lower jaw, which I discovered in 1872, were nearly erect as in man and the Simiide, and not procumbent as in most Lemurs. The cerebral hemispheres are remarkably large for an Eocene mammal, extending to between the middles of the orbits; the anterior parts, at least, are smooth. The cerebellum projected beyond the foramen magnum posteriorly, as in Tarsius. The orbits are large, approaching those of Tarsius, but are not so much walled in by a septum from the temporal fossa as in that genus. The superior molars have only one internal cusp.

The species, which I propose to call Anaptomorphus homunculus, has a wide palate much as in man, and the true molar teeth diminish in size posteriorly. The pterygoid and zygomatic fossæ are short and wide, and the petrous bone is large and inflated. The animal was nocturnal in its habits and was the size of a marmoset. The genus is nearer the hypothetical lemuroid ancestor of man than any yet discovered.--E. D. Cope.

THE ARCHAEAN ROCKS OF GREAT BRITAIN.-Professor Hull, director of the Geological Survey of Ireland, discriminates two petrographic types in the British Cambrian beds, the one consisting of purple sandstones or conglomerates, the other of hard green and purple grits and slates. The former is the "Caledonian" type, and is found in the north-west Highlands of Scotland. The second is the Hiberno-Cambrian, and characterizes East Ireland and North Wales. Professor Hull thinks these formations were deposited in distinct basins, which were separated by an Archæan ridge of crystalline rock which extended from Scandinavia, through the central Highlands of Scotland to Northwest Ireland. The Caledonian basin was an inland lake, the crystalline rocks of the outer Hebrides forming its western shore. Professor Hull also finds the Laurentian granite in N. W. Ireland overlaid unconformably by the Lower Silurian quartzite schists and limestones.-Geological Magazine.

A NEW BRITISH FORMATION.-The name Devono-Silurian is given by Professor E. Hull to a series of cotemporary deposits found in various parts of the British Isles, and to some extent on the continent. He finds them in Devonshire and on the Welsh borders, and probably concealed in Southeast England; also, in the south of Scotland and North and South Ireland. The beds were deposited under estuary or lacustrine conditions, and constitute a great group between the Silurian on the one hand, and the Devonian on the other.-Geological Magazine.

RECENT EXTINCTION OF THE MASTODON.-The existence of the mastodon in North America must have been more recent than commonly supposed. A number of new facts bearing on this subject are to be found in Professor John Collett's "Geological Report of Indiana for 1880," recently issued. Of the thirty individual specimens of the remains of the mastodon (Mastodon gi ganteus) found in Indiana, in almost every case a very considera

ble part of the skeleton of each animal proved to be in a greater or less state of decay. The remains have always been discovered in marshes, ponds, or other miry places, indicating at once the cause of the death of the animal and the reason of the preservation of the bones from decay. Spots of ground in this condition are found at the summit of the glacial drift or in "old beds" of rivers which have adopted a shorter route and lower level; consequently, their date does not reach beyond the most recent changes of the earth's surface. In fact, their existence was so late that the only query is, says Professor Collett: Why did they become extinct? A skeleton was discovered in excavating the bed of the canal a few miles north of Covington, Fountain county, in wet peat. The teeth are in good preservation, and Mr. Perrin Kent states that when the larger bones were cut open the marrow, still preserved, was utilized by the bog-cutters to "grease" their boots, and that pieces of sperm-like substance, two and a-half inches to three inches in diameter (adipocere) occupied the place of the kidney fat of the monster. During the past summer of 1880 an almost complete skeleton of a mastodon was found six miles north-west from Hoopston, Iroquois county, Illinois, which goes far to settle definitely that it was not only a recent animal, but that it survived until the life and vegetation of to-day prevailed. The tusks formed each a full quarter of a circle, were nine feet long, twenty-two inches in circumference at the base, and in their water-soaked condition weighed one hundred and seventyfive pounds. The lower jaw was well preserved, with a full set of magnificent teeth, and is nearly three feet long. The teeth, as usual, were thickly enameled, and weighed each from four to five pounds. The leg-bones, when joined at the knee, made a total length of five and a-half feet, indicating that the animal was not less than eleven feet high, and from fifteen to sixteen feet from brow to rump. On inspecting the remains closely, a mass of fibrous, bark-like material was found between the ribs, filling the place of the animal's stomach. When carefully separated, it proved to be a crushed mass of herbs and grasses, similar to those which still grow in the vicinity. In the same bed of miry clay a multitude of small fresh-water and land shells were observed and collected. These were: I, Pisidium, closely resembling P. abditum Haldeman; 2, Valvata tricarinata Say; 3, Valvata, resembling V. striata; 4, Planorbis parvus Say. These mollusks prevail all over the States of Illinois, Indiana and parts of Michigan, and show conclusively that, however other conditions may differ, the animal and vegetable life, and consequently climate, are the same now as when this mastodon sank in his grave of mire and clay.

