A column of water and gas now commences rising, makes 6 pulsations, attains a maximum height of 115 feet in 40 seconds, and vanishes in one minute. The water from the pool and water vein immediately flows into the well for the second time, continuing for 1 minute and 30 seconds, during which time no gas flows out. At the end of this time the gas rises bubble by bubble for 40 seconds, when the smaller column of water and gas rises, attaining a maximum height of 5 feet in 10 seconds and vanishes in 1 minute and 10 seconds. The gas still continues to rise but no water flows into the well from the pool for 35 seconds, when the same series of phenomena repeat themselves. Such are the facts. The explanation of the action may be readily imagined. The pressure of the gas having relieved itself in throwing out of the well the larger column, the water flows into the hole until the pressure of the gas becomes so great again that instead of rising up in small bubbles through the water it rushes out of the well, throwing the water at the same time to a height of from 3 to 8 feet. After the column has vanished the gas continues to rise in great quantities, keeping the water from flowing in from the pool, until the pressure is exhausted. The water now flows into the well till the pressure of the gas in its reservoir has increased to such an extent that it thrusts out of the hole the larger column of water to a height of from 85 to 115 feet.

The smaller column of water is probably produced by the gas coming from the smaller vein at 1200 feet depth, while the larger column is thrown up by the gas coming from the greater vein at a depth of 1600 feet. But, of course, neither the one nor the other column is produced by either of the gas veins exclusively, for the gas must be flowing from both horizons more or less all the time. It will be noticed that more water flows into the hole directly after the larger column has been thrown up, and that the smaller column throws up less water, and vice versa.

It was not possible to obtain the pressure or amount of gas coming from the well. The estimated pressure at the time that 175 feet of casing was blown from the well was about 250 pounds to the square inch. It is possible that the accumulated pressure at the time that the larger water columns are thrown up may be as high as 250 pounds; but the constant pressure of the gas if unobstructed by the water would probably not be more than 50 pounds.

The action of the Wilcox well is nothing novel, but the observations are interesting and valuable from the fact that a complete record and history of the well have been preserved, and the accompanying facts add much to what has been recorded of similar wells.

7. Superficial Geology of British Columbia.-Mr. GEORGE M. DAWSON has an interesting paper on this subject in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society for February, 1878. He speaks of Bute Inlet, one of the fiords, as a chasm 40 miles long, running into the center of the Coast Range, and surrounded by mountains,

which in some places rise from its border in cliffs and rocky slopes to a height of six to eight thousand feet. The islands about its mouth are roches moutonnées, polished and grooved; and one of them, a steep mountain 3,013 feet high, is smoothed to the summit on the north side, while rough to the south. The striation of the Bute inlet region is S. 22° E., or in the direction of the valley. The glaciation over southeastern Vancouver Island is attributed to a great glacier which swept over it from north to south, a glacier that filled the Strait of Georgia, with a breadth in some places of more than 50 miles. The fiords of the northern part of the Strait of Georgia, and to the north, show ice-action to a height exceeding 3,000 feet. In the interior, scratches were observed on the isolated Tsa-whuz Mountain (lat. 53° 40′), 3,240 feet above the sea, whose course was a little west of south. At another place, on the basaltic plateau near Fraser Valley, and 20 miles north of the Chilcotin River, 3,350 feet above the sea, the direction of the scratches was about north-and-south. On Sinter Knoll, north of Gatcho Lake, near the southeastern sources of the Nechaco River, 3,550 feet above the sea, the direction of the grooving was about S. 8° E. South of the Salmon or Dean River, at an altitude of 3,700 feet, the grooving runs S. 37° W. These glacial markings from north to south are attributed by Mr. Dawson to a glacier moving southward. Terraces in British Columbia extend from the sea-level to a height of 5,270 feet.

8. Geological Survey of Canada. Report for 1876-1877, ALFRED R. C. SELWYN, Director. 532 pp. 8vo, with several colored maps. 1878. This volume contains reports by Mr. SELWYN, G. M. DAWSON, J. F. WHITEAVES, JAMES RICHARDSON, T. STERRY IIUNT, ROBERT BELL, HENRY G. VENNOR, G. F. MATTHEW, L. W. BAILEY and R. W. ELLS, HUGH FLETCHER, S. H. SCUDDER, B. J. HARRINGTON, and C. HOFFMANN.

Carefully selected graphite from different localities in Buckingham, Canada, afforded Mr. Hoffmann, Carbon 99-675, 97.626, ash 0.147, 1780, volatile matter 0.178, 0.594; and that from Grenville, Carbon 99-815, 99-757, ash 0.076, 0.135, vol. 0·109, 0·108= 100. Ceylon graphite afforded him, Carbon 99-792, 98-817, ash 0.050, 0.283, volatile matter 0.158, 0·900=100. The ash of the Canadian graphite gave, on analysis, 45 to 60 p. c., of silica 8-5 to 11 of alumina, iron sesquioxide 1.230-18.310, manganese sesquioxide 0 to 05, with some lime and magnesia, 4 to 7 per cent of potash and soda and traces of copper, nickel and cobalt.

