PROGRESS OF INVERTEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES FOR THE YEAR 1879.

AS

BY DR. C. A. WHITE.

S the operations of men's minds are not subject to the calendar, it is difficult to select any specified period of time and say just what progress in any one branch of investigation has been made within it. Therefore, in this popular review of American palæontological labors for 1879, both the distal and proximal boundaries of the year will be held somewhat loosely. That is, in giving a summary of the work done, all writings will be mentioned which have been published either originally or in their latest form, even such as appeared in the earliest days of the year; and mention will be made, not only of such works as are known to be in press at the close of the year, but also of such as are known to be in course of preparation then. These anticipatory notices have been made from information kindly communicated by the various authors who are referred to. No work, however inconspicuous, has been intentionally omitted from bibliographical notice, but even the most obscure are mentioned, leaving the question of sufficiency or insufficiency of publication to be decided by the custom of naturalists. The writer, in connection with Prof. H. Alieyne Nicholson, having published a Bibliography of North American Invertebrate Palæontology, which, with a supplement, extended to the close of the year 1878, the following account of the publications for 1879 may be made, to serve rudely as a continuation of the portion of that bibliography which relates to the United States. The reader may readily separate this bibliographical matter from the personal gossip, of which the article is largely composed.

The list of Americans now living who have at some time or other, and to a greater or less extent, contributed to the literature of invertebrate palæontology, is a rather long one, and yet the names of a large majority of them do not appear in connection with any publication of the past year. Among the active workers in this field is first to be mentioned the veteran palæontologist, Prof. James Hall, who is still engaged with his great series of works for the State of New York, upon which he has bestowed the unremitting labor of almost forty years, no one of which has been more fruitful of important results than the one just passed.

Volume v of his great series is just completed, and will, doubtless, be in the hands of scientific workers within a few weeks.

It

is in two parts-really two volumes-part I containing the text, and part II the plates. I regret that it has not been practicable to obtain a résumé of the contents of this volume, but it is safe to say that it is a worthy companion of any one of the series which has preceded it, the appearance of each one of which has marked an epoch in the literature of American palæontology. In 1862 Prof. Hall published in the Transactions of the Albany Institute, descriptions of a large and remarkable collection of Niagara fossils at the then newly-discovered locality near Waldron, Indiana. In 1876 he published in the documentary edition of the Twentyeighth Report of the Regents of the University of New York, full illustrations of these fossils, but without any accompanying text. In the museum edition of the Twenty-eighth Report, just printed, Prof. Hall publishes full descriptions of all those fossils, together with the republished illustrations, embracing more than one hundred pages of text. In March of 1879, he also read before the Albany Institute, "Descriptions of New Species of Fossils from the Niagara Formation at Waldron, Indiana." This work is now published in the form of a twenty-page pamphlet, and contains descriptions of upward of forty new species and one new genus. Ampheristocrinus. Palæontologists will rejoice that this remarkable fauna of the Niagara period is at last fully before them. In addition to the descriptions and illustrations of the Niagara fossils, Prof. Hall also publishes in the Twenty-eighth Report just mentioned, a paper, illustrated by three large plates, entitled "Notice of some remarkable crinoidal forms from the Lower Helderberg Group." He here establishes the new genus Camarocrinus, of which he describes three species. A part of the remarkable fossils upon which this paper is based have been in the hands of Prof. Hall for many years; and a part of them were lately collected in Tennessee by Prof. J. M. Safford, who read a paper on them last summer at the Saratoga meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Besides these important works, Prof. Hall has a brief illustrated article on the genus Plimulina in the Thirtieth Report of the New York State Museum, just published, and he also read a palæontological paper at the Saratoga meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The Thirty-second

Report of the New York State Museum is in press; it contains descriptions of the Bryozoa of the Lower Helderberg group, adding fifty or sixty species to the list of those published in a former report; all being the work of Prof. Hall.

The time of Prof. R. P. Whitfield, for the past year, has been largely employed in his duties at the American Museum of Natural History at New York, and at the Troy Polytechnic Institute, but he has, meantime, continued his work upon the Palæontology of the States of Ohio and Wisconsin, the results of which are to appear in Vol. III of the former and Vol. 1 of the latter, respectively, both of which volumes are well advanced toward completion. At the Saratoga meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, he read a paper on the Occurrence of rocks representing the Marcellus shale of New York, in Central Ohio; and published in the September number of the Ameri.can Journal of Science and Arts, p. 22, a note on the Occurrence of Maclurea magna in the Barnegat (Chazy) limestone near Newburg, N. Y. These are brief papers, but they are important applications of palæontological identification of fossil forms to the elucidation of geological problems.