THE MESOZOIC OF VIRGINIA.-Professor Fontaine gives a pretty full account of the geology of the Mesozoic of Virginia, with explanations of its peculiar features. He has a very large collection of fine plants, many of them are new, and some

exceedingly fine. The collection is a pretty fair representation of the flora of the older Mesozoic, and will throw light. on the Mesozoic of North Carolina and Pennsylvania. The secretary communicated the following notes by Professor Fontaine, made in the same letters: Upon the views of H. C. Lewis, respecting the Saltville valley in Southern Virginia, published in the Proceedings, No. 107, page 155. Mr. Fontaine points out that the little salt and gypsum bearing valley of Saltville cannot be "eroded along an anticlinal of Lower Silurian limestone, because the south-east wall hills only are of that age, while north-west wall hills are of the Umbral (Mauch Chunk or Sub-carboniferous) age." He was the first to find in the limestone on that side of the valley an abundance of Umbral fossils in the highly fossiliferous shale beds intercallated between the various limestones. The species are the same as those found near Lewisburg, West Virginia, in the Umbral. The magnesian (Lower Silurian) limestone strata, bounding the valleys on the south-west, show no trace of fossils. The physical aspect of the two formations also differs. Beds of shale and limestone alternate in the hills north-west of the valleys; and some of the limestone is cherty and some of the shales are red. But the south-east hills contain only solid limestone strata. Those on the north-west have a more rounded typography. It is, however, quite true that the stratification is in opposite south-east and north-west directions, gently to the south-east, much steeper to the north-west. The structure is, therefore, anticlinal, and this fault must run along the south-east edge of the little valley. The explanation is then simple, the Umbral limestone is synclinal, and the red shale formation comes up on both sides of it—with north-west dip in the little valley, with a south-east dip in the valley of the Holston river at the foot of the mountain. A reference to the place in the Michigan salt group in the Palæzoic series makes the presence of salt here easily understood. The horizon seems to be salt-bearing in other places in Southern Virginia. There is a salt ooze near Max Meadows, at the above geological horizon. The secretary suggested in addition to the underlying Vespertine (Pocono) sandstone is a saltproducing formation on the Ohio river and up country. That the gypsum is an acid reaction upon the eroded out-crops of the limestone, is shown in Proceedings A. P. S., Vol. 1x, pp. 34, 1862. -American Philosophical Society.

GEOLOGICAL NEWS.-Messrs. Wachsmuth and Springer are publishing in the Proceedings of the Philadelphia Academy a revision of the Palæocrinoidea which will prove of great value to students. It is accompanied by numerous plates. Professor Heilprin continues his researches on the Tertiary Geology of the Southeastern United States.-Edward Wethered, F.C.S., F.GS., has communicated an important memoir on the formation of coal,

