valuable number); Les Kourganes de la province de Saint Petersburg, and Sculptures préhistoriques situeés sur les bords des lacs des Merveilles, Matériaux viii; Chronometres fournis par la géologie pour mesurer l'antiquité de l'homme; Congres Archéologique de France, and Sur le Traitement des Morts chez les Peuples aryens primitifs, Matériaux ix.

Prof. Edward S. Morse has found traces of pre-historic man in Japan. Near a station on the railroad to Tokio, called Omori, are shell-heaps composed of shells of various genera, such as Fusus, Eburnea, Turbo, Pyrula, Arca, Pecten, Cardium and Ostrea. The heap examined is 200 feet wide, and from 1 to 6 feet deep. Over this is a deposit of earth three feet thick. Fragments of bone, implements of horn and pottery were found. While the mass resembled similar structures found in New England by Prof. Morse, the prevailing characteristics were the immense quantity of pottery and the absence of bone implements and of flint flakes. On account of the distance from and elevation above the shore, the absence of stone implements, and the great thickness of the beds above, the Professor supposes the deposit to be of great antiquity.-O. T. Mason, Washington, D. C.

GEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY.

THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF NEW ZEALAND is pursuing its labors with much success under the able management of its director, Dr. Jas. Hector. This gentleman gives the thickness of the strata from the Carboniferous to the Lias as over 18,000 feet. The beds have south dips, are full of joints, and exhibit two great stratigraphical breaks. They present seventeen fossiliferous horizons. A remarkable feature of the paleontology is the low range of Belemnites and the high range of long-winged Spirifers. Some huge saurians occur at one of the horizons.

A NEW GENUS OF DINOSAURIA FROM COLORADO.-A form of this order has recently been discovered in the Dakota Beds of Colorado by Mr. Lucas, which is quite different from those already announced. The vertebræ resemble those of typical Dinosauria in their solidity and slightly amphicalous extremities, and in the wide discoidal form of the proximal caudals, but differ from them in the extraordinary elevation of the dorsal zygapophyses, which stand on a stem composed of the neurapophyses. The anterior zygapophyses of the dorsal vertebræ are united on the middle line, forming a basin which receives the posterior zygapophyses. This is not the case in the anterior caudals, where the zygapophyses have their usual position, and the summit of the neural spine is expanded transversely. This genus has been named by Prof. Cope, Hybsirophus, and the species H. discurus. The dorsal vertebra of the latter measures m. .105 to the base of the neural arch, and m. .300 to the middle of the

faces of the posterior zygapophyses. The centrum is m..105 wide. The caudal centrum is m. .175 wide; and m. .160 high. The neural arch and spine are m. .575 high, and the latter m. .040 wide at the base, and m. .130 wide at the summit. The species was as large as Hadrosaurus foulki. It is not impossible that it may be the same as the Lælaps trihedrodon Cope. The femur of this species recently discovered has very nearly the characters of that of the Megalosaurus bucklandii, and is quite different from that of Lelaps; hence, if not a Hypsirophus, the L. trihedrodon must be referred to Megalosaurus.

A NEW DEER FROM INDIANA.-John Collett, of the Geological Survey of Indiana, discovered in a late lacustrine deposit in Vandenburg Co., Indiana, a number of post-pliocene fossils. One of these is the ulno-radius, etc., of a Bos, and another is the left mandibular ramus of a deer, probably of the genus Cariacus. The jaw differs in its proportions from those of C. virginianus, C. macrotus and C. columbianus, with a considerable number of which I have compared it. It belonged to an animal of the average size of the C. virginianus, but differs in having the diastema an inch or more longer, while the tooth line is shorter. Placing the first molars in line, the last molar of the fossil form attains only the penultimate column of that of the C. virginianus; in some cases just a little further. On the other hand, the angle of the mandible extends beyond that of the C. virginianus, and the slope of the anterior base of the coronoid process is more gradual. At the same time this portion is less oblique in the transverse direction, owing to the prominence of the external face of the ramus. This ramus differs also in the great prominence and anterior position of the posterior edge of the masseteric fossa, which leaves behind it a wide oblique face, little developed in the existing species. The species being clearly new, I call it Cariacus dolichopsis.-E. D. Cope.

GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVELS.

THE BRITISH POLAR EXPEDITION. EXTRACT FROM SIR J. D. HOOKER'S ADDRESS AS PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY-The President then passed on to a review of the scientific results of the Polar expedition, which he said in his judgment, especially the biological results, appeared to have quite come up to our expectations. Considering that but one season was available for collecting and observing (and we all know how short that is in the Arctic regions), the results are indeed most creditable to the gentlemen who contributed them. Geology has proved by far the most prolific field of research. Perhaps botany comes next. The researches in this department, and on the insects which have been worked up by Mr. M'Lachlan, prove that between 80 degrees and 83 degrees north, in Grinnell's land, the conditions for the

existence of these organisms are far more favorable than are those of lands a long way to the southward. The flora of the series of channels between 80 degrees and 83 degrees north, the shores of which have been botanized by the officers of the Polar expedition, have yielded upwards of 70 flowering plants and ferns, which is a much greater number than has been obtained from a similar area among the Polar islands to the south-westward, and is unexpectedly large. All are from a much higher latitude than has elsewhere been explored botanically, except the islets off the extreme north of Spitzbergen. The species are, with two single exceptions, all Greenlandic. Spitzbergen, altogether to the south of these positions, contains under 100 flowering plants and ferns, though its west coast is washed by the Gulf Stream, and its shores have been diligently explored by many trained collectors. Its north coast has yielded fewer plants, and no less than 15 of the plants collected by the Expedition have not been found anywhere in Spitzbergen. Contrasted with Melville island, in latitude 75 degrees north, and Port Kennedy, in 72 degrees north, the contrast is even more striking, these well-hunted spots, both so much further south, yielding only 67 and 52 species respectively. This extension of the Greenland flora to so very high a latitude can only be accounted for by the influence of warm currents of air, or of the air being warmed by oceanic currents during some period of the summer; and we look with great interest to the meteorological observations made during the voyage, which are being discussed by Sir George Nares, who hopes to have it completed in a couple of months. The observations on the temperature of sea-water will, he expects, give new information; and great interest is attached to the study of certain warm gales and warm currents that were experienced in latitude 82 degrees and 83 degrees north. May not these phenomena of vegetation and temperature indicate the existence of large tracts of land clothed with vegetation in the interior of Greenland, far within the mountain ranges of its ice-clad coast, and protected by these from the heavier snow-falls, and hence for the accumulation of glacial ice that surrounds it on all sides? Professor Heer, of Zurich, has examined the fossil plants, the most important of which are those he states to be of miocene age. There are 25 identifiable species, of which all but one have been found also in Spitzbergen. This tracing the miocene flora so far to the northward was one of the principal scientific objects to be accomplished by the Polar expedition; and the fact that its character continues to be neither Polar nor Arctic, but temperate, supports the hypothesis that during the era in question a vegetation analogous to that now inhabiting the temperate latitudes entirely capped the North Polar area of the globe. Mr. Etheridge has worked at the very valuable collection of paleozoic fossils procured by Captain Fielden, and these, with the miocene and post pliocene fossils,

have thrown more light on the former conditions of the circumpolar regions than perhaps all those of previous expeditions.

Sir G. Nares has supplied to the President the following résumé of some of the principal meteorological results, and their comparison with those taken at Polaris bay in 1871-2:

+4.196

Minimum temperature.

Degrees.

-73.75

-70.8

-45.5

Minimum temperature of earth 20 inches beneath surface-13.0 degrees.