Rensselaerite has been found by Mr. Vennor in the Laurentian rocks of Portage du Fort. An analysis by Mr. Harrington obtained SiO, 6133, FeO 0.67, MgO 31.78, CaO trace, water (ign.) 5.85 99.63. Messrs. Bailey and Ells describe with detail the albertite veins and shales of Hillsboro, New Brunswick. They remark that the gypsum beds of Hillsboro have a thickness of 150 feet, and that much of the rock is a pure white alabaster. They are the most extensive and valuable of the plaster deposits of New Brunswick.

The coal-bearing rocks of British Columbia, according to Mr. G. M. Dawson are: 1, Lower Cretaceous (or Cretaceo-Jurassic) on Queen Charlotte Islands, etc., holding anthracite; 2, Cretaceous on Vancouver Island, with bituminous coal; and 3, Tertiary, affording bituminous coal and lignite. The anthracite yielded, on analysis by Dr. Harrington, Fixed Carbon 85.76, 83'09, volatile combustible matter 4.77, 5:02, sulphur 0-89, 153, ash 6-69, 8.76100. The Vancouver Island coals afford, on an average, Fixed Carbon 64:05, 59′55, vol. 28·19, 32.69, ash 6.29, water 1:47. Trials under the direction of the United States War Department showed that the ratio of coal in weight required to produce the same heat from the Vancouver Island, Bellingham Bay, Seattle coal of Washington territory and Rocky Mountain coal was as 18: 22:

24: 25.

The Tertiary coals include those of Bellingham Bay, and Seattle on Puget Sound. North of the 49th parallel they underlie nearly 1,000 square miles of the low country about the estuary of the Fraser and the lower part of its valley. These coal formations cover great tracts in the interior of British Columbia; and the basaltic outflows of the region form the latest rocks of the lignite-bearing Tertiary. By a rough estimate the number of square miles the formation covers between the 49th and 54th parallels is not less than 12,000. The Quesnel lignitic beds are interesting on account of the plant and insect remains found in them. Some of the insects are described by Mr. Scudder. Mr. Dawson mentions that magnetic iron ore constitutes a bed 20 to 25 feet thick on Texada Island, and has been traced northeast for more than three miles. It rests against a bed of crystalline limestone and partly alternates with it.

9. Fossil Fishes from the Trias of New Jersey and Connecticut.-Dr. J. S. NEWBERRY has described (Annals N. Y. Acad., vol. i, no. 4, 1878) the following Triassic fishes: Diplurus longicaudatus Newb., Ptycholepis Marshii Newb., the former from Boontown, N. J., and the latter from Durham, Conn. As Ptycholepis is in Europe a Liassic genus, its occurrence here, as Dr. Newberry states, suggests a query as to the age of the Eastern American Trias. But he observes that other facts show that it does not seriously invalidate the evidence that they are Triassic, though possibly Jurassic in the upper beds. The species is more heterocercal than the European.

10. Stromatopora.-At the meeting of the Geological Society of June 5, 1878, a paper by Dr. Dawson of Montreal was read, in which he explained his views as to the Foramineral nature of the Stromatoporida-species of which occur in the Lower and Upper Silurian and Devonian, "and are especially abundant in the Trenton, the Niagara and the Carboniferous formations." Professor Duncan remarked, in the discussion which followed, that he believed that different forms were called Stromatopora; that the tubules in the lamina of some of them had much resemblance to those of Millepora; that they showed no nummuline layer, like AM. JOUR. SCI.-THIRD SERIES, VOL. XVI, No. 92.-August, 1878.

Eozoon, and so he doubted the Foraminiferal character. Dr. Murie stated that some specimens which he had seen resembled the Hexactinellidae and he thought they represented sponges, though not exactly Hexactinellids.

Mr. H. J. Carter, in the Annals and Magazine of Natual History for July, states that he has found the hexactinellid structure in the Devonian Stromatopora concentrica. To observe it, the plane of section must be "tangential to the curve of undulation in the layers of the Stromatopora, or horizontal to its summit." He adds, "It must not be inferred because I have considered this hexactinellid structure 'identical in appearance' with that of Zittel's order Dictyonina" (see a former paper in the Annals, 1877, xx, 416) "that elementarily it is so; for in this consists the difference between the hexactenellid structure of Stromatopora concentrica and its varieties and that of the vitreous sponges with octahedral elements (ibid., xix, pl. 9, f. 11, 12)." "The pores (? calicles) are in the interstices of the hexactinellid structure; but I cannot say more about them than that by their minuteness in S. concentrica they appear to have belonged to a Hydroid rather than to an Actinozoic polyp."