Besides these, he has published in the same journal for January, 1880, pages 33-42, an article on "New Forms of Fossil Crustaceans from the Upper Devonian of Ohio," in which he proposes the genera Echinocaris and Palæopalæmon, describing three new species under the former, and one under the latter genus. He has also prepared a description and figures of a large and interesting Cretaceous brachyuran crustacean, Paramithrax (?) walkeri, which will appear in connection with the paleontological work of the writer of this article, in the Annual Report for 1878 of the U. S. Geological Survey, lately in charge of Dr. Hayden. His work for the Palæontology of Ohio will be illustrated by from fourteen to eighteen plates of figures. One of these plates will be devoted to the illustration of his new forms of Devonian Crustaceans already mentioned, and one of them, in part, to the illustration of those forms upon which he bases his conclusions of the occurrence of Marcellus shale in Ohio, also before mentioned. The report will contain descriptions of new and known forms from the Lower Helderberg, Upper Helderberg and Upper Devonian; also the entire known fauna of the Maxwell limestone (=Chester and St. Louis series) and some other upper and lower

Carboniferous forms, some of which are referred to the horizon of the Burlington limestone.

His work on the Palæontology of Wisconsin is now ready for the printer and engraver, and will be issued some time during the year 1880. A total of one hundred and eighty-nine species are illustrated by twenty-six plates of figures, which fossils are referred to the following formations: Potsdam, Lower Magnesian, Trenton and Galena, Hudson River, Niagara, Guelph, Lower Helderberg and Hamilton.

He recognizes Triplesia, Holopea and Bellerophon, and a second species of Palaacmea in the Potsdam; and also Ellipsocephalus and the peculiar genus Aglaspis, of Hall, in the same formation, thus adding materially to our knowledge of the fauna of the Potsdam period, and to the previously known range of some of the genera mentioned. The Lower Magnesian epoch he finds represented in Wisconsin by the genera Dikellocephalus, Illanurus, Metoptoma and Scævogyra, the latter being a new genus of sinistral gasteropods. He also proposes a new genus of corals, Cystostylus, among the fossils of the Niagara group. His palæontological recognition of the Guelph limestone in Wisconsin, is important; and he also describes new forms from that formation. Some of the species recognized as new among the Wisconsin collections have been described by Prof. Whitfield in the published annual reports of that survey, but about thirty of them are published in the forthcoming volumes for the first time. These works of Prof. Whitfield, all of which are practically finished, will become an important part of the palæontological literature of our country.

The labors of Mr. S. H. Scudder in invertebrate palæontology are confined almost wholly to fossil insects, but he has performed this work so well, and prosecuted it so vigorously, that no one seems disposed to dispute the ground with him. He is still busily engaged with his great work on the Tertiary insects of North America, which is now well advanced toward completion, and is to form Vol. XIII of the quarto series of the U. S. Geological Survey of the Territories, lately in charge of Dr. Hayden. His memoir on the Palæozoic cockroaches has just issued in quarto form from the press of the Boston Society of Natural History, in which about sixty species are enumerated and figured. A memoir in the same form and from the same press, on Early Types of

Insects, has also lately issued, and an abstract of it has appeared in the January (1880) number of the American Journal of Science and Arts, pages 72-74. An interesting article from his pen has also lately appeared in the Report of Progress of the Geological Survey of Canada for 1877-1878, pages 175-185, on "The Fossil Insects collected in 1877 by Mr. G. M. Dawson in the interior of British Columbia." The insects described are all referred to the Tertiary period, and represent four orders; one species being referred to the Hymenoptera, two to the Diptera, ten to the Coleoptera and four to the Hemiptera. Among the latter he proposes the new genus Planophlebia.

The duties of Prof. A. Hyatt at the Museum of the Boston Society of Natural History, have made such demands upon his time for the past year, as to retard the progress of his special investigations. He is still working, however, upon the Ammonites, being now specially engaged upon the Arietidæ, and also upon the Steinheim shells. His only published work for the past year is embraced in a paper, by the writer of this article, on "Fossils of the Jura-trias of South-eastern Idaho," in the Bulletin of the U. S. Geological Survey of the Territories, Vol. v. Prof. Hyatt there proposes and diagnoses the new Cephalopod genus Mecko

ceras.

Mr. W. H. Dall published in the Proceedings of the U. S. National Museum, Vol. I, page 3, an interesting note on the occurrence of a Post-pliocene deposit containing recent species of marine shells in a semi-fossilized condition, at the head of a cañon near San Luis Rey, California, twelve miles from the sea and six hundred feet above tide water.

This determination of species is especially interesting and important, since it proves a considerable elevation of that coast to have taken place at a comparatively recent date. He also published in the same volume, pages 10-16, an article on "Fossil Molluscs of the Later Tertiary of California," describing six new species, and giving a table showing the known distribution of forms and the proportion of fossil and recent species respectively.

Mr. Angelo Heilprin has published in the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences at Philadelphia for 1879, three articles bearing respectively the following titles: “On some new Eocene Fossils from the Claiborne marine formation of Alabama;"