The warmer temperature at Floeburg beach was due to its exposure to the warm winter gales from which Discovery bay was cut off. The still warmer temperature of Polaris bay is partly attributable to there being some uncovered water in the neighborhood. The tidal observations have been entrusted to the Rev. Dr. Haughton, who hopes to present his results before the end of this session of the society. He has already arrived at the following general conclusions: 1, the tide which comes down Smith's sound from the north is generically distinct from the Behring's straits tide and from the Baffin's bay tide; 2, it must, therefore, be the East Greenland Atlantic tide, and consequently Greenland is an island; 3, this new tide contains a sensible tertiodiurnal component of much interest. The result of temperature examination was thus stated: Making due allowance for unavoidable sources of error, the temperatures of the sea observed on the west shores of Smith's sound prove the existence of a stratum of cold outer water (temperature about 29 degrees) lying between the locally heated surface-water and a depth of 20 to 30 fathoms, flowing southward in summer; as also of a warm underlying stratum of about 30 degrees. This latter was not found near Floeberg beach, but coupled with the 1872 observations of the Polaris, which showed a temperature of 32.8 degrees at 203 fathoms, in latitude 80 degrees 44 minutes north (midway between Franklin and Hall's islands, in Robison channel), and 32.1 degrees at 17 fathoms in Polaris bay, it would appear that the warm underlying water forces itself to the northward on the east side of Robison channel. Its entrance into the Polar sea or not will depend on the depth of water at the north end of the channel. They also prove the non-existence of a lower temperature of the water than 28.8 degrees at above a depth of 275 fathoms in Smith's sound or Baffin's bay. The coldest portion of the Arctic water appears not to affect that near Hayes sound or Discovery bay to so great an extent as that of the direct channel.— London Times.

GEOGRAPHICAL NEWS.-The Bulletin de la Société de Geographie for November contains commentaries on some old maps of New

Guinea, forming materials for a history of the discovery of this country by Spanish navigators from 1528 to 1606, with a map. M. Marche has returned from the west coast of Africa after exploring Upper Ogooné. M. Wiener has finished his explorations of the Andes. Mr. N. B. Wyse, member of the International Society of the Interoceanic Canal by the Isthmus of Darien, is now making a new exploration in this region.

Prof. Mohn, in Petermann's Mittheilungen for January, gives an original map of the relief of the sea-bed between the British Isles, Norway, Spitzbergen and Greenland. On this the contour lines of equal depths for each 100 fathoms are shown, and the grand feature of this region, the submarine barrier which passes from the north of the British Isles across by the Faröe islands and Iceland to Greenland, rises for the first time distinctly to view. It is this great barrier, says the Academy, that mainly determines the conditions of the deep seas on each side of it. The depth of the Atlantic on the south-western side are filled up with warmer water, but as soon as the barrier is crossed this is limited to the uppermost strata. On the Atlantic side of the ridge a mass of ice-cold water occupies the sea in its greatest depths, and is prevented by the barrier from penetrating into the depths of the Atlantic. Prof. Mohn also proposes that the sea between Norway and the Faröe islands, from Mayen and Spitzbergen, which has never been distinguished by any special name, be called the "Norwegian sea."

Gerhard Rohlfs is to undertake a new journey of exploration in the Eastern Sahara, which is planed to extend over five years.

MICROSCOPY.1

BULLOCH'S MICROSCOPES. Mr. W. H. Bulloch, 126 Clark street, Chicago, has issued a well illustrated description of his recent improvements in the construction of the microscope, in which appear several points of novelty and importance. The new large stand is literally full of ingenious contrivances, and without being clumsy or unduly complicated seems to combine more really useful adjustments than any other stand containing the modern improvements.

The sub-stage and mirror bar both swing around an axis in the plane of the object on the stage. Mr. Bulloch claims, with much reason, to have been the first to apply such an adjustment to the sub-stage, and he now mounts the mirror bar in a similar manner, the two being made to move either together or separately, and either by hand or with a mechanical motion; or the sub-stage with its milled heads can be entirely removed. Thus is attained a facility not hitherto equaled of using either sub-stage or mirror or both together at any angle below the stage This department is edited by Dr. R. II. Ward, Troy, N. Y.