86 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



not vary with the mass, like the attractive power. (Commu- 

 nicated.) 



GLACIERS IX THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 



Professor Agassiz, in an interesting communication, at a 

 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement 

 of Science, upon the former existence of local glaciers in the 

 White Mountains, states that, whatever may have been the 

 number of the higher peaks of the White Mountains that at 

 any given time during the glacial period rose above the great 

 ice-sheet which then covered the country, this mountain 

 range offered no obstacle to the southward movement and 

 progress of the northern ice-fields, the drift, so called, having 

 the same general characteristics on the northern and south- 

 ern sides of the White Mountains. In addition to this great 

 sea of ice, however, he finds material evidence to prove the 

 existence of many local glaciers at different points, and he 

 infers that they are of more recent date. He expects here- 

 after to show that the action of local glaciers of the White 

 Mountains began to be circumscribed within the areas they 

 covered after the typical drift had, in consequence of the 

 melting of the northern ice-sheet, been laid bare in the Mid- 

 dle States, in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and even after 

 the southern portion of Vermont and New Hampshire had 

 been uncovered, and when the White Mountains, the Adiron- 

 dacks, and Katahdin were the only ice-clad j:>eaks in that part 

 of the country. 5 D, 1870, 550. 



WESTERN TERTIARY FOSSILS. 



Professor Meek, in describing some species of certain fossils 

 collected by Mr. Clarence King, remarks that the trilobites 

 from Eastern Nevada are dec*idedly primordial types, and, as 

 far as known to him, the first fossils of that age yet brought 

 in from any locality west of the Black Hills. The collection 

 also establishes the fact that the rich silver mines of the 

 White Pine district occur in Devonian rocks. He also states 

 with regard to the fresh-water tertiary shells collected by 

 Mr. King and others from the interior of the continent, that 

 neither the beaks of the bivalves nor the tips of the spire in 

 the univalves are ever in the slightest degree eroded, the 

 most delicate marking of these parts being perfectly pre- 