of which an abstract is given in the October, 1881, Geological Magazine of London. The Bulletin of the Geological Society of France for 1881, contains many important memoirs, principally relating to the geology of France, Algiers and Belgium.-An analysis of the structure and age of the formations about Lake Champlain is given in the same periodical, by Professor Marcou. -Dr. Lemoine has added many important discoveries to those he has previously made in the Lower Eocene near Reims, France. He has procured almost perfect skeletons of the Mammalian genera Heteroborus, Pleuraspidotherium, Pachynolophus; of the bird Gastornis, and the reptile Champsosaurus. He has also discovered a number of the Marsupial family Plagiaulacida, which is probably nearly allied to the Ptilodus, described from New Mexico in the November, 1881, NATURALIST.Professor Newberry criticizes adversely Professor Spencer's view on the Ancient outlet of Lake Erie, published by the American Philosophical Society.

MINERALOGY.1

SYSTEMATIC MINERALOGY.-Bauerman. (Appleton & Co., New York, 1881.) The latest number of that excellent series known as the "Text-books of Science" consists of the first volume of a Text-book of Systematic Mineralogy, by H. Bauerman. The introduction states the two-fold object of the work to be that it should form (1) a guide to general students; (2) an elementary introduction to larger text-books. The greater part of the volume deals with the principles of crystallography. Not only are the simple and compound forms of the different systems fully described and illustrated, but by means of shaded figures, the origin of the hemihedral and tetartohedral modifications is explained. The optical properties of crystals are considered at length in some well written chapters, and the volume concludes with an elementary review of the physical and chemical characters of minerals. The descriptive portion of the work is not yet issued. We cannot help thinking that this work does not quite attain the object for which it was written. While not sufficiently thorough for the advanced student, the method of treatment is not such as would recommend it for the beginner. The language employed in a large portion of the book is by no means simple, and the practical performance of mineralogical work is but slightly considered.

LIME CRYSTALS IN A LIME-KILN.-Several years ago, Brugelmann succeeded in obtaining artificially microscopic cubes of

1 Edited by Professor HENRY CARVILL LEWIS, Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia. The Mineralogical Editor requests short original communications for publication in this department. Early copies of mineralogical papers printed elsewhere are also solicited for review.

lime by heating calcium nitrate. Recently Levalois and Meunier1 have observed in the inner walls of a lime-kiln cubes of lime 5 centimeters in diameter. The crystals were sharp on the edges, and had the specific gravity of 3.3. Analysis showed that the crystals were composed of nearly pure anhydrous lime. They dissolved slowly in cold, but energetically in warm acids, giving out considerable heat. The crystals were formed upon the limestone walls of the kiln, which, with the exception of a few days, had been kept at a temperature of 1200°-1300° C. for over two years.

NITROBARITE.-Groth2 describes a natural nitrate of Baryta from Chili. It occurs as small colorless octahedral crystals, with tetartohedral characters, belonging to the isometric system. Artificial crystals of nitrate of Baryta have a similar form. An appropriate mineralogical name for this mineral would be Nitrobarite.

VANADIUM MINERALS.-Within the last few years special attention has been directed to the natural occurrence of Vanadium and its compounds. It has been shown that Vanadium, formerly regarded as one of the rarest elements, is of widespread diffusion, and that it almost universally accompanies Titanium in the older geological formations. This fact acquires a cosmical importance when taken in connection with the observation of Lockyer that Vanadium exists with Titanium in the innermost portions of the photosphere of the sun.

Among recent investigations upon Vanadium minerals, those of Rammelsberg are of great importance. He gives several new analyses, and after reviewing the Vanadium minerals, gives the following table of the natural vanadates:

Websky and Urba have investigated the crystalline forms of Descloizite and Vanadinite. Websky describes pseudomorphs of Vanadinite after Anglesite.

1 Compt. Rend., 90, 1566, June, 1880.

2 Zeits. f. Kryst., 1881. VI, 195.

3 On the composition of Descloizite and the natural Vanadium compounds. Monatsber. d. k. Ak. Wiss. Berlin. July, 1880, p. 652.

Monatsb. d. k. Ak. Wiss. Berlin, July, 1880, p. 672. Oct., 1880.

Zeits. f. Kryst., 1880, p. 353.