exposition of those views of his on the mode of metamorphism of rocks by chemical changes in the presence of water and a moderate amount of heat, which are already in part known to our readers. We hope, at some future time, to reprint both papers, or abstracts of them, in the Naturalist. CANADIAN INSTITUTE OF TORONTO.-New Trilobite.-In the Number of the Canadian Journal for January, Professor Chapman describes a new Canadian trilobite, and the Hypostoma of his species, described in a former article, the Asaphus Canadensis. The new species is named after the Professor of Natural History in the University of Toronto, A. Hincksii. It is distinguished from the other Canadian species of Asaphus, as indicated in the following tabular summary of characters : Caudal shield with seg ment furrows Head-angles terminating in long points.-A. Head-angles rounded.-A. Halli. Caudal shield smooth. Pleura curving forwards.-A. platycephalus. Or: Pleuræ curving back wards. Pleuræ curving forwards. Pleuræ curving backwards.-A. Hincksii. Head-angles terminating in horns; pygidium furrowed.-A. Canadensis. Head-angles slightly rounded; smooth.-A. Hincksii. S Pygidium furrowed.-A. Halli. pygidium Entozoa. The same number contains a long article on those remarkable creatures, the internal parasites, that infest man and other animals, by Lucius Oille, M.B. It professes to be mainly a summary of the results of Von Siebold and Kuchenmeister, but is well deserving of the study of medical students and young naturalists. The writer very properly scouts the idea of the gene ratio equivoca, attributed by old writers to these creatures; but which is so directly contradicted by their enormous reproductive powers and the curious metamorphoses which some of them are known to undergo. He also well maintains their use in nature, as physicians, rough it may be, but necessary to apply sharp remedies to unnatural modes of life. The cestoid entozoa or tape-worms are these of which the history is best known; and they are ascertained to be in their young state the little cystic entozoa that take up their abode in the flesh and other tissues of animals. What can be more strange than the transformation of the little microscopic entozoon of the liver of a mouse into the tape-worm of the cat, and the eggs of the tape-worm again finding their way into the food of the mouse, and thence into its flesh or liver; or what more curious than that the Cysticercus cellulosa, which causes "measles" in hogs, rabbits, and sheep, is only the young state of the Tania solium which infests the intestines of man, and that man and these domestic animals reciprocally supply each other with these pests. "The scolex of the tænia solium and the cysticercus cellulosæ are identical. This is apparent from the similarity in anatomical structure and from experiment. It has now been determined beyond controversy that by feeding the hog, rabbit and sheep with the eggs of the taenia solium those animals became infested with the cysticercus cellulosa, and by feeding the dog and man with those cystic worms. tape-worms were produced in their intestines. The abundance of cysticerci in the hog is well known. Statistics abundantly prove the frequent occurrence of tape-worm in butchers who are accustomed to handle raw meat and are not over careful or cleanly, but often by their hands or knives rubbed in their mouths introduce the cystic worms into their system. It is also common among those who eat in any manner raw or imperfectly cooked meat contaminated with the cysticerci. The Hottentots in the Caffir wars demonstrated the mode of translation of the cystic worms into the suitable nidus for the final stage of development, namely, the intestine. Those people in the invasion of the enemy's territory feasted according to their barbarous fashion upon the cattle and sheep that were captured, and became greatly infested with tape-worm, whilst previously they were mostly exempt." The history of these creatures may be shortly stated as follows:1. The Proglottis or full-grown joint loaded with ova, passes |