11. On the Section of the Alps, from the valley of Vedro on the south to that of the Rhone on the north along the course of the tunnel of the Simplon; by M. RENEVIER.-The rocks encountered, going northward, are: (1) gneiss partly granitoid, having indications in its bedding of a low anticlinal; (2) conformable "crystalline schists," including mica schist, which is partly garnetiferous, chloritic or talcose [? hydromica], gneiss, hornblende slate, with three parallel calcareous bands; (3) the dolomitic band of Gautier; (4) gray shining schists or slates, which are traversed by numerous veins or seams of quartz. These slates have the same steep northwest dip with the dolomitic band; but between the dolomitic band and the crystalline schists there is, according to Renevier, a nearly vertical fault. On the opposite side of the valley of the Gautier the dip is reversed or southeast, and very steep. Following the slates, there are (5) the gypsum and dolomite of the Rhone valley. Nos. 1 and 2 are regarded as the older metamorphic rocks, with probably two or more folds in the region of the "crystalline schists." The gray shining slates toward the north end of the tunnel are without fossils, but are stated to be probably Triassic, or Triassic with Jurassic beds above. They closely resemble those of Mt. Cenis.-Bull. Soc. Vaudoise der Sci. Nat., xv, No. 79. Lausanne, 1878.

12. Revue de Géologie pour les Années 1875 and 1876; by M. DELESSE and M. DE LAPPARENT. xiv, 228 pp. 8vo. Paris, 1878. -This new volume of Delesse and DeLapparent's Annual Review of Geology, like its predecessors, is a very convenient résumé of the principal memoirs on geological subjects for the year. The following facts are cited from it.

The mean height of Europe.-According to a recent estimate from the heights of the surface over Europe by Dr. G. Leipoldt

of Vienna the mean height of the Continent is 296.838 meters, instead of 205 meters as made by Humboldt. The mean heights of the several countries are also given in the "Revue de Géologie." Temperature of the Earth's crust.-According to M. Ludovic Ville, a deep boring in Algeria, west of Sebkha d'Oran, the temperature of 49°7 C. was reached at a depth of 578 meters, making the mean increase downward 1° for 7.56 meters. The waters in the boring are very saline. In the Sahara, according to the borings, the increase downward does not increase regularly with the depth; the mean is a temperature of 24° C. at a depth of 60 meters. In Hodna, the temperature is only 22.2° at a depth of 93.8 meters. The region is of much greater altitude than the Sahara, and it is in higher latitude. The mean increase at this place, according to M. Ville, was 1° C. for 23 meters of descent. In the Sahara toward the latitude of Oued Rhir, the increase downward is about 1° for 17-55 meters; showing a diminution toward the south, or with the latitude.

Effect of moisture or dryness in rocks on the facility of crushing.-M. Tournaire, Mining Engineer and M. Michelot have experimented on chalk, dried in a stove (d), wet (i), and air-dried (n) and found that cubes 3 decimeters each way, were crushed, as follows:-when stove-dried it was crushed under 80-92.5 kilograms (mean 86-2); when air-dried, 16.5 to 35 (mean 23.5); when wet, 13.9 to 26 (mean 18.6). M. Delesse gives also the results of various experiments of his own on chalk and the Calcaire Grossier in which he used cubes 5 centimeters each way. Chalk of Issy, when stove dried, was crushed with 36-4 kilograms; when air-dried, 236; when wet, 12.9; and the Calcaire Grossier of Vitry (a) and St. Denis (b) gave the numbers (a) 76, (b) 48·7; (a) 52.8, (b) 312; (a) 26·9, (b) 21.8. The results of various other trials with the Calcaire Grossier are given, all confirming the general result here exhibited.

13. Mémoires sur les Terrains Crétacés et Tertiares, préparé par feu ANDRÉ DUMONT, edités par MICHEL MOURLON, Conservateur au Musée Royale à Histoire Naturelle. Tome 1. Terrains

Crétacés. 556 pp. 8vo. Brussels, 1878.-The late M. Dumont, the distinguished Belgian geologist, prepared in 1849 a geological map of Belgium. He died in 1857, hardly forty-eight years old, leaving his Reports illustrating the subject in part still in manuscript, and other unfinished work. The Belgian government has recently ordered a new edition of the map, and also the publication of his manuscripts on the Tertiary and Cretaceous formations. Of these, the volume on the Cretaceous formations has just been issued. It is a very valuable contribution to European geology.

14. Sigillaria lepidodendrifolia Brgt.-Mr. H. L. FAIRCHILD, in a paper published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences (vol. i, no. 5), gives reasons for believing that the Sigil laria rhomboidea (with S. obliqua), S. Brardii, S. Menardi, S. Serlii, and S. Defrancii of Brongniart and S. sculpta of Lesquereux, are identical species with S. lepidodendrifolia, and adds that